Francis reportedly used a homophobic word when he discussed the question of gay candidates for priesthood with Italy's bishops on May 20.

The official Church position is that they should be barred from ministry if they are sexually active. Francis's word for "sexually active" was reported as being crude and homophobic.

He has since apologised.

Contrary views

Italian media reported that Francis had used the word "frociaggine" in the closed-door meeting. The word reportedly translates as "faggotness" or "faggotry".

Friends of the pontiff and top Vatican watchers think his use of the word could be his biggest-ever PR disaster.

But it should not obscure his record as a reforming, LGBT-friendly pope, they say.

However, some say his apparent gaffe undermines his authority, raising questions about his convictions and Church reforms.

Foul language - in character

Those who know him say Francis's direct expression is in character.

"I'm obviously not justifying his use of an offensive term ... but it is normal for him in private to speak very, very directly" papal biographer Austen Ivereigh said. "He doesn't talk like a politician."

A personal friend of the Pope - a gay Argentine man - said Francis knows he has a problem with foul language.

"He has never been diplomatic. I am actually surprised something like this didn't happen earlier."

LGBT exclusion out of character

Pope Francis is known for his welcome to all.

Early in his papacy he said "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?".

Last year the Pope allowed priests to bless members of same-sex couples. There was a substantial conservative backlash.

He has lunched at the Vatican with transgender sex workers. He's a close friend of Father James Martin SJ who ministers to the LGBT community.

"The idea that he would be homophobic makes no sense to me" Martin said.

"His record on LGBTQ people speaks for itself. No pope has been a greater friend to the LGBTQ community."

He also supports civil partnerships - though is opposed to same-sex marriages.

He helped victims of homophobic crimes in Argentina in the 1990s "when being gay was tough".

Gay subculture upset

Nevertheless, the Pope's words have upset many.

"Even if intended as a joke, (it) reveals the depth of anti-gay bias and institutional discrimination that still exist in our church" LGBT Catholic rights group DignityUSA said in a statement.

Both Faggioli and Ivereigh said the issue is particularly sensitive for the Italian Catholic Church, given the active gay "subculture" in some of its seminaries.

"My sense was that the Pope was responding to a question about certain behaviour in Italian seminaries, rather than closing off the priesthood to all gay men" Martin said.

Source

• Reuters

The letter

In the May 2 letter, Porteous railed against the "radicalised transgender lobby", same-sex marriage and the "woke movement".

"What we are now witnessing in our Australian society is the imposition of certain ideological positions on social and moral questions by means of legislation" the archbishop wrote.

"We are challenged as to why we do not accept what is now viewed as reasonable and acceptable behaviour.

Since the same-sex marriage plebiscite, "we have seen the growth in what has been referred to as the 'woke' movement, seeking to overturn other traditional values and beliefs".

"This has included the push for 'diversity and inclusivity' training in the corporate sector and the attack on the biological reality of being male or female through a radicalised transgender lobby.

"As the Church, we cannot stand by as we experience our freedoms being taken from us."

The letter was widely distributed among Tasmania's Catholic schools.

Politicians and LGBTQIA+ advocates criticised it as being transphobic, homophobic and draconian.

School response

After its school community received the letter, one school wrote to parents.

St Cuthbert's Catholic School told them it had replied to the archbishop. It confirmed it is "committed to developing an inclusive and accepting culture that is in harmony with the Catholic tradition".

It will "continue to foster a safe, respectful and inclusive environment" for students and the school community.

The Independent Education Union supported St Cuthbert's response to the archbishop.

"Taking a stand like this on behalf of students, staff and the whole community is in the best tradition of Catholic social justice" the union said.

The Archdiocese of Hobart declined to comment on the school's response.

By Wednesday evening, the school's message to parents via an internal communication app had been deleted.

Archbishop rebuked

Concerned Catholics Tasmania (CCT) — a group "committed to renewal and reform in our Church" — rebuked the letter's "heartless" and "alarmist" tone.

Porteous's "reference to 'God's own people' is both arrogant and exclusory" and "a form of aggression and violence" the CCT said.

She was concerned that Porteous's letter suggested "no one is being forced to teach in or be a student in a Catholic school ...".

If they find their personal views are at variance with those of the Catholic faith, "then it would only make sense they should seek an alternative educational institution more aligned with their views" Poteous wrote.

Hate speech

Tasmanian MP Kristie Johnston criticised the letter as "nothing short of hateful speech".

Tasmanian LGBTQIA+ advocacy group Equality Tasmania said the letter contained "misinformation and disinformation, and also some homophobic and transphobic beliefs".

Source

• ABC

Is this the same pope who, early in his pontificate, when asked about a gay clergyman who keeps his vows, asked rhetorically, "Who am I to judge?"

Yes, it is.

Part of the confusion about the decision to permit blessings of gay people who are in a relationship stems from the Vatican's own press coverage of the document Fiducia Supplicans when it was promulgated last December.

Vatican News produced the headline: "Doctrinal declaration opens the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations." Couples, not individuals.

When reading the English translation of the document, it clearly states, at Paragraph 11:

… it is necessary that what is blessed corresponds with God's designs written in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.

For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.

But the very next paragraph sets the stage for the pastoral application of the doctrinal principle, stating, "One must also avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view alone. …

"Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God's love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

This was the heart of the document: God's unconditional love "forms the basis for the gesture of blessing."

The pope was indicating that a pastor, charged with helping all persons develop and deepen their relationship with God, can impart a blessing on persons whose situation is, in the eyes of the church, irregular.

"The shift Francis intends is, at once, less exact and more profound than a doctrinal shift," I wrote at the time. "What Francis has been trying to achieve for many years is to relocate the place of doctrine within the magisterium of the church, specifically to insist that doctrine serve the good of souls, not the other way round."

The issue of gay seminarians is entirely different from that of blessing gay unions: No doctrinal issues are involved.

So long as a seminarian is celibate, and has maturely integrated his celibacy into his life, it should not matter if he is straight or gay.

We do not have a transcript of what the pope said to the Italian bishops and, especially, what question prompted him to say what he did.

There have been instances of seminaries with a gay subculture that was destructive of the formation the seminary existed to impart.

The fact that the pope may have used a vulgar Italian word, frociaggine — translated as "queerness" in most media accounts but I suspect "campiness" is closer to what was meant — when discussing the subject suggests he might have had in mind precisely such a situation.

The pope has now apologised for using the term.

The idea that the pope has suddenly revealed his hidden bigotry towards gay persons, which seems to be the consensus on social media, is ridiculous.

Nothing about this man or his papacy suggests he is bigoted towards anyone.

Whence, then, this ambivalence in the pope's statements?

How did he go from "Who am I to judge?" to this?

It has to do with the inherent conflict of his position as pope.

He is the universal pastor of the church and he is the defender of Christian doctrine.

He wants to help people grow closer to God, and knows that accompanying them, not judging them, is the best way to achieve that. He also believes what the church teaches.

It is this last point that the activists on both sides forget. Continue reading

• Michael Sean Winters is the author of Left At the Altar: How Democrats Lost The Catholics And How Catholics Can Save The Democrats (Basic Books, 2008).

He "never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he apologises to those who felt offended" says Holy See press office chief Matteo Bruni.

The remarks are at odds with the pope's track record to date.

He has made outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy and has long insisted there was "room for everyone" in the Catholic Church.

Not quite closed

Bruni said the pope's comments were delivered behind closed doors at a meeting with Italian bishops on May 20.

Italian media on Monday claimed unnamed Italian bishops said Pope Francis jokingly used the Italian term "faggotness" during the meeting.

They said he used the term when reaffirming the Vatican's ban on allowing gay men to enter seminaries or be ordained priests.

But Brunei says Francis "never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others".

LGBTQ+ advocates offended

Advocates for greater inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics are upset.

The offensive slur is bad enough.

But "what is damaging is the institutional church's insistence on ‘banning' gay men from the priesthood as if we all do not know (and minister alongside) many gifted, celibate, gay priests".

So said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, chair of the religious studies department at Manhattan College.

She added "The LGBTQ community seems to be a constant target of offhand, off the cuff ‘mistakes' from people in the Vatican, including the pope, who should know better".

Comments taken out of context

Francis remarks were taken out of context says the vice president of the Italian Bishops' Conference.

He is accusing the leaker of using the comments to divide.

"The pope is not homophobic and never was" said Bishop Francesco Savino of the southern Italian Diocese of Cassano all'Jonio.

He denied that, in his conversation with the Italian bishops on May 20, Pope Francis gave a categorical "no" to the entry of homosexuals to the seminary.

"There is not an a priori 'no' to them" he said.

"His true concern is the serenity of all. The pope wanted to say that the candidates [for the priesthood and entry to the seminary], whether homosexual or heterosexual, should be capable of living well their promises with respect to obedience, poverty and chastity; to love with a full heart and empty hands."

Source

• Vatican News
• AP News
• America

Sacred Heart College in Glendowie was forced to apologise to Pakuranga's Saint Kentigern College over the offensive message. Stuff understands it was posted by a student-run Sacred Supporters Instagram page in the lead-up to last Saturday's First XV clash between the two schools.

Stuff was sent a screenshot of the post by a concerned party connected to Saint Kentigern College, whom Stuff has agreed not to name.

They described the post as representing "everything wrong with New Zealand First XV culture". Read more

The Citipointe Christian College is at the heart of yet another scandal after a former teacher lost his job for refusing to sign the document last month.

The private primary and high school located at Carindale, 8km east of Brisbane, told staff that expressing human sexuality incompatible with college faith could constitute a breach of employment.

"Nothing in his/her deliberate conduct should be incompatible with the intrinsic character of their position, especially, but not only, in relation to the expression of human sexuality through heterosexual, monogamous relationships, expressed intimately through marriage." the school wrote.

Read More

Local media have called the Vatican's intervention in Italian law "unprecedented" in the history of the relationship between the two states.

According to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, a letter was delivered by Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican's secretary of relations with states, to the Italian government.

The "anti-homophobia" bill, known by the name "Ddl Zan," is being examined by the justice commission of the Italian Senate, after the text received initial approval from the House last November.

The bill seeks to prevent and oppose "discrimination and violence for reasons based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability."

The note from Gallagher said parts of the legislation violated a treaty made between Italy and the Catholic church in the 1920s that secured the freedoms and rights of the church, Corriere della Sera reported.

The agreement guarantees that the Italian Republic recognises "the full freedom of the Catholic Church to carry out its pastoral, educational and charitable mission, of evangelisation and sanctification."

According to article 2, paragraph 3 of the agreement, "Catholics and their associations and organisations are guaranteed full freedom of assembly and expression of thought by word, writing and any other means of dissemination."

The intervention has further stoked a fiery debate surrounding the law, designed to make violence and hate speech against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a crime.

An atheist group in Italy protested the Vatican's actions, saying they "violated the independence and the sovereignty of the Republic."

"The government has the political and moral obligation to not only just resist pressure but to unilaterally denounce this unprecedented interference in state affairs,'' the secretary of the Union of Atheists and Agnostic Rationalists, Roberto Grendene, said in a statement.

A gay-rights group, Gay Party for LGBT+ Rights, called on Premier Mario Draghi's government to reject the Vatican's interference "and improve the law so that it truly has, at its heart, the fight against homophobia and transphobia."

"We find worrying the Vatican meddling in the law against homophobia,'' said the group's spokesman, Fabrizio Marrazzo.

Marrazzo said Gay Pride Parades in Milan and Rome on Saturday would send a clear message from the streets on the topic "and defend the laicity of the state."

Archbishop Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Italian bishops' conference, urged more "open dialogue" about the issue "to arrive at a solution without ambiguity and legislative stretch."

Sources

Catholic News Agency

Business Insider

The Guardian

Anderson made headlines last month when he attended a ‘Make America Straight Again' conference in Orlando, Florida.

In his YouTube post, he said he now planned to conduct a soul-winning and preaching event in New Zealand.

He just has been banned from entering Austalia.

That makes the 33rd country he's no longer allowed to visit because of his insistence that gay people should be executed by the government because the Bible says so.

Just in the past few months, Anderson was banned from entering the Netherlands and the 26 countries of the Schengen area,

He was also banned from Ireland, Botswana, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and Jamaica.

Anderson got worldwide attention several years ago for his violently homophobic comments.

He is a holocaust denier who praised the Pulse nightclub shooter, calling victims "a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles" and "disgusting homosexuals who the Bible says were worthy of death."

He has also said the US government should execute homosexuals by way of a firing squad because that's what the Bible commands. There are also numerous misogynistic comments and holocaust denialism.

Anderson founded his church in 2005. Since then, it has gained notoriety for extremist views.

"Don't expect anything contemporary or liberal. We are an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church," it states on its website.

Its doctrinal statement calls for the execution of gay people, and reads: "We believe that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination which God punishes with the death penalty."

He spearheads the New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement.

The Movement has 22 domestic and eight international churches led by Anderson's colleagues and acolytes.

He has more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers,

Source

• newsweek.com
• friendlyatheist.patheos.com
• lgbtqnation.com
• gaystarnews.com
• premier.org.uk
• Image: mambaonline.com

When Martin appeared for sentencing in the court last Friday, Al-Sa'afin said there is no place for extremist views in the church.

Martin's lawyer had said at an earlier hearing that her client carried out the assault because he held certain "religious views".

"I grew up in a Catholic household. I know what religion is, and that isn't what religion is.

I don't believe that those kind of extremist views belong here, or anywhere for that matter."

In his victim impact statement, Al- Sa'afin said he felt pity for Martin.

"My message to this guy is I really feel sorry for you.

"From my understanding, this was motivated by his religious views. I've grown up in a massively religious household and the only thing that I've always been taught is love."

He went on to forgive Martin. Addressing him directly, Aziz said: "To move forward, to help with my own healing, I need to do this. I forgive you for what you did to me.

"I hope that if there's anything you take from today, it's that we all believe in the same thing and that is love."

Aziz's is a journalist whose family came to New Zealand as refugees when he was about 18 months old.

His mother is from Lebanon, his father is from France.

His mother was a travelling journalist and when he was born she had just got a job with the Lebanese embassy in Kuwait.

"I was born in Kuwait and the Gulf War happened. So we were caught in the war and I essentially lived the first 18 months of my life in a bunker at our house."

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• msn.com
• stuff.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: msn.com

Morrison says he wants to make a bipartisan deal to bring in the new laws.

When asked if he thinks Folau has been persecuted for his beliefs, Morrison dodged the question.

Instead, he focused on the broader issue, saying people should not feel intimidated about practising their religion in peace.

He says he doesn't want religion in Australia to be an issue of conflict.

"The whole point of religion is that it's actually something of peace," he says.

"It's a very important part of Australians' lives and I want to see us progress this debate in a very constructive way, not based on conflict."

Morrison, who is an evangelical Christian, says Folau's situation shows the need for legislation protecting people against discrimination based on their religious beliefs.

"Religious freedom is one of the cornerstones of what we are as a country, and it's important our laws reflect that," he says.

He says now there's a commitment to put a Religious Discrimination Act in place, and it will happen.

"We're going to do that. We're working very hard on that right now,' he says.

In April 2018 when he was the treasurer, Morrison publicly backed Folau, praising him when he was criticised over an Instagram comment that was deemed homophobic.

On that occasion, an Instagram user had asked Folau about God's plan for gay people.

Folau replied: "HELL...Unless they repent of their sins and turn to God."

On that occasion, Rugby Australia did not sanction the player.

"It clearly means a lot to Izzy and good for him for standing up for his faith," Morrison said at the time.

"He wouldn't have wanted to intend to have offended or hurt anyone because that's very much against the faith that he feels so passionately about.

"But I think he's shown a lot of strength of character in just standing up for what he believes in and I think that's what this country is all about."

Folau is currently suing Rugby Australia for $10million.

Source

• The Daily Mail
• Image: Junkee

But it is not just Australia experiencing an overtly public wave of religiously motivated homophobia.

Brian Tamaki, controversial leader of Destiny Church and co-founder of the Coalition Party, voiced unequivocal support for Folau on Twitter.

There are several verses in the Bible which are traditionally used to bolster homophobic rhetoric, but 10 minutes spent reading about the religious and historic context of these verses would leave anyone with the ability to disarm a scripturally-rooted homophobic argument.

On an even more elemental level, though, the homosexuality that Folau and Tamaki are presumably referring to is a modern concept describing an identity premised on romantic love between people of the same gender.

Homosexuality as we currently define it did not exist as a concept until the late nineteenth century.

Previous to that, within the Western world, sexual acts between two people of the same gender were viewed as a form of "sinful temptation," but not the foundation of an identity.

Bible verses that refer to sexual behaviour between people of the same gender do not condemn homosexuality, or queerness, because homosexuality, as we now define it, did not exist in either Old Testament times or the first-century world of the New Testament.

That's not to say that people in biblical times didn't have loving relationships with partners of the same gender (although, we don't have the evidence to accurately assert this), but we can say quite certainly that homosexuality as a social categorisation did not exist.

Sexuality has had divergent meanings projected onto it in every successive human society.

The homosexual/heterosexual divide is simply how modern, predominantly-Western, society has chosen to understand human sexuality.

In Greco-Roman society sex was related to power.

Now it's about personal identity.

A historically consistent, monolithic understanding of sexuality simply does not exist.

Leviticus 18:22 is one of the Bible verses plucked from its original context and used to argue that condemnation of homosexuality is scripturally based.

This verse, which reads, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" is not referring to a loving relationship between two consenting adults - it is a law prohibiting sexual promiscuity.

The Levitical laws were received by Moses from God as the guidelines which the Israelites (who had fled Egypt during the Exodus) were to abide by in order to retain God's favour.

There are 613 of these laws and they also command that the Israelites were not to eat shellfish or wear garments made from mixed fabrics.

If Folau and Tamaki are going to base their homophobia on Bible verses written thousands of years ago without any recognition of the need to contextualise these, I would ask them if they then refrain from eating oysters and always check to make sure a t-shirt is pure cotton and not blended with polyester before wearing it?

Being able to disarm a homophobic argument premised on religious belief is useful, certainly, but does not rescue young queer and takatapui people questioning their sexuality from the harm caused by violent rhetoric spouted by public figures such as Folau and Tamaki. Continue reading

• Harriet Winn is an Honours student at the University of Auckland, whose research interests include queer theology and gendered histories within Christianity. She has lots of question and Martin Luther is one of four people she would like to invite to lunch.
• Image: Liv Actually

What draws Biedron to the statuettes of Mary is their diversity, while they all carry the same message of hope for believers.

He is a gay atheist who wants to pull his country back into the European mainstream Read more

He said the video posted by BBC Scotland "is ridiculing and demeaning the faith of ordinary Catholics, especially at a time when Catholics are experiencing more and more abuse and prejudice in Scotland."

Created by Sean Lìonadh, "This is how homophobia feels in 2018" was posted on BBC's "The Social" Facebook page on 9 April. This page targets young people.

The video discusses reactions to a gay couple who are walking in a park.

The narrator says "normality is a crowd-sourced fantasy." It focuses on the moral failings of those who view homosexual acts as immoral.

"Jesus saved a lot of time when he died for our crimes, that he would've wasted teaching small minds that love is no sin," the narrator says.

A man and a pregnant woman are also depicted. The narrator says the woman's "normality" will be shattered when she suffers a miscarriage.

A street preacher is also shown, along with scenes of a Mass.

A priest elevates a cheese biscuit as a parody of a Host, and then distributes it to a kneeling woman, who makes the sign of the cross.

The narrator says during this, "See him, he thinks it's faith, but under all that din, it tastes like cardboard, and it smells like hate."

Keenan noted the video was posted "in a week when a Sunday Times poll found 20 percent of Catholics reported personally experiencing abuse or prejudice towards their faith."

Recent government figures show that 57 percent of religiously aggravated crime is directed at Catholics, an increase of 14 percent. "And we all wonder why," Keenan said.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Crux
• Image: pinknews

Same sex unions became legal in Italy last month.

Friar Giovanni Cavalcali said the disasters are a result of original sin.

In his view they are a "divine punishment" for "the offence to the family and the dignity of marriage, in particular through civil unions".

His comments on Italy's Radio Maria were swiftly condemned by the Vatican.

Hundreds of people died as a result of the quakes and thousands were badly injured in the 30 October event.

It is the third severe earthquake to strike Italy this year and was the worst shake for 36 years.

The Vatican says Cavalcali's comments saying the notion of a vengeful God is a pagan, pre-Christian idea.

"These remarks are offensive for believers and scandalous for non-believers," Deputy Secretary of State Archbishop Angelo Becciu was quoted as saying by Italian media.

"Christ has revealed to us the face of a God of love, not a capricious vindictive face. That is a pagan vision, not a Christian vision," he added.

Radio Maria is known to be ultra conservative. Becciu says it has come under criticism in the past for comments seen as anti-Semitic.

He says it must "moderate the tone of its language" and conform to the Church's message of mercy.

Source

• Pink News
• SBS
• Stuff
• Image: The Telegraph

The topic of conversation: How should the official come out?

Krzysztof Charamsa was still employed at one of the Holy See's most powerful offices, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But after decades of hiding, the 43-year-old gay Polish priest wanted to come out with a flourish.

He was no longer afraid to confront a Church he saw as intrinsically "homophobic" and proposed a symbolic news conference outside the headquarters of the Congregation — the very institution charged with defending and disseminating Catholic teachings around the globe.

But Emilio Sturla, a public relations consultant who worked closely with gay Catholic groups and was helping Charamsa, strongly suggested he reconsider, both men recalled.

The public and the Church, Sturla insisted, would see such a move as too incendiary.

"But that's what he wanted," Sturla said. "To be provocative." And that's what he did.

Their conversation suggests how even before it happened, Charamsa's high-profile debut — including its timing right before a major Vatican meeting of the Church hierarchy — was already controversial among the small group of gay Catholics aware of his plans.

Charamsa's move brought the expected denunciations from the Church and religious conservatives, who pointed out that he had violated his vow of chastity and the Church's teachings on homosexuality.

More surprisingly, his actions have also sparked a split among gay Catholics.

The Church officially teaches that homosexual desires are not sinful unless acted upon and calls on gays and lesbians to live lives of chastity.

It teaches that gays are deserving of human dignity. But it also describes homosexual acts as a sin that is "intrinsically disordered" and a "grave depravity".

As Pope Francis opens the door to more inclusion of gay people, Charamsa's coming out — and the reactions to it — cuts to the heart of a debate raging among gay Catholics worldwide: Should they use gentle dialogue or open confrontation in pushing for change? Continue reading

Sources

• Washington Post
• Image: Famille Chretienne

Msgr Krzysztof Charamsa told Francis the Catholic Church is "full of homosexuals" despite being "frequently violently homophobic".

The Polish theologian called on "all gay cardinals, gay bishops and gay priests [to] have the courage to abandon this insensitive, unfair and brutal Church".

On the eve of the synod on the family, Msgr Charamsa came out publicly as gay and announced he has a partner.

He subsequently lost his position at the CDF and was later suspended from priestly ministry by his diocese in Poland.

In the letter released to the BBC, Msgr Charamsa thanked Pope Francis for some of his positive words and gestures towards gay people.

But the theologian wrote that he can no longer bear the "homophobic hate of the Church, the exclusion, the marginalisation and the stigmatisation of people like me", whose "human rights are denied" by the Church.

He said he had taken the decision to "publicly reject the violence of the Church towards homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and intersexual people".

The Vatican has not commented on the letter.

Mgr Charamsa, who now lives in Barcelona with his partner, told The Guardian that he still believed in the sanctity of marriage.

"I understand many people who say ‘we don't need the institution of marriage. Our love is free'. I am not in this part of society," he said.

"For me, [marriage] is part of the dynamic of love and I thank God that I live in a century where it's possible, thanks to the homosexual movement and thanks to many homosexual martyrs."

He added that LGBT Catholics also have a right to family life even if the Church does not want to bless it.

The final document of the synod last weekend ruled out any unjust discrimination against people with "homosexual tendencies".

But the document stated that there is "no basis for any comparison, however remote, between homosexual unions and God's design for marriage and the family".

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Guardian
• The Local.It
• Daily Mail
• BBC
• Image: The Local.It

Speaking on a phone in at UK radio station LBC, Archbishop Justin Welby cited first hand experience of this.

He said he had stood by a mass grave in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been massacred by neighbours.

The killers had justified the atrocity by saying: "If we leave a Christian community here we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians."

"I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America," Archbishop Welby said.

"We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact," he continued.

If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, "the impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic".

"Everything we say here goes round the world."

This reasoning has until now been kept private, although both Archbishop Welby and his predecessor, Dr Rowan Williams, anguished about it in private.

Archbishop Welby also condemned homophobia in England.

"To treat every human being with equal importance and dignity is a fundamental part of being a Christian," he said on the radio show.

But he continued to uphold what he called the historic position of the Church of England, of "sex only within marriage and marriage only between a man and a woman".

Nonetheless, he agreed with the presenter that it was "completely unacceptable" for the Church to condemn homosexual people more than adulterous heterosexual people.

Anglican churches in both Uganda and Nigeria have given enthusiastic backing to laws which criminalise even the expression of support for same-sex marriage.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in the United Kingdom.

The Church of England's House of Bishops affirmed its support for marriage only between a man and a woman, and has announced it would not bless same-sex unions.

But it did express its commitment to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Christian Post
• Image: The Telegraph