From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013
Following my article of yesterday about Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family’s remarks that gay couples should be given legal rights, many of our readers have responded back wondering whether the Vatican will spare or fire him.
Some of the readers went as far as connecting the issue with that of Dr Willy Mutinga where some churches attempted to block him from becoming Chief Justice because of his stand in defending the rights of homosexuals.
In my own opinion I don’t think Vatican will fire Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia because he only suggested that they should be given legal rights, but remained farm that marriage should remain between a man and a woman. It explains why, even though the Catholic Church considers homosexuality sinful, it is opposed to any discrimination against gays.
Against the background that the church will continue “to uphold the values of marriage and family life” while defending “the basic human dignity and human rights of all” and condemning “violence, hatred and bigotry directed against any person.”
Back to Dr Willy Mutunga, the churches concern was that, even though he is not gay, churches attempt to block him from becoming Chief Justice was based on the fact he has been associated with the gay community in Kenya a view sociologists, psychologists, and religious leaders point out as not suitable for the young people. Kenyan Chief Justice Willy Mutunga: ‘Gay Rights are Human Rights.
Arguably, according to some churches that were opposed to his appointment as Chief justice Willy Mutunga should be a role model rather than a vice for the society, despite the fact that the stand of the Vatican is that gay rights are human rights.
Some of our readers also went as far as wondering why the Vatican has criticised sharply a 2005 book by a US theologian and nun on sexual ethics, where she defends gay rights and equal marriage.
This is a bit complicated and tricky question for me to answer. The only thing I may say is that the Vatican might have reacted on Sister Margaret Farley’s book, Just Love, because it posed ‘grave harm’ to the faithful, and that her ideas on masturbation, homosexuality, equal marriage and remarriage were in ‘direct contradiction’ to traditional Catholic teaching on sexual morality.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that her writings betrayed a ‘defective understanding of the objective nature of natural moral law,’ that is why the Vatican banned the use of the book by Catholic teachers, in a notification signed by the department head Cardinal William Levanda and approved by Pope Benedict XVI.
Sister Farley has defended her work, however, saying that the ideas they contain were entirely coherent with theological tradition. In her book, she writes that ‘same-sex oriented persons as well as their activities can and should be respected.’
Her book also argues for equal marriage as a means for reducing hatred against and stigmatisation of gay people. The Vatican however reaffirmed its position that homosexual acts are ‘intrinsically disordered’ and ‘contrary to natural law.’ Marriage, it says, can only be the union between a man and a woman.
In a statement, Sister Farley, who has eleven honorary degrees to her credit, and is an emeritus professor at Yale, said that she used a ‘criteria (sic) of justice’ in evaluating sexual morality.
”The fact that Christians (and others) have achieved new knowledge and deeper understanding of human embodiment and sexuality seems to require that we at least examine the possibility of development in sexual ethics,” she said.
Like the church, even in some cultures there are some norms that are set to guide the society. For example, while in some cultures, body piercing and tattooing are considered to be immoral, as they are considered to be acts that defile the human body, in other cultures, body piercing and tattooing are religious expressions. It all depends partly on geography.
Many cultures are opposed to same sex-marriage because their norms put great value in the traditional family unit that is why they sanction programs that promote moral behavior. It explains why, for example, some cultures view human sexuality principally as a sacred reality.
Even in religions, in a number of moral theologies, God designed human sexuality for the purpose of procreation, and commanded all human beings, from Adam and Eve onward, to be fruitful and multiply, engaging in sex strictly in accordance with the order of the divine plan.
St. Thomas Aquinas argued this philosophically, concluding that every emission of semen, ordered in such a way that generation cannot follow, is contrary to the good and nature of man, and if done deliberately, a sin.
Every sexual act must, in principle, follow a form that is open to life, whether or not the couple’s union is fertile, infertile, or sterile. To engage in sex in any way contrary to the good, human nature, and God’s design makes the person or persons involved arbiters of God’s plan, manipulators of something holy, grave sinners.
They believe that the giver of the gift of sex makes the rules, and they must follow these norms. That is why they consider sexual intercourse outside marriage and masturbation sinful.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002