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Cardinal:
Children Of Gay Couples
Cannot Be
Baptized
by Ben Thompson
365Gay.com
From the Web,
July 15, 2005
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Ottawa -- A Canadian cardinal
who had been considered a possible successor to Pope John Paul says that the
children of married same-sex couples cannot be baptized in the Catholic Church.
Testifying at a Senate committee hearing into the same-sex marriage bill Marc
Cardinal Ouellet said that the Conference of Catholic Bishops has decided that
if both parents want to sign the certificate of baptism the church will not
allow the blessing to take place.
Ouellet said that the decision is one of several that have arisen in the Church
as a result of same-sex marriage. Gay marriage is already legal in Quebec
-- Ouellet is from Quebec City -- and all but two provinces and two territories.
The bill before the Senate would extend same-sex marriage to those areas of the
country where gays cannot currently wed.
"If I take the example of the ceremony of baptism, according to our canon law,
we cannot accept the signatures of two fathers or two mothers as parents of an
infant," Cardinal Ouellet told the committee.
"With a law that makes these unions official, situations of this will multiply
and this threatens to disturb not just the use of our territory, but also our
archives and other aspects of the life of our communities."
The cardinal also said that same-sex marriage threatens religious freedom.
He told the committee that priests no longer feel comfortable preaching the
morality of their own church for fear of being branded homophobes.
"There's a climate taking shape where we don't dare say what we think anymore or
we don't dare teach,'' he said.
"Even in the pulpit we feel threatened in teaching the church's sexual morality.
... That's also part of religious freedom.''
But Ouellet also said that he believed it would be wrong to do as some church
leaders have recommended - excommunicate or refuse communion to proponents of
same-sex marriage, abortion or any other violation of church doctrine.
Despite Ouellet's remarks the committee approved the legislation. It will
be voted on by the full Senate next week. The bill has already passed the
House of Commons.
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