Rising from the symposium of Episcopal conference of Africa and Madagascar, Catholic Bishops have declared that there would no blessing for homosexual couples in churches across the continent.
According to a communiqué signed by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa and President of SECAM, blessing homosexual couples would not only scandalize the church, it would also cause confusion as Africans see the homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered”.
He added that it is against the cultural belief of African who see such as an act as contradictory to natural laws.
Cardinal Ambongo said, “These acts, considered as closing the sexual act to the gift of life and not proceeding from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity, must not be approved under any circumstances (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2357).
“To support this position, a large majority of the interventions of the African Bishops are based above all on the Word of God. They cite passages which condemn homosexuality, notably Lv 18:22-23 where homosexuality is explicitly prohibited and considered an abomination.
“This legislative text testifies to these practices in the setting of Israel, as well as other practices that God prohibits, such as infanticide (cf. the sacrifice of Isaac). One Episcopal Conference added the scandal of the homosexuals of Sodom (cf. Gen 19, 4-11). In the narration of the text, homosexuality is so abominable that it will lead to the destruction of the city. In the New Testament, Saint Paul, in the Letter to the Romans, also condemns what he calls unnatural relationships (cf. Rom 1:26-33) or shameful morals (cf. 1 Cor 6:9-10).
“In addition to these biblical reasons, the cultural context in Africa, deeply rooted in the values of the natural law regarding marriage and family, further complicates the acceptance of unions of persons of the same sex, as they are seen as contradictory to cultural norms and intrinsically corrupt.
The Bishops insisted that any new doctrine that is out to change the long standing definition of marriage is unacceptable.
“This position, rooted in the Sacred Scriptures, has been taught without interruption by the universal Magisterium of the Church. Therefore, rites and prayers that could blur the definition of marriage – as an exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, open to procreation – are considered as unacceptable,” he said.
Head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has said that the church should go ahead and bless homosexual couples. However, the Church in Nigeria had earlier kicked against the Catholic Pontiff.
The Bishops further insisted that the doctrine of marriage as handed down to the church from the time of Apostle Peter remained unchanged.
They urged Christian communities not to allow themselves to be shaken as blessing such union would be contrary to cultural ethos of Africans.
“For this reason, we, the African Bishops, do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities,” it concluded.
