Will the church at some point give its blessing for gay and lesbian couples? Too many people were excluded for a long time.'īonny said the open-minded spirit and pastoral focus of Pope Francis have given him the courage to speak out about issues that are important and pressing for today’s believers. We should not deny that dealing with these issues within the church has brought injuries and traumas. “In his or her life,” he said, “everyone has to deal with relationships, friendship, family, and children's education. At that time, Bonny stressed that the church urgently needs to connect with contemporary society, showing more respect for homosexuality, divorced people and modern kinds of relationships. The Christian ethic is based on lasting relationships where exclusivity, loyalty, and care are central to each other.'īonny made headlines in September when he issued a letter to the Vatican in preparation for the Synod on the family in October. … The intrinsic values are more important to me than the institutional question.

Just as there are a variety of legal frameworks for partners in civil society, one must arrive at a diversity of forms in the church. 'We have to look inside the church for a formal recognition of the kind of interpersonal relationship that is also present in many gay couples. 'There should be recognition of a diversity of forms,' he said. The official teaching that the Catholic church can recognize only male-female committed relationships has to change, Bonny said. Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp, Belgium, has called for ecclesiastical recognition of gay relationships, according to an interview published in De Morgen, a Belgian newspaper, on Dec.

Archbishop bonny circuli minores