Colombian couple Manuela and Luisa Fernanda Gómez, who are civilly married, visited several parishes before they found a willing pastor to name them both as their son Matias's mothers.

During their search they were repeatedly told the baptismal certificate would list only the same of his biological mother and not that of her partner. The reason they were given was 'the Church does not recognise the marriage of persons of the same sex'.

However, they eventually found a priest willing to perform the rite provided the diocesan curia permitted it.

In a decision causing controversy in Colombia, permission was given for both mothers' names to be entered in the baptismal records. Matias was baptised on 13 July.

The archdiocese said the names of the parents recorded on the birth certificate were to be recorded on the baptismal certificate "in the same order in which they are written on that [civil birth] registry."

In Matias's case, his civil birth certificate records both his mothers as ‘Mother one' and ‘Mother two'.

Defending its decision from its critics, the archdiocese says for several years "the sacrament of baptism has been administered to children of homosexual couples," thus giving "the grace of Christian life to the children".

Baptism in such cases is "not a recognition of the couples themselves," the archdiocese notes.

However, in a 2017 letter from Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the former prefect of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, clarified how to record baptisms for the children of same-sex couples.

"In the current Code, there is not a specific law with respect to the entry of same sex couples or 'transgendered persons' as parents on the baptismal record.

"The term 'parents' used by the Church's Canon 877 clearly refers to the father and mother, the man and the woman created by God who are united in the sacrament of marriage.

"The entry of same sex couples or 'transgendered persons' as parents would be contrary to the aforementioned canon and the teaching of Our Lord and of the Church on marriage as God desires... [so] ...the natural father or mother of the child, it must be mentioned on the record, the other partner cannot ...".

The Council did not consider it possible to enter on the baptismal record two mothers, two fathers, or transgender men or women whose "true nature" was of the opposite gender.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• National Catholic Register
• Image: National Catholic Register

It analyzed 512 children of same-sex parents, drawn from a pool of over 207,000 respondents who participated in the (US) National Health Interview Survey(NHIS) at some point between 1997 and 2013.

Results reveal that, on eight out of twelve psychometric measures, the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services is nearly double among those with same-sex parents when contrasted with children of opposite-sex parents.

The estimate of serious child emotional problems in children with same-sex parents is 17 percent, compared with 7 percent among opposite-sex parents, after adjusting for age, race, gender, and parent's education and income.

Rates of ADHD were higher as well—15.5 compared to 7.1 percent. The same is true for learning disabilities: 14.1 vs. 8 percent.

The study's author, sociologist Paul Sullins, assessed a variety of different hypotheses about the differences, including comparative residential stability, experience of stigma or bullying, parental emotional problems (6.1 percent among same-sex parents vs. 3.4 percent among opposite-sex ones), and biological attachment.

Each of these factors predictably aggravated children's emotional health, but only the last of these—biological parentage—accounted for nearly all of the variation in emotional problems.

While adopted children are at higher risk of emotional problems overall, being adopted did not account for the differences between children in same-sex and opposite-sex households.

It's also worth noting that while being bullied clearly aggravates emotional health, there was no difference in self-reported experience of having been bullied between the children of same-sex and opposite-sex parents. Continue reading

Sources

• The Witherspoon Institute, Public Discourse
• Image: Parent Society