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An American cardinal has placed faithful gay couples, unmarried couples and civilly remarried Catholics in the same category as murderers who are kind.
In a lengthy interview on Lifesitenews, Cardinal Raymond Burke criticised what he called confusion in the Church.
Cardinal Burke was asked about other prelates who had pointed out good qualities in relationships the Church defines as irregular or immoral.
“If you are living publicly in a state of mortal sin there isn’t any good act that you can perform that justifies that situation: the person remains in grave sin,” Cardinal Burke said.
People living in what the Church calls gravely sinful situations are called to conversion, he added.
Asked if being “kind” and “generous” and “dedicated” is enough, Cardinal Burke replied: “Of course it’s not. It’s like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.”
In commentary on the Religion News Service, David Gibson noted that the Church has always taught that sin is sin and some sins are particularly serious.
But comparing cohabitation, homosexual relations and adultery with murder in any context is unusual, and certainly out of step with the pastoral tone that Francis has set in his papacy, Gibson wrote.
During last year’s family synod, several prelates spoke about the lives of unmarried or remarried couples as having value that the Church should recognise.
Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn has repeatedly stressed that the Church should “look at the person and not the sexual orientation”.
Similarly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, a senior adviser to Francis, once said that “one simply cannot say that a faithful homosexual relationship that has held for decades is nothing”.
“We just mustn’t lump things together and measure everything with the same yardstick, but must differentiate and take a closer look, which doesn’t mean that I endorse homosexuality as a whole,” he said.
Last year, Pope Francis did not reappoint Cardinal Burke as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura when his term expired.
Instead the cardinal was given a largely ceremonial role with the Order of Malta.
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