Czech cardinal Dominik Duka has fallen in behind the homophobia of the Polish bishops and warned against the “atheistic” and “satanic” elements of LGBT “ideology”.

Driving the news

Duka, the Archbishop of Prague, issued a statement Friday in support of the latest Polish Bishops’ broadside against the “offensive” of “LGBT+ ideology”.

Polish Bishops’ President Stanislaw Gadecki had insisted the “respect” due to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community cannot lead to the acceptance of the LGBT+ “ideology”.

He said the LGBT+ movement is imposing a “totalitarianism” that “aims to revolutionize social customs and interpersonal relationships” and “denies the natural gender difference and complementarity between men and women”.

Duka – who is also Primate of the Czech Republic and President of the Czech Bishops’ Conference – “joined” Gadecki’s declaration and “invited” the Slovak and Hungarian Bishops to do the same.

The cardinal also accused LGBT+ “disciples” of “aggressive and sometimes hateful rhetoric”.

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One level deeper

As the Czech Bishops’ Conference note was careful to point out, this is not the first time Duka has launched an unabashed attack on LGBT+ people.

In 2011, the cardinal pressured the then-Prague mayor to cancel the Czech capital’s first-ever Pride Parade, saying the event promoted a “loose lifestyle that is not responsible, dignified or beautiful”.

Duka was unsuccessful in his lobbying on that occasion.

In 2015, too, the cardinal blocked the Academic Parish of Prague from hosting Pride Parade events.

Although the 2015 events were organised by Logos, a gay Christian group, and by Sister Jeannine Gramick, an American nun specialising in pastoral care for gays and lesbians, Duka excused his censorship saying that “most participants are not believers and have no intention of addressing their relationship with the Church”.

“Since I do not think people with this sexual orientation are discriminated against in our country, it is not right for us to advocate things which are in direct conflict with the Catholic Church’s teachings”, the cardinal added at the time.

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