Early markers put down over same-sex marriage

The stage is set for confrontation at the Synod on the Family in October with European bishops at separate meetings last week giving conflicting messages.

One gathering last week attended by bishops from Germany, France and Switzerland attempted to revisit the Church’s teaching on the family, while another attended by Polish bishops and the President of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith stressed it could never change.

The Presidents of the German and French bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Archbishop Georges Pontier, were among those taking part in the study day at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The other meeting, in Torun in northern Poland, was sponsored by the conservative Radio Maryja.

The Rome meeting, five months ahead of the second part of the Vatican’s Synod on the Family, aimed to “deepen the synod issues theologically” on account of a “considerable theological backlog” on the subject of marriage and the family, the Austrian bishops’ news service, Kathpress, reported.

Meanwhile the CDF President, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, began his address at Torun in Polish, saying: “There is no sense in discussing the problem of same-sex partnerships at the synod. It is forbidden for formal reasons because the family is a relationship between a man and a woman – exclusively and indissolubly. Fear of God and respect for revealed truth and for the family which is built up on this truth forbid it,” he underlined.

However, in a separate development this week, Cardinal Walter Kasper appeared to contradict Cardinal Müller, telling the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that gay unions would be “central” to the synod, and that while the Church “could not accept gay unions as comparable to marriage” stable ones should be recognised as a force for good.