Papal Envoy Hints at Support for Gay Unions

Pope John Paul II has specifically stated that gays should not be allowed to enter into any kind of official union that might be considered "marriage," but Monsignor Manuel Monteiro de Castro, papal envoy to Spain, has spoken out in favor of some sort of legal recognition for same-sex couples. He doesn't think that they should be considered marriage, but he does think that the church's position here should move forward.

Ben Townley writes:

Speaking to a conference of Catholic bishops, Monsignor Manuel Monteiro de Castro said that the church must move to accept the "new political situation in Spain ... and meet the challenges in an appropriate manner." He added that a recognition of other forms of relationships away from marriage is important for the church to survive. ... "They are not the same as marriage," he is reported as saying. "We will leave the term marriage for that which it has always referred to, and other arrangements should be given other names."

This contradicts what the pope has said and I can only imagine what sort of conversations the above comments have genrated within the Vatican. It's nice, however, to see that someone with such a position has been thinking about how and why the Roman Catholic Church should change. It demonstrates that there is at least a little hope, assuming of course that people like Castro aren't shoved out of power entirely because of their heresies.

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• Roman Catholicism
• Catholicism & Homosexuality
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