For instance, I was surprised by the comments made last week by Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson. He spoke in support of a a new parliamentary bill which extends property, superannuation and inheritance rights to homosexual couples. He said,
We clearly regard marriage as being a unique type of relationship ... but at the same time we recognise the fact that there are people in society who live in other kinds of relationships.
I wonder if this comment, as it stands, really does represent the new position of the Catholic Church (perhaps Archbishop Wilson simply expressed things clumsily and clarified his thoughts later on).
As they stand, though, his comments represent a surprisingly open acceptance of homosexuality by the church. Archbishop Wilson is now only interested in defending the uniquely heterosexual status of marriage. Homosexuality is for him, simply an "other kind of relationship", rather than something "objectively disordered" which, as I understood it, used to be the considered view of the Catholic Church.
Anyway, of more concern is an item reported by Lawrence Auster at View from the Right. The supposedly Catholic Georgetown University gave an honorary degree to Jordan's King Abdullah. During the ceremony who did the American Cardinal choose to make his prayers to? To Allah!!!
Is the church losing itself in a sea of liberal relativism? Time will tell, but some of the signs are not good.
Keep in mind that there are Catholics and then there is the Catholic Church. What this or that individual (or even bishop) or nominally Catholic university does is not representative of the Church itself. It is not even a matter of what "most Catholics" think, but of the Magisterium of the Church. (If anything, these are mild examples of some of the horrendous things which go on. The Church has been fighting theologically and politically liberal tendancies within itself for years. Pope JPII has been doing an excellent job at this throughout his Papacy, and we can look forward to his successor doing the same - especially if it turns out to be the Panzerkardinal himself.)
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