How soon they forget

By Domenico Bettinelli, Jr. ( articles - email ) | May 05, 2004

Looks like there's a papal nuncio who needs recalling to Rome. Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, the nuncio to Spain, gave a speech to the country's bishops in which he said that, while we shouldn't call gay unions marriages, the state should grant them certain civil rights.

Excuse me, Your Eminence, but perhaps you need to re-read "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons". The thing came out less than year ago and already he seems to have forgotten it. Here's a quick reminder: "The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.... Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity."

Archbishop Monteiro, call your office!