They explain, “The act of blessing, whether performed in a liturgical assembly or in private, remains a blessing.”
“We therefore declare non-compliant any form of blessing, public or private, that tends to recognize ‘same-sex couples’ as a state of life,” Catholic Bishops in Cameroon say, and to on to highlight and explain the basis of their stance and directive.
“Literally, ‘To bless is to speak well of’. And to ‘speak well of’ in order to gain grace through the gesture of blessing a ‘homosexual couple’ would be tantamount to encouraging a choice and a practice of life that cannot be recognised as being objectively ordered to the revealed designs of God,” they explain.
Fiducia has elicited “semantic abuses designed to distort the value of realities and the true meaning of the notions of family, couple, spouse, sexuality and marriage,” they say at the beginning of their collective statement.
The directive to bar the possible blessing of “homosexual couples” in Cameroon is aimed at addressing the “wave of indignation, questioning and concern that the Declaration ‘Fiducia supplicans’ on the question of the blessing of same-sex couples has aroused among the people of God,” NECC members add.
The collective and “unanimous” decision to prohibit the implementation of Fiducia Supplicans in Cameroon, the Catholic Church leaders say, is “for the sake of human dignity and the salvation of all humanity in Jesus Christ”.
Directing the Clergy in Cameroon not to impart blessings upon “homosexual couples”, NECC members say, conforms to their “2013 Declaration on Homosexuality” in which they say they “strongly” reaffirmed “the truth of the Church, Mother and Educator, which teaches the sacredness of the sexual identity of man and woman created in the image of God.”
“The human person is created male and female,” the Catholic Church leaders say referencing Genesis, and add, “This invariable difference, which is the foundation of their relationship and their complementarity, is fulfilled in the bonds of marriage.”
NECC members direct against blessing “homosexual couples” because “homosexuality falsifies and corrupts human anthropology and trivialises sexuality, marriage and the family, the foundations of society,” they say.
The Catholic Bishops continue, “ln the African culture, this practice (homosexuality) is not part of family and social values. lt is a flagrant violation of the heritage bequeathed to us by our ancestors.”
Credit: Source link