In two television interviews aired on Easter Sunday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said Catholics should show more love to gays and lesbians.
In an ABC interview he was asked, “What do you say to a gay couple who says, we love God, we love the Church, but we also love each other and we want to raise a family in faith?”
Cardinal Dolan replied, “The first thing I say is, I love you, too. You were made in God’s image and likeness. We want your happiness. And you’re entitled in friendship.”
“But,” he added, “we also know that God has told us the way to happiness, in terms of sexual love, that is intended only for a man and a woman in marriage where children can come about naturally.
“We gotta do better to see our defence of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit we haven’t been too good at that. We try our darnedest to make sure we’re not anti-anybody.”
Asked whether the Church was “out of touch”, the cardinal said that “sometimes by nature, the Church has got to be out of touch with concerns, because we’re always supposed to be thinking of the beyond, the eternal, the changeless”.
He added: “Our major challenge is to continue in a credible way to present the eternal concerns to people in a timeless attractive way. And sometimes there is a disconnect — between what they’re going through and what Jesus and his Church is teaching. And that’s a challenge for us.”
On CBS, Cardinal Dolan was asked “whether the Church would temper some of its traditionalism to keep pace with recent changes in public opinion on gay rights, abortion, and other issues”.
He replied that the Church “can’t tamper with what God has revealed” but it can try to do better in the way it presents its principles “with more credibility and in a more compelling way”.
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Image: Fox News