{"id":2397,"date":"2014-10-06T06:04:51","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T06:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2397"},"modified":"2014-10-06T06:04:51","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T06:04:51","slug":"homosexual-catholic-groups-mount-pressure-on-pope-for-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=2397","title":{"rendered":"Homosexual Catholic Groups Mount Pressure On Pope For Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"homo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A section of Gay and lesbian Catholic groups are holding an international congress in Portugal this week as they seek to make their voices heard by the Vatican.
\nOpening on Monday in the southern resort of Portimao, the three-day event aims to formally federate some 30 associations representing homosexual Catholics from around the world.<\/p>\n

These groups intend to press for an \u201curgent change of attitude from Catholic authorities\u201d towards gay parishioners, said Jose Leote whose group Rumos Novos (New Directions) is organising the event.<\/p>\n

Their congress coincides with an extraordinary synod which began at the Vatican on Sunday to review the Church\u2019s attitude to marriage, cohabitation and divorce.
\nFifteen to 20 delegates will meet in person in Portugal, with the same number joining in by video conference, to draw up a statement to send to Pope Francis and the nearly 200 bishops meeting for two weeks in Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus began with 12, and look at what that has become,\u201d said Francis DeBernardo, head of the US-based \u201cNews Ways Ministry\u201d which represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics.<\/p>\n

DeBernardo intends to act as a bridge between the congress and the synod that opened Sunday in Rome, where he will also be holding a seminar on the place of gays in the Church.<\/p>\n

The US group wrote to the pope a few months ago, thanking him for his openness to discussing LGBT issues and urging him to go further.
\n\u201cI think this will be a major question of the synod,\u201d said DeBernardo. \u201cThe topic of homosexuality is so widespread in so many societies and it affects so many people, not only those who are LGBT, but their families, friends, co-workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Catholic synod could potentially lead to change in attitudes to marriage, cohabitation and divorce. While the Roman Catholic Church is certainly not about to embrace gay marriage, it could send out a signal of compassion by making it clear priests should be ready to baptise the children of same-sex couples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A section of Gay and lesbian Catholic groups are holding an international congress in Portugal this week as they seek to make their voices heard by the Vatican. Opening on Monday in the southern resort of Portimao, the three-day event aims to formally federate some 30 associations representing homosexual Catholics from around the world. These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/homo.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-CF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions\/2399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}