Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 13:58:41 -0500 (GMT-0500) From: "Thomas W. Holt Jr." Subject: Britain's Cardinal Hume Supports Gays [well, relatively speaking] (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 09:36:59 -0500 From: David B. O'Donnell To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: Britain's Cardinal Hume Supports Gays [well, relatively speaking] [ Send all responses to HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU only. Any responses to the list or list-owners will be returned to you. ] Cardinal Hume gives Church blessing to homosexual love BY CLIFFORD LONGLEY CARDINAL Basil Hume issued a remarkably humane and tolerant statement yesterday in praise of homosexual friendship and love. "Love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected," he said in a document prepared in response to requests for "clarification" of the Roman Catholic Church's position on homosexuality. While emphasising that intimate relations between people, whether of the same or different sex, had to be governed by God's laws, he stressed as almost no Church leader has done before that love between men is not in itself a reason for objecting to homosexuality. He goes further, declaring: "When two persons love, they experience in a limited manner in this world what will be their unending delight when one with God in the next. "To love another is in fact to reach out to God, who shares his lovableness with the one we love. To be loved is to receive a sign or share of God's unconditional love. To love another, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to have entered the area of the richest human experience." Cardinal Hume said he issued his clarification after being approached by various people and groups over a statement he made two years ago. Yesterday's statement incorporates most of that, but with the extra passage about homosexual love. Among those who approached him was OutRage, a group of homosexual activists who have disrupted Anglican and Catholic services to protest at what they see as oppressive teaching on homosexuality. But it is understood his statement was not so much a reply to OutRage's chairman, Mr Peter Tatchell, as the context in which a formal reply from the Catholic Church has been prepared. That came yesterday from Mr Nicholas Coote, assistant general secretary of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. In a letter to Mr Tatchell, Mr Coote said the Catholic Church could not accept the moral equivalence of heterosexual marriage and homosexual relationships, and therefore accepted discrimination against homosexuals in that limited sense. He applied this to the distinction the Catholic Church would make concerning adoption, fostering or child custody by a homosexual couple. But where the rights of children were not involved, as in employment or protection from violence, the Catholic Church would oppose discrimination against homosexuals. The Cardinal said the Church did not recognise a "right" to sexual acts "which she teaches are morally wrong". Nevertheless, it was a fundamental human right of every person, irrespective of sexual orientation, to be treated by individuals and by society with dignity, respect and fairness. "Nothing in the Church's teaching can be said to support or sanction, even implicitly, the victimisation of homosexual men and women. Furthermore, 'homophobia' should have no place among Catholics. "Even if homosexual people are unwisely tempted to act in a provocative or destructive manner, this does not justify homophobic attitudes or reactions." After the new passage where he asserted the value of love between persons of whatever sex, Cardinal Hume added: "But that experience of love is spoiled, whether it is in marriage or in friendship, when we do not think and act as God wills us to act. "Human love is precarious, for human nature is wounded and frail. Thus marriage and friendship will never be easy to handle. We shall often fail, but the ideal remains." Homosexuality is understood to be one of the issues that has been raised in conversations Cardinal Hume has held with Anglican clergy contemplating admission to the Roman Catholic Church, following the ordination of women in the Church of England.