Pope reaches out to divorcees, holds line on homosexual unions

PanARMENIAN.Net - Pope Francis on Friday, April 8 opted for no change in the Catholic approach to homosexuality but signalled a more open stance on cohabiting and divorced believers under new Church guidelines on family life, AFP reports.

In his 260-page "Apostolic Exhortation", a long-awaited document which is likely to disappoint advocates of more radical change, Francis strongly reiterates the Church's opposition to the legal recognition of gay relationships.

He notes that bishops who reviewed Catholic teaching on the question at synods in 2014 and 2015 had observed that "there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family."

While the Exhortation also expresses opposition to "every sign of unjust discrimination" based on sexual orientation, it includes no positive language about gay relationships.

While not unexpected, that will come as a disappointment for gay Catholics who had been encouraged to hope for real change by Francis's famous "Who am I to judge?" remark about homosexuality early in his papacy and a more positive document presented to the first synod, which was shot down by conservatives led by bishops from Africa.

In the absence of any new language on gay believers, official Church teaching defaults to the controversial formula that same-sex relationships are "intrinsically disordered."

The area in which the missive arguably signals the biggest change to the Church's 1.2 billion followers around the world is in its recognition of the values embodied in the relationships of people once routinely and often severely condemned as "living in sin."