Daniel-in-lion’s-den moment for new Catholic archbishop of free-wheeling Berlin
Like Daniel in the lion’s den, Berlin’s new Catholic archbishop met the media on Tuesday to face accusations he was homophobic and far too conservative for such a prominent post in the free-wheeling German capital. Rainer Maria Woelki, a surprise choice for the high-profile post, professed respect for gays, denied membership in the staunchly conservative Opus Dei group and said he did not come to Berlin to point a censuring finger at non-Catholics.
Berlin’s gay community and liberal media reacted with dismay to his appointment last week, saying the Cologne-based prelate was “backwards-minded” and the wrong man for the job. But interest in the new prelate was so strong that the Catholic Church, a minority of about 390,000 in a 3.5 million population mostly indifferent or hostile to religion, had to switch the news conference to a larger hall at the last minute to accomodate over 100 journalists who turned out.
“We will meet with each other,” Woelki, 54, said when asked about the city’s active gay community. “I have respect and esteem for all people independent of heritage, skin colour and individual nature. I am open to all without reservations.” Describing himself simply as Catholic, he denied being a member of Opus Dei despite having done his doctorate at the group’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. That part of his biography led to media reports over the weekend calling him “reactionary.”
“The Church is not a moral institution that goes around pointing its finger at people,” Woelki said. “The Church is for me a community of seekers and believers and the Church would like to help people find their hapiness in life.”
The left-wing daily Tageszeitung said it had expected the worst from Woelki’s premiere but concluded: “You can talk with the man of God. There will be a lot to talk about.” Berlin’s openly gay Mayor Klaus Wowereit seems to have eased the way for Woelki by warmly welcoming him to the city and promising to work closely with him. The two will host Pope Benedict when he visits the German capital in September.
During the last papal visit to Berlin in 1996, anarchists booed and streakers darted about in front of Pope John Paul’s popemobile as he made his way to the Brandenburg Gate.
Until his new assignment, Woelki was an auxiliary bishop in Cologne to Cardinal Joachim Meisner, an arch-conservative with close ties to German-born Pope Benedict. He was hardly known outside that western German city, where he was born. Woelki’s Opus Dei aademic credentials, link to Meisner and statements reaffirming the Church view that homosexual acts are sinful sparked off a storm in Berlin.
U.N. rights forum proclaims equal gay rights, Muslims states object
The top U.N. human rights body declared Friday there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, a vote Western countries called historic but Islamic states firmly rejected. The controversial resolution marked the first time that the Human Rights Council recognized the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, diplomats said.
The text, presented by South Africa, was adopted by 23 countries in favour, 19 against with 3 abstentions and one delegation absent during voting. Libya’s membership in the 47-member Geneva forum was suspended in March.
“All over the world, people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement issued in Washington. “Today’s landmark resolution affirms that human rights are universal,” she said, calling it a “historic moment.”
Britain, France joined the United States in voting in favour, while Russia voted against and China abstained, results showed. Delegations from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Bangladesh took the floor to reject the text in a heated debate held on the last day of the council’s three-week session.
Mauritania’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Cheikh Ahmed Ould Zahaf, said that the issue did not fall within the scope of any international human rights treaty. “This issue has nothing to do with human rights,” he said, speaking before the vote. “What we find here is an attempt to change the natural right of a human being with an unnatural right. That is why calls on all members to vote against it.”
Backwards nations that sill have a big problem with granting women equal rights strongly oppose gay rights, nothing news worthy here. Those nations have a long way to go, and their greedy feel they can lie and rape their population at will finically, and many times sexually. This does show most people on earth do feel human rights need to be respected. Thanks UN for helping more humans come out of the darkness of oppression. S.A. Proved it’s leadership in Human rights once again. It is sad that nation is poor. S.A. Should be proud of herself!
Vatican tells U.N. that critics of gays under attack
People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the Roman Catholic Church deeply believed that human sexuality was a gift reserved for married heterosexual couples. But those who express these views are faced with “a disturbing trend,” he said.
“People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behaviour between people of the same sex,” he told the current session of the Human Rights Council.
“When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature … they are stigmatised, and worse — they are vilified, and prosecuted.
“These attacks are violations of fundamental human rights and cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Tomasi said.
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It appears to me that the Vatican has put itself in a difficult positoon. If it insists that pedophiles are gay, and continues to discover pedophiles in the priesthood – qite a few of them, then it must be hiring gay priests. Maybe there is a test for gayness they can administer. However since there is no evidence whatsoever that pedophiles are gay, they might do better to take a look at their own organisation before blaming homosexuals who are no different in their range of behaviours than any other group – and the vatican ought to know that pedophilia is more about power and inability to relate to one’s peers sexually than it is about homo- or heterosexuality. As to abusive behaviour – well who better to recognise that than the vatican?
British Christian couple loses foster ruling over gays stance
A British Christian couple opposed to homosexuality because of their faith lost a court battle in London on Monday over the right to become foster carers. The couple, who are Pentecostal Christians, had gone to court after a social worker expressed concerns about them becoming respite carers after they said they could not tell a child that a “homosexual lifestyle” was acceptable.
Eunice and Owen Johns, both in their 60s and from Derbyshire in the English midlands, asked judges to rule that their faith should not be a bar to them becoming carers, and that the law should protect their Christian values.
But Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled at the Royal Courts of Justice in London that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds, the Press Association reported.
UK to allow same-sex marriage in church – reports
Britain plans to allow same-sex unions to be celebrated in places of worship, removing a key legal distinction between homosexual civil partnerships and heterosexual marriage, newspapers reported on Sunday. The move would lift the ban on religious ceremonies for the registration of gay unions imposed when Britain legalised civil partnerships six years ago.
The government may also propose scrapping the legal definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, allowing gay men and women to call their partners husbands or wives, the Sunday Times said. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone will launch a consultation on the issue next week, the Sunday Telegraph said.
Critics say restricting homosexuals to civil partnerships rather than marriage is a form of discrimination, even when, as in Britain, there little or no difference in the legal rights conferred.
If passed into law the plan would bring Britain closer to countries such as the Netherlands and Canada where gays can legally marry.
France to renew tight bioethics limits, critics hit Catholic lobbying
France’s parliament opened debate on revising its bioethics laws on Tuesday amid protests that Roman Catholic Church lobbying had thwarted plans to ease the existing curbs on embryonic stem cell research. The bill, originally meant to update a 2004 law in light of rapid advances in the science of procreation, would also uphold bans on surrogate motherhood and assisted procreation for gays.
The debate coincided with news of France’s first “saviour sibling,” a designer baby conceived in vitro to provide stem cells to treat a sibling suffering from a severe blood disorder.
Critics of the bill said last-minute changes by deputies of the governing conservative UMP party meant the revision would hardly change the restrictive law currently on the books. The text retains tight limits for research on embryonic stem cells, a technology the Church vigourously opposes because the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) method used to produce them creates extra embryos that are later discarded.
“The Catholics have succeeded in imposing their view on embryos and seem to be succeeding in their attack on this method,” said François Olivennes, a leading fertility expert, told Europe 1 radio. “We already have a very retrograde law compared to those in Spain, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands and all of Scandinavia. Nothing is advancing.”
“We propose the authorisation” of this research, said Alain Claeys, a deputy from the opposition Socialist Party.
The French Catholic Church has made bioethics a priority issue and overseen reports, public meetings and lobbying efforts to oppose an easing and aim for a tightening of the current law. The bill does not meet all the Church’s demands, however. Among other things, it supports prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome, which if found usually leads to an abortion.
Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois kept up Catholic criticism of controversial new medical techniques, saying the “saviour baby” whose birth was announced on Tuesday was produced to be used to heal another child. “Are we going to become instruments? I’m completely opposed to that,” he said. Ten other bishops issued a statement calling the technique an ethical regression and asked: “What will the child say when it finds out it was a ‘designer baby’?”
Top French court rejects gay marriage appeal
France’s ban on same-sex marriages was upheld by the country’s constitutional authority on Friday, in a ruling that relieves the government of any obligation to grant gays the wedding rights enjoyed by heterosexuals.
A handful of countries in Europe allow couples of the same sex to wed, and rights campaigners had hoped for a breakthrough in France, where two women living together had demanded the view of the Constitutional Council.
The Council said it found no conflict between the law as it stands and fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. It ruled that it was up to parliament, rather than the constitutional authorities, to decide whether the law should change.
The two women who appealed to the Council are raising four children together, three of them conceived through artificial insemination. They say they want to marry to be able to officially share parental authority, clarify inheritance rights and guarantee custody rights for all the children if one died.
Henri Guiano, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy, said shortly before the verdict was made public that the matter was one for political leaders and not lawyers, signalling that nothing should change without in-depth political debate. “This is a question of society, of civilisation even,” said Guiano. “This is a matter that could maybe be broached during the presidential election campaign, by parliamentary debate, but not just for the law,” he said.
U.N. restores gay reference to violence measure
The United States has succeeded in getting the United Nations to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified executions.
Western delegations were disappointed last month when the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved an Arab and African proposal to cut the reference to slayings due to sexual orientation from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions.
The 192-nation General Assembly approved on Tuesday a U.S. amendment to the resolution that restored the reference to sexual orientation with 93 votes in favor, 55 against and 27 abstentions. The amended resolution was then adopted with 122 yes votes, one against and 62 abstentions.
After ensuring that violence against gays would be back in the resolution by voting in favor its own amendment, Washington sent an ambiguous signal about its support for the overall declaration by joining 61 other nations in abstaining. It was not immediately clear why Washington withheld its support. The only country that voted against the resolution was Saudi Arabia.
The main opposition to the U.S. amendment came from Muslim and African nations, which had led the push to delete the reference to sexual preference from the resolution last month.
The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years. The 2008 declaration had included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims’ sexual preferences.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and abortion at U.S. military bases…
One little-reported aspect of the political wrangling around attempts to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans gays from serving openly in the U.S. military was how the religious right tied it to another hot-button cultural issue: abortion.
This would certainly have caught the attention of socially conservative Republicans who were instrumental in defeating a measure aimed at its repeal in the U.S. Senate on Thursday night.
Many if not most conservative U.S. evangelicals were already strongly opposed to allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military — a point underscored by a Pentagon study unveiled at the end of November that found that military chaplains were strongly opposed to ending “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
That study noted that a large number of the military’s 3,000 chaplains — many of whom are evangelical – believe that “homosexuality is a sin and an abomination.” Evangelicals are also the staunchest supporters of the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and much of the military’s fighting ranks are almost certainly drawn from families that are conservative, patriotic and often religious.
In interviews I’ve had with people such as Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC) — an influential conservative lobby that is strongly evangelical — a related theme has been evangelical concerns about how repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” could impact the morale of stressed soldiers in the war zones.
This has been a constant theme on conservative Christian radio talk shows and blogs that reach a key base for the Republican Party.
“It’s not entirely clear, at least to me, that the legislation would have channeled tax-payer dollars to fund abortions at military bases or not.”
You are supposed to be a journalist. Read the text of the bill. Clearly this bill would NOT channel tax-payer dollars to fund abortions. The claim to the contrary is a cynical ploy taking advantage of the fact that no average person will read the bill.
You are a journalist. “Oh well, maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t” is not journalism, it’s a sad cop-out. Tell the truth and report the facts.
U.S. appeals court hears key California gay marriage case
Three federal appellate judges considering whether to allow gay marriage in California hear arguments on Monday in a case many expect to land in the U.S. Supreme Court and set national policy. California voters, with a reputation for social liberalism, shocked the United States in 2008 when they narrowly approved the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage only months after the top state court opened the door to same-sex weddings.
More than 40 U.S. states have outlawed such unions, but the California challenge could shape the nation if the Supreme Court decides to review the appeals court decision. A lower court struck down the ban earlier this year, ruling that marriage is a fundamental constitutional right and that the defenders of the ban showed no justifiable reason for limiting the institution to opposite-sex couples.
The ruling is on hold, though, while under appeal.
The Prop 8 ban proponents say the lower court ignored common wisdom and history that limits marriage to a man and a woman in order to spur procreation. Gay marriage proponents successfully argued in the lower court that the definition of marriage has changed over time, for instance including polygamy in some societies. Same-sex marriages would not harm the institution, they contended.
Read the full story by Peter Henderson here. Here is also a factbox on laws on gay marriage in the United States.
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So we attack a person without even giving him a chance.Talk about intolerance from those who claim to be so tolerant of others!
What does he say that that Catholic Church hasn’t always taught?That sin is sin,be it adultery or homosexual acts.We were all given freewill by God so we can either try and follow His teachings or we can go our own way and see if we end up in hell.The choice is each individuals.But please don’t try and accuse this Bishop of “backward ways and intolerance”.The tone of this article and those contributing to it shows greater intolerance and backward ways!
I pray for the New Archbishop of Berlin.May he win many souls for Christ.