We need to re-evaluate the strategy in a different way, using new approaches that refrain from further judgment and condemnation.

During the Mass for this year's "Walk for Life" on Saturday, Advincula - who is the head of Manila's Catholic Church - spoke of the need for the Church to walk with the times.

The Church needs to explore "new pathways" to respond better to today's dominant values he said.

"We need to engage in more listening and dialogue. This is part of walking for life.

"Yes, we are clear about teachings on the different issues connected with life and family but we also need to rethink our approaches, methodologies and strategies" he said.

Diverse family life and ways of living

Finding better ways to deal with today's problems in today's world is of particular concern Advincula told the congregation.

We need to find better ways of dealing with, among other issues, the dilemmas and complexities of modern families, irregular situations in the home and what he termed "the diversity in understanding identity and personhood".

He said that accompanying families on this journey, especially the young people, is necessary.

"They don't need more judgments and condemnations.

"To lead people to the truth, we must do so in love, truth and charity, walking together for life, this is where the holy spirit is leading us today."

Life is sacred

One of the Mass concelebrants was Bishop Severo Caermare who chairs the CBCP Episcopal Commission on the Laity.

This year's Walk for Life has raised important family and life issues, he told the crowd. Pro-life includes opposing attempts to revive the death penalty, divorce and same-sex unions.

"Our participation, our presence today is a demonstration of how we value the sacredness of life" he said.

Advincula encouraged all the faithful to work together to defend the sacredness of life "in a rapidly changing world that is oftentimes more welcoming to a civilisation of death and so hostile to a civilisation of life and love.

"I encourage you to continue to be passionate in your ministry. Do not be disheartened if sometimes you feel if what you have been doing is not even noticed or ends up in an apparent failure. Take courage. You are not alone.

"Our society today needs teachers that can lead others to the right path and to the right choices. We must not abandon this mission of being teachers and catechists of the Gospel of life."

A united appeal

The Council of the Laity of the Philippines which organised the Walk for Life says the pro-life event brought together more than 3,000 people from various religious and lay organisations.

The Council says they were all united in one aim - to demonstrate solidarity in upholding the dignity of human life.

Source

• CBCP News

Bonny and the other Flemish bishops of Belgium introduced a blessing for same-sex couples in September 2022.

They also published a handout outlining suggested liturgy and prayers.

The bishops' based their decision to go ahead with the same sex blessings on Pope Francis' 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Bonny denies the blessings present a conflict of conscience, even though he is going against a definitive 2021 Vatican ruling that the Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions.

The Vatican has "different positions and developments", he says.

"Rome is not just a document or a cardinal. No, Rome is also unity in diversity."

Neither Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni nor the Diocese of Antwerp responded to media requests for further clarification.

Bonny's mission

Bonny has long pressed for greater acceptance of homosexual relationships within the Catholic Church.

In March he told the German Church's Synodal Way that during the Flemish bishops' ad limina visit last November, the Pope neither approved nor denied such blessings.

He said it was the Flemish bishops pastoral domain so long as they were all united.

He and his brother bishops "speak with one voice; there are no divisions or subgroups on this subject," he claimed.

Flemish bishops do not have the same tensions with Rome that mark the Church in Germany. He put this down to the Flemish bishops internal unity on "big issues" and being a small bishops' conference.

Some think Bonny influenced the German Synodal Way meeting in March to allow same-sex blessings.

"It is a ministry of unity in the Church, unity in diversity," he said.

What the Vatican says

In March 2021 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stressed that blessings are sacramentals. They have "singular importance" in the Church's liturgy.

As such, they can be imparted only on that which conforms to the nature of sacramentals.

God, the CDF said, "does not and cannot bless sin."

This clarification was not meant to be "a form of unjust discrimination," the Vatican said. Instead, it was a "reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them."

Bishop Bonny strongly criticised the CDF ruling.

He said it was contrary to the "dynamic" of the 2015 Synod on the Family and undermined the "credibility of the ‘synodal path' advocated by Pope Francis."

Source

• National Catholic Register

The Church of England's General Synod voted on February 9 to permit the offering of prayers and liturgies at civil marriages.

This compromise measure included the church's desire to "lament and repent" its failure "to welcome LGBTQI+ people and for the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced — and continue to experience — in churches".

The church has not changed its doctrine that marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, but the archbishops of Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria are rejecting the decision to bless the unions as contrary to the teaching of the Bible.

The Church of England joined several other member churches in recognising all civil marriages, including the Episcopal Church of America, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church in Wales, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Episcopal Church of Brazil.

The archbishops of Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria posted responses on their diocesan websites to the Church of England's decision.

Archbishop Stephen Samuel Kaziimba Mugalu of Uganda said, "The Church of England is very good at making contradictory statements and expecting everyone to believe both can be true at the same time. That's what they have done with this decision".

Kaziimba stated that despite the English church's insistence that it was not changing its doctrine on marriage, it is doing exactly that. The only significant difference is the terminology of a wedding versus a service of blessing.

Archbishop Jackson Ole Sapit, the primate of the Church of Kenya, attributed the move to "the unfortunate rise of devious liberal churchmanship within the Anglican Communion".

He said, "We make a humble request to these churches: Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead".

Anglican Church on threshold of reformation

According to Archbishop Henry Chukwudum Ndukuba of Nigeria in a statement on Sunday, "The Anglican Church is at the threshold of yet another reformation, which must sweep out the ungodly leadership currently endorsing sin, misleading the lives of faithful Anglicans worldwide".

The news from England pleased LGBTQ activists in Africa, including some who are Anglican clerics.

The Rt Rev. Christopher Senyonjo, a former bishop in the Anglican Church of Uganda and a founder of Integrity Uganda, said the Church of England had allowed the blessing of partnerships, not marriages.

"It is expected that when two people come together in a love relationship, they are going to have children, but as time goes on, it is realised that two people can be in love when they are not going to have children," said Senyonjo.

"We should not just condemn the action (by the Church of England) without a very careful consideration of what love relationship is."

The Rev. Michael Nzuki Kimindu, a former Anglican priest now president of Other Sheep Africa, a Christian organisation that advocates for LGBTQ rights in Christianity and Islam, criticised the African hierarchy's attempt to paint the Church of England's action as a Western anomaly.

"Homosexuality is not a Western issue," Kimindu told RNS.

"It is a human condition found in every culture, geographical area and religion. It's just fair that people should understand that it is not going anywhere no matter how much we bury our heads in the sand."

Sources

Fox News

Religion News Service

Father Neil Vaney, an Auckland Roman Catholic moral theologian, said the secular media and various people were "pushing" the same sex issue. He said the Church should "show great compassion" to people from whom it had differing views.

"It is important the Church does not come across as homophobic or as being anti-gay. It is also important that Christians stay humble," said Fr Vaney.

"Several leaders said anti-gay-type comments would not alter what seemed inevitable — so was it worth getting offside with those the Church should be reaching out to?" he asked.

Fr Vaney noted that it was "ironic that after so much rhetoric to create the legal category of civil union, with its avowedly secular repudiation of all religious tradition, that the homosexual lobby should be fighting so hard to reclaim the label of marriage for their unions".

"Perhaps it is the aura of stability, commitment and lasting community that they are pining after - if so, all to the good…" he said.

A number of other ministry and church leaders believe a cautious approach to same-sex marriage is needed so as not to alienate those outside the church.

The church's main role, they point out, is to proclaim the Gospel and bring people to salvation and faith in Jesus and not get sidetracked. Many of them who did not want to make a public comment said Jesus came alongside people and sought to form friendships rather than judge a person from a distance.

Read other Church Leaders' opinions

Source

• Challenge Weekly
• Image: Eucharistic Congress Convention 2005

To support his contention McCoskrie sites the following facts:

• Canada: A court has ruled that marriage officials must marry homosexuals.
• USA: The army is threatening to court-martial Chaplains for ‘religious, conscience' objection to homosexuality. A New Jersey judge ruled against a Christian retreat house that refused to allow a same-sex civil union ceremony to be conducted on its premises, ruling the Constitution allows ‘some intrusion into religious freedom to balance other important societal goals. A proposed Kansas law would force churches to host same-sex ‘weddings,' receptions.
• UK: A Christian marriage conference was banned for their opposition to gay marriage. A Tory MP has called for churches to be banned from holding marriages if they refuse gay couples.
• The Netherlands: MPs voted for a change in the law to prevent civil servants refusing to conduct gay marriages.
• Sweden: Anyone challenging the homosexualist agenda in public in Sweden can be sent to prison, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that this does not constitute any violation of rights.
• Wales is moving against Catholic schools that are organizing students to protest a new government plan to back gay marriage in that country

Labour's MP for Mangere Su'a William Sio says he will be voting against the The definition of Marriage bill because there is widespread opposition within his electorate which has the highest population of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, making up 58.8 per cent of voters.

Some ministers in Pacific churches were preaching against the bill and against Labour.

"This issue cuts deep into fundamental beliefs," he told Radio New Zealand. "It will divide the community."

"I feel somewhat betrayed by raising issues such as this when there are more prominent, more weightier issues such as jobs and income and putting food on the table and paying for the bills."

An online petition opposing the legalisation of same-sex marriage has been signed by nearly 20,000 people in its first week.

Source

• Morning Report 8 August
• Scoop
• Stuff.co.nz
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Google Images

"In fact, only a small proportion of its sample spent more than a few years living in a household headed by a same-sex couple," says Nathaniel Frank.

"Indeed, the study acknowledges that what it's really comparing with heterosexual families is not families headed by a same-sex couple but households in which parents broke up. 'A failed heterosexual union,'" he says.

Franks says it is not news to conclude "that when families endure a shattering separation, it is likely to shatter the lives of those in them."

"The trouble is that no scholarly research, including the Regnerus paper, has ever compared children of stable same-sex couples to children of stable different-sex couples, in part because an adequate sample size is hard to come by, " he says.

Read Nathaniel Frank's Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times

Image: Addicting Info

Dr Nathaniel Franks is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an adjunct professor of history at New York University.

Taking this into account it appears Hone shares more in common with his former colleagues - meaning the Maori Party - than he cares to admit. I read Maori as being a conservative people, if not always politically. This is true of Maori raised in the radical tradition too, the most prominent example being Hone Harawira.

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Asked if they think same-sex couples should be able to get married, 63% of respondents said yes, 31% said no and 6% did not know or preferred not to say.

The Catholic church remains staunchly opposed to gay marriage.

"The whole idea of marriage seems to be associated with the procreation and raising of children and that's a relationship that requires a man and a woman," said Patrick Dunn, the Catholic Bishop of Auckland.

Carey Baptist College vice principal Laurie Guy said on TV ONE's Close Up on Wednesday evening that while it is not inevitable, quite likely Christians will just have to accept gay marriage.

Watch Closeup programme

Source

• TVNZ Closeup
• Image: TVNZ Closeup

The Church will offer spiritual guidance to members of the group who seek their advice.

The acting general secretary of the Methodist Church in Fij, Reverend Tevita Nawadra, says the church was adamant that a union between a man and a woman alone was sacred and the scriptures abhorred any other kind.

"It (the promotion of sexual minority rights) is against the morals and the teachings of the church, we do not condone any such activities."

Mr Nawadra said the church respected the individual rights of the members of sexual minority groups.

"It is in their every right to stand up for what they believe in but the issue itself is not condoned by the church based on our beliefs and the principles of the Bible," he said.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: KETK