VATICAN, July 31, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This morning, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a "doctrinal document" entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons". Pope John Paul II approved the document on March 28 and ordered it published.

The 10-page document is seen by Catholic commentators as perhaps the Church's clearest and most well-reasoned document ever on the issue of homosexuality and homosexual unions. It states it is "intended to give direction to Catholic politicians by indicating the approaches to proposed legislation in this area which would be consistent with Christian conscience." The document makes it crystal clear that no Catholic politician can possibly support legal recognition of homosexual unions and still consider himself to be a Catholic.

The document says, "the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral."

The Church emphasizes in the document that its reasoning is intended for much more than just Catholics. It states "the arguments that follow are addressed not only to those who believe in Christ, but to all persons committed to promoting and defending the common good of society".

Zenit News quotes the official Vatican commentator on the document, Monsignor Luٌo, stating the purpose of the document is to "show that there are comprehensible, rational, biological, social, and juridical reasons which support the teaching of the Church in its opposition to the equating of homosexual unions with matrimony".

"Considerations" stresses the disordered nature of homosexuality and demonstrates the "evil" of giving legal recognition to such unions.

Addressing the needs of children, the document states, "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case."
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/jul/03073103.html
See LifeSite's compilation of notable quotes from the document:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/jul/030731b.html

See the full document from the Vatican website at:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20 030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

Saint Charbel for Life
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