Vatican no longer “welcoming” gays in draft report translation
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is watering down a ground-breaking overture to gays – but only if they speak English.
After a draft report by bishops debating family issues came under criticism from many conservative English-speaking bishops, the Vatican released a new English translation on Thursday.
A section initially entitled “Welcoming homosexuals” is now “Providing for homosexual persons,” and the tone of the text is significantly colder.
The initial English version – released Monday along with the original – accurately reflected the Italian version in both letter and spirit, and contained a remarkable tone of acceptance to gays. The other translations were similarly faithful to the Italian and didn’t deviate in tone.
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Conservatives were outraged, and the English was changed.
The first English version asked if the church was capable of “welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities.” The new version asks if the church is “capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing … them … a place of fellowship in our communities.”
The first version said homosexual unions can often constitute a “precious support in the life of the partners.” The new one says gay unions often constitute “valuable support in the life of these persons.”
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Other changes were made in other sections of the text, but without significantly altering the meaning or tone.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, told “CBS This Morning” Wednesday that parishes and communities in the New York Archdiocese are already welcoming.
“This is a community of people who are trying our best to respond to the teaching of Jesus Christ, to open ourselves up to His grace so that we can live His message fully, and to seek His mercy when we can’t,” Dolan said. “It’s a tribute to Pope Francis that he’s affirming this positive embrace of the church and calling for us to make it even more dynamic.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said English-speaking bishops had requested the changes on the grounds that the first translation was hasty and error-ridden.
When Lombardi was shown how significantly the meaning had changed, he pledged to investigate and didn’t rule out a third version.
Lombardi stressed that the original Italian remains the official text, and noted that the draft is being revised top-to-bottom for a final report which will go to a vote among bishops on Saturday.
If two-thirds approve it, the report will form the basis of discussions in dioceses around the world before another meeting of bishops next year, and ultimately a teaching document by Pope Francis.
The church is starting to follow the pope’s lead in tailoring the message for today’s more secular world, according to Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerhl.
“We’re dealing with a different climate – a different moral climate, a different intellectual climate – and given that, we have to find ways of speaking so that the church’s teaching gets a hearing,” Wuerhl told CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.
Based on the complaints to the original text and the number of amendments proposed Thursday, the drafting committee appointed by the pope has its work cut out for it if it wants to get a two-thirds majority.
The Vatican released summaries of the amendments from the 10 working groups that have been negotiating all week. They are near-unanimous in insisting that church doctrine on family life be more fully asserted and explained – that marriage is between a man and woman, open to children – and that faithful Catholic families should be held up as models and encouraged rather than focus on family problems and “irregular” unions.
The English-speaking working groups were among the most critical. The one headed by Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of South Africa complained about the translation of the draft report and used the new “providing for” homosexuals language of the revised English translation, suggesting that he or someone in his group might have requested the change.
On Thursday, Francis added Napier, as well as an Australian bishop, to the drafting committee that will compose the final document. It was widely noticed that Francis’ initial appointees were largely progressives whom he named after conservatives were elected to head the working groups proposing the amendments.
African bishops, who are among the most conservative on family issues, were not included in his initial picks.
Conservative Catholics Strike Back Against Synod Document Welcoming Gays
VATICAN CITY (RNS) A day after signaling a warmer embrace of gays and lesbians and divorced Catholics, conservative cardinals hit back strongly Tuesday (Oct. 14), with one insisting that an about-face on church teaching is “not what we are saying at all.”
After Monday’s release of a document with a softer tone on issues such as “welcoming homosexuals,” American Cardinal Raymond Burke and German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller complained the media was getting a biased view of the bishops’ debate.
“It seems to me that information is being manipulated in a way that gives comment to only one theory instead of faithfully reporting the various positions expressed,” Burke said in a full-page interview published in Italian by the conservative daily, Il Foglio.
“This worries me very much because a significant number of bishops do not accept the ideas of an opening, but few (people) know that.”
In a separate interview published Tuesday, Burke told the conservative U.S. outlet Catholic World Report that the bishops “cannot accept” any changes because they are not based in Scripture or church teaching.
Monday’s mid-point report was released Monday as the the nearly 200 bishops and lay delegates to the Synod on the Family called by Pope Francis broke into discussion groups.
The summary document, presented to the media by Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo, immediately provoked the fury of conservatives about how he and his colleagues were interpreting the spectrum of views aired on the synod floor.
In what looked like strenuous damage control, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, told a packed media conference Tuesday that this was a “working document, not a final document.”
South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier told journalists the document had been misunderstood and that’s why it had caused “such an upset” among participants because the synod had not yet ended.
“The message has gone out, it is not what we are saying at all, ” Napier said of the media coverage. “Once it is out there there’s no way of retrieving it. It is not a true position. Whatever goes out after looks like damage control.”
Media reports claimed that the controversial summary document provoked 41 responses inside the synod from bishops, including staunch conservatives like Burke, who heads the Vatican’s highest court; Mueller, the Vatican’s doctrine czar; and Australian Cardinal George Pell, the powerful finance minister.
“The phrasing may lead people to believe that the document reflects the views of the synod,” Napier said. “We couldn’t have possibly agreed on it.”
Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, widely seen as a moderate and one of the cardinals charged with writing the synod’s final report to be released Saturday, declined to comment on the complaints but insisted the document was a “big step forward” in addressing issues concerning marriage and the family.
“What we saw in the document … was the first effort of this synod to present the issues in a way that expressed that we understand what the concerns are, what the issues are,” he said outside the Paul VI hall Tuesday.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, too, rejected claims the document’s views were an “earthquake” in the church’s approach.
“It’s not the final word and we’re going to have a lot to say about it,” Dolan said in a radio interview. “And there were some that said we probably in our final statement need to be much more assertive about the timeless teaching of the church.”
Much of the attention has now turned to Pope Francis himself, and whether or how he will work to ensure that the the synod’s final report matches his own inclusive, pastoral approach.
Marco Tosatti, from the Italian daily La Stampa, said he would pay anything to know what the pope is scribbling on the many notes he passes to the synod’s secretary-general, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, throughout the synod sessions.
In his daily homily on Monday, Francis said “God has often reserved surprises for his people.” Burke, in his interview with Catholic World Report, said a statement by Francis “is long overdue.”
Whatever comes out of this week’s synod is simply a prelude to a follow-up synod in October 2015. Or, as Cardinal Anthony Tagle from the Philippines, put it: “The drama continues.”
SOURCE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/14/conservative-catholics-gays_n_5984096.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592