In an extraordinary pushback against Pope Francis, some Catholic bishops in Africa, Poland and elsewhere say they will not implement the new Vatican policy allowing blessings for same-sex couples.
Others downplayed the policy approved this week by Francis as merely reaffirming the Vatican’s long-standing teaching about marriage being only a union between a man and a woman.
The reactions show how polarizing the issue remains and how Francis’ decade-long effort to make the church a more welcoming place for the LGBTQ+ community continues to spark resistance among traditionalist and conservative Catholic leaders.
Some of the strongest responses came from bishops in Africa, home to 265 million Catholics, or nearly a quarter of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics. Many of those Catholics live and their churches operate in societies where homosexuality is condemned and outlawed.
I’m waiting for all the Trump-supporting Catholic Bishops in the U.S. to start their own American Catholic Church at this point.
I think is going to be hard nowadays when property rights are pretty stabilized. In ancient times a bishop deciding to go for his own would could have a chance to keep the real state and accounts of the church they administer, nowdays the Vatican could easily send their lawyers to whatever place is trying to independence and kick them off their land.
Not sure why anyone should be surprised by this. No organised religion will bless same-sex couples ( not officially anyway ) because they sre unable to breed new worshippers and consequently the business will not grow. We will probably only see acceptance from them when they have shrunk into insignificance, and that’s still a while away.
You’re literally saying the exact opposite of what is happening. The pope literally did bless same sex couples. And numerous other denominations do the same, like Methodism.
Not yet for Methodists. Got to wait until March 2024’s general conference.
I thought they had already split and there’s a bunch of non-conformers leaving and forming the racist, sexist, and every other -ist denomination “Global Methodist Church”?
What religious groups are you experienced with that have a high enough occurrence of homosexual members that it completely negates growth by childbirth? Is this just a complete fantasy in your head? I’m not familiar with any groups where that would even remotely be a problem.
@absquatulate @MicroWave Ahem, would this “LGBT people can’t have children” thing please go away? Source: I know a gay man who’s a father, a lesbian who’s a mother, and a bisexual woman who’s a mother. All three had kids the old-fashioned way–no IVF, surrogacies, or adoption involved.
Isn’t, according to Catholics beliefs, the pope infallible? Is that not a core part of the religion that separates it from Protestants?
Are we about to witness a splitting of the Catholic church?
I mean, that’s kind of why we have all the offshoots…
It kind of makes sense when you realize all the Abrahamic religions are just spun off some dude named Abraham’s story about how an imaginary man in the sky commanded him to kill his brother, so he did. And then the voice said to kill his son, and he was gonna do it. But at the last second the voice said it was test. So clearly the voice is kind and should be worshipped.
Sometimes a new leader makes them less crazy, sometimes more crazy
But at a fundamental level the vast majority of western religion (like Middle East to West Coast North America) is based on some dude who listened to the voices inside his head to kill his family members 50% of the time.
It’s all built on a flawed premise. So anything else can be rationalized.
Which is why most followers were either born into it, or joined in incredibly stressful/difficult times in their lives.
No.
Oh I am looking forward to a new era of anti-Popes.
