The bishops of Flanders, Belgium, are attempting to push homosexual “marriage” by giving official “blessings” and “services” to open homosexual couples.
A document issued on 20, September 2022, and published in the name of the Flemish bishops, includes a suggested service to bless homosexual unions. The wording overtly states that homosexual couples are “faithful” and “committed” to each other, and the service is made to resemble a marriage. According to reports:
“The Catholic bishops of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, published a document this Tuesday [20, September 2022] in favor of ‘pastoral closeness to homosexual person,’ including suggestions for a public church blessing of same-sex couples. This is likely the first time ever, worldwide, that a group of bishops has officially green-lighted such a public ceremony of blessing for a homosexual union as such, in direct contradiction to last year’s ban of such ‘liturgies’ by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” (Source: LifeSiteNews.com)
The “blessing” for homosexual unions is a scandalous contradiction of the Church’s sexual morality and Natural Law. While this “blessing” avoids the formula of a marriage, its structure and phrases clearly affirm a willingness to live together as a union. It confirms homosexuals in their sin by emphasizing union, fidelity and commitment to each other before God, not to mention the serious scandal to the Catholic faithful.
In the face of this outrage from the Flemish bishops, Cardinal Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, warned that this service is meant to be seen as a blessing for homosexuals in a “lasting, monogamous relationship.” To objections that these blessings are not actually a marriage, Cardinal Eijk replies: “Situations that are objectively wrong from a moral point of view [i.e., a sin] cannot be blessed. God’s grace does not shine on the path of sin.” (Source: NewDailyCompass.com)
The Cardinal warns further: “the wording of the community prayer…suggests that same-sex relationships can be morally justifiable.” This, he states, will confuse Catholics into thinking homosexual unions are “morally acceptable,” in addition to a gamut of other sexual moral depravities.
The purpose of these sacrilegious “blessings” is obvious: it is a blatant first step to having “Church-sanctioned” same-sex “marriages.”
American Catholics are uniting with the Catholic faithful in Flanders and across the globe to express the most emphatic rejection of this “blessing” for homosexuals. Please sign our petition to the Flemish bishops, urging them to retract this scandalous ceremony, and to stop contradicting Church teaching.