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joan_psmithLast Wednesday Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán (Mexico), the retired President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers in the Roman Catholic Church, stirred the never ending debate about the Vatican's view on lgbt people anew.
He was quoted in a news article to have said, that according to St. Paul transsexuals and homosexuals would never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Asked if this also applied to people who are born lgbt, he went on that people aren't born gay, but become that way for reasons of education or because they didn't develop their own identity during adolescence. He stated further, that while those may not be guilty, they still lost their place in Heaven "by acting against the dignity of the body".(pontifex.roma) Later Barragán tried to put his views into context by clarifying that he didn't mean, that no individual homosexual could be saved. (zenit.org)
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, reacted by pointing out that in the Vatikan's point of view pontifex.roma lacked authority on such subjects and was not a good source "for understanding with objectivity the church's thoughts on complex and delicate issues like evaluating homosexuality". He suggested to refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church instead. (www.catholicnews.com)
The NY Times draws attention to the fact that Lombardi's move to rebuke Cardinal Barragán was unusual, since it indirectly criticised a top Church official (New York Times).
Lombardi also quoted the Catechism, which says that "every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." But since the definition of unjust is in this regard up to Vatican officials, this is in my view not a very comforting statement.
