Church leaders deplore same-sex reforms

The president of Ukraine’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference has condemned plans to permit same-sex partnerships in his country under constitutional reforms, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

“Ukraine’s integration with a united Europe is possible only if it upholds Christian values,” said Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv. “The Catholic Church is alarmed at attempts to legalise such partnerships, which will merely bring another decline to a society already so exhausted by war and misfortune.”

The 54-year-old Polish-born archbishop, who spent nine years as a private secretary to Pope St John Paul II, was reacting to the constitutional amendments, currently being debated in Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for adoption in the autumn.

The proposed reforms were also condemned last month by the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych, who said the drafting commission had submitted proposals that would damage the “moral health and natural development of society”.

The amendments were debated as Ukrainian troops battled pro-Russia separatists in the east, and have also been criticised by Russia for allegedly failing to include greater autonomy for the separatist-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as envisaged in a February ceasefire agreement.

The country’s 1991 constitution describes marriage under article 51 as the voluntary union of a man and woman, and offers no recognition of same-sex relationships, which have received little public support in opinion polls.

 In 2013, Catholic church leaders rejected calls by the European Union for greater homosexual rights as part of a planned Ukraine-EU association agreement, whose later cancellation by pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich helped spark the country’s current conflict.