Church sends out mixed message on family day

Catholic laity in Italy took to the streets of Rome in their hundreds of thousands last Saturday to protest against proposed legislation to allow legal rights for gay couples and limited same-sex adoption, writes Christopher Lamb.

The Family Day gathering – estimated by organisers to have reached 2 million people, although La Stampa newspaper said it was closer to 300,000 – saw groups such as Catholic Action and the Neo-Catechumenate Way descend on the Circus Maximus with banners stating that children have a right to a mother and father.

On Tuesday the bill was debated in the Italian Senate; a final decision is expected later this month, after which it goes to the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.

The author of the bill Monica Cirinnà told legislators: “Rights should not and cannot remain a dream.” The changes would allow civil partnerships for gay and straight couples providing those unions with rights on inheritance, pensions, tax and welfare. More controversially, it would allow a non-biological parent in a homosexual union to adopt the child conceived by his or her partner.

Italy is the only country in Western Europe without legal recognition of same-sex unions and is under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights to change. Polls suggest that the majority of Italians favour new rights while the government of Matteo Renzi, 41, is keen to show its ability to make social as well as economic reforms.

The Church leadership in Italy appears divided over how vociferously to oppose the new law.

In the past it has vigorously, and successfully, fought off same-sex union legislation – such as Romano Prodi’s proposal in 2007 – but this time the hierarchy’s response has not been consistent.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, has spoken out against the so-called Cirinnà bill and gave his blessing to the family day rally. But there is a perceived divide between Cardinal Bagnasco and Bishop Nunzio Galantino, appointed by the Pope as secretary general of the bishops’ conference, who was lukewarm about a precursor to the Family Day gathering last June. And while some dioceses participated in the event, others seemed to ignore it.