Pope Francis on Wednesday 26th urged parents who have gay children to offer them support and not to condemn them.
Pope made the statements while teaching during his weekly general audience in reference to difficulties that parents can face in raising children.
Such issues included “parents who see different sexual orientations in their children and how to handle this, how to accompany their children. And not hide behind an attitude of condemnation,” Francis said.
Last year, the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued a document saying that Catholic priests cannot bless same-sex unions. The ruling greatly disappointed gay Catholics. But even though the Church teachings consider homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered,”, it calls for gay and lesbian people to be respected.
Support civil laws
The Pope had also previously said that while the Church cannot accept same-sex marriage, it can support civil union laws aimed at giving gay partners joint rights in areas of pensions and health care and inheritance issues.
Last year, the Vatican had said that the Catholic Church and its priests cannot bless same-sex unions because God “cannot bless sin.”
“There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely comparable to God’s plan for marriage and family,” the Vatican’s orthodoxy office said in a two-page statement that was approved by Francis.
The Church also teaches that gays should be treated with respect and that, while same-sex acts are sinful, same-sex tendencies are not.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis had said in an interview in 2020 “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”
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