Jessica Marcal
The newsroom, with Vatican Radio
The union between persons of the same sex was one of the issues addressed in the Synodal Assembly on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 8, and addressed the pastoral challenges of the family. The proceedings were opened by the Deputy President, Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis, archbishop of Aparecida, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil (SP).
Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno, president of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops and one of the presidents of the Synod delegates / Photo © Massimiliano Migliorato
Some media in Brazil reported that Bishop Damasceno would request, in the Synod, that the Church accept homosexual unions. In an interview with Vatican Radio, the cardinal clarified the issue. He said that the Church does not discriminate against these people, but also does not equate such unions to marriage.
“This theme of homosexuality I did not treat in my introduction. [the Church] does not promote or encourage, of course, much less approve the union of these people, but respects their choices, since in many countries, including Brazil, we know that the Supreme Court recognized these unions as stable, in which people enjoy certain rights guaranteed to them, but the Church never considered such unions or equated that to marriage, as the Church understands “.
What Bishop Damasceno said in his speech yesterday was that the Synod is not intended to have a “legalistic” view on topics such as divorce or homo-affective union, but to make the Church more like the family home where “there is a place for each one with his life.”
[For the English Speaking Audience–All are welcome in the Catholic Church, the tense issues in the US and other countries center around participation not around presence. The participation issue is not addressed in this article as it was not treated in the original article translated from Brazilian Portuguese–ed.]