French Catholics want to change view on homosexuality
A newly married bride poses in front of the Eiffel tower. Photo AFP, Miguel Medina
Western Europe
Some French bishops want to reformulate the view of the Roman Catholic Church on homosexuality. To that end, they are working on some proposals.
The clergy want more attention to pastoral care for homosexuals in the Church, La Croix writes. Last week Tuesday, members of the Reconnaissance Association, an organisation for parents of homosexual people that pleads for more consideration for them in the Church, met in the Archdiocese of Sens-Auxerre.
Taboo
According to La Croix, the trends in society to lift the taboo on homosexuality and make better care for gay people available have pushed the Church to reconsider its position on homosexuality.
In addition, some bishops want to reformulate the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, they want to revise the Catholic Catechism, which deals with homosexuality in paragraphs 2357, 2357, 2359 and 2396. Especially the wording of paragraph 2396 that calls acts of homosexuality intrinsically disordered is a thorn in the side of some clergy.
Discernment
According to Archbishop Hervé Giraud, the process of reconsidering homosexuality in the French Roman Catholic Church has been ongoing since the ad limina visit to Rome in 2021. Since then, several bishops have been working on revising the doctrine. Archbishop Giraud says these proposals “must obviously be examined by the competent dicastery and submitted to the discernment of the Pope.”
At the same time, it is not likely that the trends in the French Church will lead to a change in the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in general. A source in Vatican City tells La Croix that he does not see a fundamental change taking place “because the question of homosexuality actually engages more than itself: the anthropology and sexual morality of the Church.”
Questions
Therefore, the main goal of the French clergy is to make the topic more audible. To that end, the National Family and Society Service of the Conference of Bishops of France has ordered three theologians to work on some commonly asked questions on the topic and answer them. In the process, they involved homosexual people and associations that specialise in homosexuality in the Church.
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