Papal Nuncio Says OK to "Gay Marriage"

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        The papal nuncios, who are the diplomatic representatives of the Vatican city state, have done their part to make life difficult for Father Nicholas Gruner. It was a papal nuncio dispatched by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who flew from Delhi to Hyderabad in an effort (unsuccessful) to browbeat the Archbishop of Hyderabad into withdrawing his incardination of Father Gruner — the aim being to prevent Father Gruner’s incardination anywhere but Avellino, Italy, to which Sodano was trying to force him to return.

        It is hardly surprising that the nuncios, being political operatives, would tend to view even religious matters with a political pragmatism that undermines the Faith. Thus we read in the Guardian of May 5, 2004 that "The Pope's ambassador to one of Europe's leading Catholic countries has hinted that the church should ‘acknowledge’ gay partnerships - a significant crack in the Vatican's resolute opposition to ‘evil and deviant’ gay relationships."

        The nuncio in question, Monsignor Manuel Monteiro de Castro, who is the nuncio to Spain, is reported to have told a conference of Spanish that "The new political situation in which we are living in Spain sets new challenges in the spreading of the Gospel and we must meet those challenges in an appropriate manner." Notice here how politics is held to influence the Faith, rather than the other way around. Speaking of the move in every nation to "legalize" so-called "marriages" between sodomites, de Castro went on to say that "there are other forms of cohabitation and it is good that they be recognised".

        Just like that, the Papal Nuncio to Spain undermined the Pope’s stated opposition to homosexual "marriage." Just to cover himself, however, de Castro said that legalized homosexual unions "are not the same as marriage. We will leave the term marriage for that which it has always referred to, and other arrangements should be given other names." This way, you see, de Castro can say he never expressed approval of homosexual "marriage" — just homosexual "marriage" by another name.

        As the Guardian noted, de Castro’s remarks "were in sharp contrast to last year’s Vatican guidelines which called on Catholics to campaign against the legalisation of gay relationships, calling them evil, deviant and a grave threat to society." Will there be any measures taken to discipline de Castro, the Pope’s own representative, for his public dissent from papal teaching on this matter? Of course not. But let a lone priest in Canada dissent from "Pope" Sodano I’s party line on Fatima, and the Vatican apparatus Sodano controls will spring into action — even sending a papal nuncio on a special plane flight from Delhi to Hyderabad.

        Certain delusional devotees of the "springtime of Vatican II" refer to the post-conciliar Church as the "Church of the New Advent." It is more like the Church of the Double Standard. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church remains under siege by what Pope Paul VI himself called an "invasion of the Church by worldly thinking." The capitulation of Msgr. de Castro is but the latest example of that invasion at work.