AUGUST 20, 2015
Cardinal Oswald Gracias interprets Pope Francis’ personal remark on homosexuals as Church teaching
My attention was drawn to this issue by a reader’s comment at the blog of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf:
“Who am I to judge?” thrown in your face? Fr. Z says, “Don’t let them get away with it!”
Posted on 12 February 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
In his above blog, Fr. Zuhlsdorf advises, “If you hear the phrase “Who am I to judge?” and Pope Francis being hijacked in a sly attempt to condone immoral behavior, you must challenge that usage.
Don’t be a self-absorbed promethean neopelagian! Love the sinner but don’t accept the sin.
Don’t let them get away with it. Don’t accept their premise.“
The reader J. Hayes’ comment:
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, the leader of Indian Catholicism and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, last month came out strongly against a decision by the nation’s high court to reinstate a ban on gay sex, which includes penalties of 10 years to life in prison.
“The Catholic Church does not want homosexuals to be treated as criminals,” Gracias said, and cited the pope’s words when asked about his approach to gay people.
“The church stand is, ‘Who am I to judge them?’ as the Holy Father has said.”
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf was discussing just this very danger, how “the “who am I to judge” comment … was not an official comment, but it has become a de facto official comment. The media treats it as such, the average Catholic who doesn’t read blogs like this believes it, and now bishops around the world are reassessing previous positions,” to quote a reader at http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/11/video-figuring-out-this-pontificate/.
In a shortly forthcoming report the reader will find that I have written, “In this collation/report, the reader will observe that many of the authors of the articles and blogs as well as commenters here cannot help but express their concerns about the effects of “The Spirit of Vatican II“, “The Francis Effect“, and the “Who am I to judge” paradigm on the Synod on the Family.”
This then is the story from which reader J. Hayes’ cited the Cardinal:
In rare public split, Catholic bishops differ sharply on anti-gay laws
(http://www.uscatholic.org/news/201402/rare-public-split-catholic-bishops-differ-sharply-anti-gay-laws-28478) –A liberal site
By David Gibson, February 13, 2014
The Roman Catholic hierarchy has generally been viewed as a unified bloc in opposition to gay rights, but the emergence of especially punitive measures against gays in various countries has opened unusually stark and public fissures among bishops in different nations.
The divisions also are raising questions about whether Pope Francis, who has struck a charitable tone toward gays and lesbians, needs to take action.
The issue is especially pressing in Africa, where Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, recently adopted a harsh law that imposes a 14-year prison term for anyone entering into a same-sex relationship, as well as a 10-year sentence for anyone found to support gay clubs or meetings. Public displays of affection by gays and lesbians is considered a crime.
Legislation imposing similarly repressive sanctions on gays has been proposed in Uganda, Cameroon and Tanzania.
In Nigeria the leader of the (Catholic Church) hierarchy fully supported that country’s new law, which prompted a wave of violence against gays when it passed.
In a January letter on behalf of the Catholic hierarchy of Nigeria, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos praised Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan for his “courageous and wise decision” in signing the legislation. Kaigama said it would protect Nigeria “against the conspiracy of the developed world to make our country and continent, the dumping ground for the promotion of all immoral practices.”
A few days later, however, a strongly worded editorial in the The Southern Cross, a newspaper run jointly by the bishops of South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland, took aim at the new law, calling on the Catholic Church in Africa “to stand with the powerless” and “sound the alarm at the advance throughout Africa of draconian legislation aimed at criminalizing homosexuals.”
The editorial decried the “deep-seated sense of homophobia” in Africa and said the church had too often been “silent, in some cases even quietly complicit” in the face of the new anti-gay measures. It also noted that the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2358) explicitly states that gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and that “every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
The differences are manifesting themselves elsewhere, as well.
For example, the Southern Cross editorial blasted as “astonishing” a claim last month by a retired Spanish bishop, Fernando Sebastian Aguilar, who said that homosexuality is a “defect” comparable to his own high blood pressure. Pope Francis is set to make Aguilar a cardinal later this month.
And in Poland, the hierarchy has launched a full-scale assault on what it calls the “ideology of gender,” a vague term it says is aimed at promoting homosexuality, among other things. The bishops’ campaign has prompted a strong backlash from many in the Polish church.
In India, on the other hand, Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, the leader of Indian Catholicism and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, last month came out strongly against a decision by the nation’s high court to reinstate a ban on gay sex, which includes penalties of 10 years to life in prison.
“The Catholic Church does not want homosexuals to be treated as criminals,” Gracias said, and cited the pope’s words when asked about his approach to gay people.
“The church stand is, ‘Who am I to judge them?’ as the Holy Father has said.”
And this week in Ireland, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin reacted to concerns over anti-gay comments in the media by saying that “anybody who doesn’t show love towards gay and lesbian people is insulting God. They are not just homophobic if they do that — they are actually Godophobic because God loves every one of those people.”
Martin also lamented that church teaching can sometimes be used “in a homophobic way.”
What’s behind these high-level disagreements?
Church observers say part of it is a backlash against the new visibility of gay people in society and the corresponding push to grant them legal protections and rights they never had before.
But opposition to the legalization of some rights, such as gay marriage, has at times turned into support for criminalization, which Catholic teaching does not condone. In fact, during a 2009 debate over an earlier version of a Ugandan anti-gay bill, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI was “opposed to ‘unjust discrimination’ against gay men and lesbians,” a statement apparently aimed at the Ugandan bill.
Similarly, the new criminalization measures have brought calls for Pope Francis to go beyond his supportive comments about gays and lesbians and directly condemn anti-gay laws. The most popular effort is a Twitter campaign that goes by the hashtag #PopeSpeakOut. Church observers wonder whether the pope’s inclination to allow disputes to be settled locally may incline him to let the debate continue without his intervention.
The controversy over the anti-gay laws is most intense in Asia and especially Africa, where culture can trump theology when it comes to dealing with gay people, said the Rev. Thomas Reese (a liberal), a Jesuit priest and columnist for National Catholic Reporter and author of “Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.”
But Reese said regional political realities can play a key role, too: Church leaders who support anti-gay laws often come from countries with large Muslim populations that also tend to support measures against homosexuality. The bishops may not want to do anything that would inflame tensions between the communities.
“I think they’re afraid of the Muslim reaction, and I think they’re afraid of the reaction of many of their own people,” Reese said. On the other hand, Reese added, at least the bishops are facing criticism from within their own ranks — a benefit of the more free-wheeling style that Francis has brought to the papacy.
“This is progress,” he said. “In the old days, bishops wouldn’t criticize each other. Now we have the bishops talking to each other and some are saying, ‘No, this isn’t the direction the church ought to go.'”
MY COMMENTS
The problem is not with Cardinal Oswald Gracias’ wanting homosexuals to not be treated like criminals. The Catholic Church too does not call for that. Please refer the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2357-9 & 2396.
The problem is with the Cardinal’s giving an interpretation to the Pope’s words, ‘Who am I to judge them?’ that was not intended by the Pope himself as Fr. Zuhlsdorf points out in several of his blogs!
It is therefore shocking for the Cardinal, who is one of the nine close advisors to Pope Francis, to have made the statement “The church stand is, ‘Who am I to judge them?’ as the Holy Father has said” as if it were the official position of the Catholic Church, or as if everything that Pope Francis says to the media (and we all know the unending controversies that surround every one of them) is made ex cathedra.
One must bear in mind that the Cardinal will be playing a major role in the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family despite the fact that he is unable to distinguish between what Pope Francis shoots off and what the Catechism teaches on the subject of homosexuality when he speaks to the media.
OTHER REPORTS CONCERNING CARDINAL OSWALD GRACIAS
THE SALESIANS, OSWALD CARDINAL GRACIAS AND NEW AGE PSYCHOLOGIST CARL ROGERS
MARCH 2012/APRIL 2013
CARDINAL OSWALD GRACIAS ENDORSES YOGA FOR CATHOLICS 25 FEBRUARY/9 APRIL 2013
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/CARDINAL_OSWALD_GRACIAS_ENDORSES_YOGA_FOR_CATHOLICS.doc
PAPAL CANDIDATE OSWALD CARDINAL GRACIAS ENDORSES YOGA
2
MARCH/9 APRIL, 2013
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/PAPAL_CANDIDATE_OSWALD_CARDINAL_GRACIAS_ENDORSES_YOGA.doc
SHOULD OSWALD CARDINAL GRACIAS HAVE RESIGNED AS CARDINAL OBRIEN DID
14 MARCH 2013
HINDU RELIGIOUS MARK ON THE FOREHEAD 16-CARDINAL OSWALD GRACIAS WEARS
APRIL 2013
NEW COMMUNITY BIBLE 20-HALF-TRUTHS FROM CARDINAL OSWALD GRACIAS
28 JUNE 2013
http://ephesians-511.net/docs/NEW_COMMUNITY_BIBLE_20-HALF-TRUTHS_FROM_CARDINAL_OSWALD_GRACIAS.doc
NEW COMMUNITY BIBLE 27-CARDINAL OSWALD GRACIAS STILL IN DENIAL OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS ERRORS
MARCH 2015
Categories: Hinduisation of the Catholic Church in India, Liturgical Abuses, Ordination of Women Priests Movement in India, PROTESTANTISM
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