Persons with a homosexual inclination must be treated with dignity but dignity means telling them the truth that “homosexuality is against human nature”, the papal theologian has said in an interview.
Father Wojciech Giertych, who reviews the speeches of Pope Francis for theological accuracy, was interviewed by LifeSiteNews.com, a Canadian pro-life news website.
Asked about the incursion of homosexuality and gay marriage on religious freedom, Father Giertych said “this is not an issue which is reacting against the Church’s teaching — this is a fundamental anthropological change”.
He described this as “a distortion of humanity which is being proposed as an ideology, which is being supported, financed, promoted by those who are powerful in the world in many, many, countries simultaneously”.
“The Church,” he added, “is the only institution in the world which has the courage to stand up to this ideology.”
The 61-year-old priest of Polish background saidÚ “I’ve seen the Communist ideology, which seemed to be so powerful, and it’s gone! Ideologies come and go, and they have the idea of changing humanity, of changing human nature.
“Human nature cannot be changed; it can be distorted. But the elevation of perversion to the level of a fundamental value that has to be nurtured and nourished and promoted — this is absolutely sick.”
Speaking of practising homosexuals Father Giertych said “of course they have to be treated with dignity, everybody has to be treated with dignity, even sinners have to be treated with dignity, but the best way of treating people with dignity is to tell them the truth.
“And if we escape from the truth we’re not treating them with dignity.”
Drawing an analogy to smoking cigarettes, he said this is also unnatural.
“You can live with the addiction to tobacco, you can die of it, but there are people who are addicted to tobacco, yet they live and we meet with them and we deal with them and we don’t deny their dignity,” he said.
“So certainly people with the homosexual difficulty have to be respected .… And so the important thing is how to pastorally help such people to return to an emotional and moral integrity.”
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Image: LifeSiteNews