Pope blesses Gay Weddings
 

Fair play.

It's a start but he has a long long way to go to remove the discrimination from the Church on LGBT rights.

...the Catholic Church that has stood for so long stood for tolerance and non judgement...that only God will judge...?...has sadly stood for so much the exact opposite and stood for so much prejudice...it’s good that the Pope endorses and embraces and I hope that his thoughts and feelings and words extend out to become the views of more and more of his worldly congregation...

Not just his worldly congregation but those of all faiths surely

...the thread is specifically the Pope/Catholic religion so hence my comment...

More like civil unions, not weddings which are not the same thing.
Fair play to him, it was about time gay people were at least considered by his Church.

Let’s broaden it out

I’m not a practising catholic,and couldn’t give a crap what consenting adults do, I find it only Christians need to look at themselves, no other faith is put under that pressure, the current pope has always held these views so it’s great he feels able to air them, let’s hope other faith leaders feel able to follow suit soon

...no, I don’t wish to broaden it out but obviously that’s fine for you to do if you wish...I explained why my comment was directed at the Pope and Catholic religion because that was specifically the thread..

...so far as any other religion is concerned though...I’m a firm believer in always looking at ourselves and own beliefs etc because ‘ourself’ is the only thing that we have any control over in terms of any life beliefs ...‘Human’ will never progress by looking at others, only by looking within itself ...and the fundamental of the Catholic religion is that we don’t judge others either...only God does...

Pretty sure that’s a fundamental of all religions who have a God at the top of the tree!

If we never seek to exert change in others and challenge views, how can we progress at all

Probably a bit deep for this time of the morning so will leave it there

...well it was the Pope and Catholic religion specifically that was the topic of discussion and that hadn’t been discussed before broadening out ...a natural broadening out is something that comes from present discussions happening etc ...it’s not something for me personally that’s ‘too deep’ as such, whatever the time of day...I love ‘deep’ in the mornings, early morning hours are my thinking hours...it just doesn’t have a relevance to the present topic for me...the belief that I was raised in with religion only allowed for One God, there were no other Gods...therefore it’s not for me to think of other Gods...I can only respect people, whatever their religion and beliefs are...

Yes it is, and we often get told to stick to the heading and topic from it usually.

I am a baptised and confirmed Catholic, I welcome this small start from the Pope, however the Catholic church has a very long, really long way to go yet on LGBT rights.

It's undertones of the hierarchy of the Church are still of one of a more judgemental nature.
This issue is one of the great larger unaddressed wrongs of the Catholic church.
While in the main it's Priesthood,( with all their personal failings and wrongs too), are much more open to massive reform of the rulings re LGBT issues and rights.

I agree, the intolerance from the Catholic church has been awful towards lgbt human beings.

I still love the services, particularly at Easter and Christmas.
This issue was one my Grandmother, a devout Catholic, always said was a persisting dark cloud over the Church's claim to be all welcoming.

I agreed with her then and still do now because it's moves are so slow and never enough done to address it.

I hoped to see more done by this Pope, I think he'd like to personally, however there are the rigid, long held dangerously prejudiced views of still good numbers among his advisors and others around him.

Maybe more will now come from him.
However until the Catholic church sees lgbt communities and individuals as completely equal in all ways with everyone and everything else.

This, even with this move by the Pope, still leaves that dark cloud, my Grandmother talked of, very much intact unfortunately.
So a great deal more needed to be done, that's been left unaddressed wrongly for centuries.

Good for him. Though I don't think any individual Churches should be forced to carry out gay weddings if their priest is against them. But it's certainly overdue that they're given the option.

LGBTQ Catholics and their allies in the U.S. welcomed Pope Francis’ endorsement of same-sex civil unions, the first time he’s done so as pontiff, while some prominent members including a bishop said Wednesday that he was blatantly contradicting church teaching.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, was one of the first conservative Catholic leaders to go public with criticism.

“The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions,” Tobin said in a statement. “The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships.”

https://apnews.com/article/relations...a12a41d8019046

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there is a way to go yet

This pope is doing work :clap1: Still, there's a long way to go but I have to commend him for doing what he can to drag Catholicism into the modern age.