Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
I say link to foreign language sites. Just tell us what language it is. We can all use Babel Fish: http://babel.altavista.com/tr?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Vatican attack on Spain's gay marriage law By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspodent
A senior Vatican cardinal has today condemned as "iniquitous" plans to allow gay marriages and adoptions in Spain, one of Europe's most Catholic countries.
The attack on the Spanish Government's Bill to legalise same-sex marriages is an early indication of how the new papacy can be expected to adhere rigidly to the precedents put in place by Pope John Paul II, and supported by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his role as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The new Pope has described homosexuality as objectively disordered and an intrinsic moral evil.
The Bill was adopted on Thursday by deputies in Spain's lower house of parliament, making Spain the third country to recognise gay marriages and the first in Europe to allow gay marriages and adoption of children by gay couples.
The Bill also allows couples of the same sex to inherit from one another as well as receive retirement benefits from their working spouses.
The legislation will take effect a few months after it has undergone the formality of being adopted by the Spanish Senate.
The Vatican denunciation was made by Cardinal Alfonso Lopes Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Asked about the Spanish Bill, he said:"We cannot impose the iniquitous on people.
"On the contrary, precisely because they are iniquitous the Church makes an urgent call for freedom of conscience and the duty to oppose.
"A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation, it cannot be an obligation. One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law."
He called on municipal officials asked to perform gay marriages to object on grounds of conscience and to refuse to go through with the ceremony, even if it meant losing their jobs.
He said: "They should exercise the same conscientious objection asked of doctors and nurses against a crime such as abortion.
"This is not a matter of choice: all Christians... must be prepared to pay the highest price, including the loss of a job."
The Cardinal went on to argue that the Church does not discriminate against gays, but said they needed help.
"The Church does not accept homosexuals being the target of jokes, insults and inhumane expressions. They are people who deserve all our love, our support and our aid."
Spain is, like Italy, a Catholic country but in both countries adherence to some Catholic dictats, such as on the use of contraception, is low.
Traditionalist Catholics are hoping the new Pope will be able to assert his moral authority to bring the faithful back into line on issues such as birth control and the exclusion from communion Catholics who remarry after divorce.
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia are among those who will be attending Sunday’s inauguration mass for Pope Benedict. Belgium and the Netherlands already allow same-sex marriages, but not adoptions by homosexual couples.
_________________ When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon, "It is done. People did not like it here.''
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Eeek! The gays are creeping across Europe! They will soon be trying to marry good Catholic men.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
Vatican spokesman wrote:
"A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation, it cannot be an obligation. One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law."
Only if it's a Papal Edict, huh Padre? You got it.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
4/22/2005
Ciao, Roman Catholicism: Ahh, there's nothing worse than long break-ups, the lingering, inevitable death of a long-term relationship, where you've tried to keep your demanding partner by compromise after compromise, hoping against hope that at some point your partner will see it your way, maybe not be so suffocating, when, deep in your aching gut, you know, you know, that the break-up has to happen or everyone's life is just going to be a long slog through misery and recrimination.
And now we can all look forward to a fond farewell to Roman Catholicism in America. Oh, c'mon, now, Roman Catholicism, don't cry. It's not you, it's us. See, here in America (and most of the developed world), we desire simple things like sexual freedom, women's rights, and lack of molestation. We've changed, not you, and if a relationship can't evolve, it has to die, right? Right?
Time and time again, we looked to you for some inkling that you might change your ways. But time and time again, you had to say something that just wrecked our self-esteem, like, ten years ago, when you said, "[T]he negative values inherent in the 'contraceptive mentality'-which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act-are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived." And then, in the same document, this - this: "The various techniques of artificial reproduction . . . are morally unacceptable." What did you think? That we'd just say, "Well, okey-dokey, Roman Catholicism, let's toss those years of medical research to give childless couples a shot at parenthood out the window - abort it, if you will"? Sorry, sorry . . . we thought we could do this without getting angry.
The straw that broke the camel's back was the election of this new Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, who looks like Bela Lugosi's Dracula on a blood bender. Not only is he an ex-Nazi (who gives a rat's ass if his heart wasn't in it - just think of how it looks for us to go out with someone of whom it can be spoke, "He's an ex-Nazi." Did you even think of our feelings?), but he promises to take you even further away from beliefs that might make us both happy. You're already bitch-slappin' Spain over gay marriage and adoption. Spain - which did all those wonderful bone-crushing inquisitions for you. You think you'd cut it some slack, but, no, and that says a lot about you.
Now you're represented by a man who was the enforcer for the most conservative policies of the Church, including declaring that if we believe in abortion we should be denied communion (which affected the Presidential election, of course). And he thinks that the church's condemnation of Galileo was "reasonable and just." And let's not even get into his opinions of gays and contraception, except to say that "eeeevil" is a big term there. Oh, and that little problem with sexual abuse by a Vatican official that Ratzinger covered-up? Nice. No women priests, no married priests, and sexual abuse cover-up. What's the laundry bill like on the wash cloths at the Vatican? Sorry. We know. Saracasm never makes anything easier.
So what are we gonna do, Roman Catholicism, huh? Oh, you had a chance, a big one. Hell, you've even pissed off Latin America, and if you had elected a darker-skinned Pope, oh, you'd've had a good couple of decades of warm-fuzzies with some continents, even if that Pope had declared cannibalism instead of eucharists. But, no. You won't change. You just retreated, further and further. In fact, you named a Pope who was the complete opposite of what you needed and then presented him as if he was exactly who was needed. It's as if Karl Rove advised you who to choose.
We know that because of the wall-to-wall coverage of JPII's death and the 24-hour-a-day smokestack-cam you have an inflated sense of your self-worth with us. And sure, sure, we may give Benedict a little time, but, as you know from history, break-ups can happen overnight.
Hey, over 200 years. We've had a good run. And some part of you will always be with us. But it's time to move on. And we were lying before. It's not us. It's you.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
...The bill reflects the radical change in recent decades in Spain, for centuries a bastion of the church. According to Madrid's Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, while 80 percent of Spaniards consider themselves Catholic, half ignore church teachings, and religion for most is more an inherited tag than a way of life.
Polls say nearly half of the country's Roman Catholics almost never go to Mass, and a third say they are simply not religious.
...In an opinion poll on the issue carried out by the government-run Center for Sociological Investigations last June, 66 percent of Spaniards favored legalizing gay marriage, while 26 percent opposed.
Joined: Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:58 pm Posts: 1148 Location: Green Bay
Skywalker wrote:
half ignore church teachings, and religion for most is more an inherited tag than a way of life.
Sounds a lot like it is in America. I know my affiliation to catholicism is based purely on my parents baptising me before I could willingly control the movement of a single muscle in my body.
_________________ When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon, "It is done. People did not like it here.''
Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:32 am Posts: 405 Location: Madrid, Spain
Skywalker wrote:
...In an opinion poll on the issue carried out by the government-run Center for Sociological Investigations last June, 66 percent of Spaniards favored legalizing gay marriage, while 26 percent opposed.
I guess that Spanish government is capturing the population feelings much better than catholic church/Vatican is.
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