According to the English language newspaper, The Local, Berlin Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki told a crowd on Thursday that the church should come to view long-term, faithful homosexual relationships in the same light as heterosexual ones:
"When two homosexuals take responsibility for one another, if they deal with each other in a faithful and long-term way, then you have to see it in the same way as heterosexual relationships," Woelki told an astonished crowd, according to a story in the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Woekli acknowledged that the church saw the relationship between a man and a woman as the basis for creation, but added that it was time to think further about the church's attitude toward same sex relationships.
Francis DeBernardo, writing on the New Ways Ministry blog, said that Woelki is not alone in challenging Catholic teaching on this issue...
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Roman Catholic Archbishop for marriage equality
Episcopal Café reports:
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I did a bit of poking (unfortunately serious poking would require knowledge of German). This fellow has been on the fast track; he is only 55/56 and a cardinal. Some of his comments before becoming archbishop of Berlin were less than tolerant so I expect the current pope is wondering what happened.
I wonder if the Cardinal isn't talking about some kind of civil union or civil partnership, not fully equal "marriage" for same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
Still it's a vast improvement over the Vatican status quo . . . and will likely get the Cardinal canned, if he doesn't make a retraction/explain-it-away.
He'll be getting a visit from Cardinal Torquemada soon enough.
Front-page story in today's L.A Times Gays may have the fastest of all civil rights movements.
"In 1958, the Gallup Poll asked Americans whether they approved or disapproved of marriage between blacks and whites. The response was overwhelming: 94% were opposed, a sentiment that held for decades. It took nearly 40 years until a majority of those surveyed said marriage between people of different skin colors was acceptable.
"By contrast, attitudes toward gays and lesbians have changed so much in just the last 10 years that, as Gallup reported last week, 'half or more now agree that being gay is morally acceptable, that gay relations ought to be legal and that gay or lesbian couples should have the right to legally marry.' (In 1996, when Gallup first asked about legalizing same-sex marriage, 68% of Americans were opposed.)
"Politically, President Obama felt it safe enough recently to abandon his studied ambiguity and endorse same-sex marriage amid a tough reelection campaign. Days later, a top Republican pollster, Jan van Lohuizen, issued a warning to his party, suggesting opponents were on the wrong side of the issue. Support has grown, he wrote in a strategy memo, 'at an accelerated rate with no sign of slowing down.'
...
"Several reasons account for the success. The gay community tends to be more affluent, and the ability to give generously to candidates has translated into significant political clout, from the local level to the White House. Its leaders are well-versed in the machinations of government and the means of power, knowledge hard-won through years spent dragging politicians into the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
"But experts and advocates agree on one explanation above all others: Familiarity.
"'People came to understand we existed,' Jones said. 'They worked with us. They knew us. They had [gay] family members. That demystified it and made it harder for them to hate us in an abstract way.'"
We may have a question of a translation overstating what the cardinal actually said which may be closer to the church might possibly soften its line in the long run (and even then not for marriage equality).
We need someone who reads German well to see what the German press is saying.
This blog post says that this is over-hype on a translation misunderstanding;
http://danielsilliman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/german-catholic-cardinal-calls-for.html?showComment=1337612640497#c4878450340199279222
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