Card. Kasper, ladies and gentlemen. The Gift that Keeps on Giving.

From LifeSite:

Cardinal Kasper: Homosexual unions are ‘analogous’ to Christian marriage [Sure! Both of them involve carbon-based life forms!]

March 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Cardinal Walter Kasper, whose theology appears to be the chief inspiration for Pope Francis’ doctrine on giving Holy Communion to people living in states of adultery in second marriages, now appears to be claiming that homosexual unions contain “elements” of Christian marriage and are even “analogous” to it in a way that is similar to the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian communities. [Get it? Those other Communities aren’t living the “ideal” but what they have is great.]

Moreover, the cardinal is attributing his claims to Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, despite the fact that the document explicitly contradicts him.

“The pope does not leave room for doubt over the fact that civil marriages, de facto unions, new marriages following a divorce (Amoris Laetitia 291) and unions between homosexual persons (Amoris Laetitia 250s.) do not correspond to the Christian conception of marriage,” writes Kasper in a recently-released book on Amoris Laetitia.

“He says, however, that some of these partners can realize in a partial and analogous way some elements in Christian marriage (Amoris Laetitia 292),” continues Kasper. [?!? Such as…. fighting over balancing the check book? Seriously. What on earth is he thinking? What is under consideration is either a proper sort of charity involved in proper friendship, or it is a deep twisting of friendship through other entirely uncharitable activities.]

Kasper compares such relationships with the relationship between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian groups, whom Vatican II says contain “elements of sanctification and truth” of the Church. [Sigh. Interesting comparison. Let’s turn the sock inside out. So, being Catholic is like being sacramentally married, and being a Lutheran is like … what? Being a couple of homosexuals?]

“Just as outside the Catholic Church there are elements of the true Church, in the above-mentioned unions there can be elements present of Christian marriage, although they do not completely fulfill, or do not yet completely fulfill, the ideal,” adds Kasper. [And there it is, ladies and gentlemen, “the ideal”! No one should be held to an “ideal”.]

The statements appear in Kasper’s new booklet, “The Message of Amoris Laetitia: A Fraternal Discussion,” which was recently published simultaneously in German and Italian.

In the same work, Kasper also insinuates that Amoris Laetitia opens the way to permit the use of contraception, a practice that is universally condemned in the Scriptures, Church Fathers, and the Papal Magisterium, most recently by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. [The gift that keeps on giving, ladies and gents.]

Kasper notes that in Amoris Laetitia, the Pope only “encourages the use of the method of observing the cycles of natural fertility,” and “does not say anything about other methods of family planning and avoids all casuistic definitions.” In the context with the book’s passages on communion for those who commit adultery in second “marriages,” which use similar language, Kasper appears to be claiming that the pope is allowing for exceptions to the Church’s condemnation of artificial birth control.

Kasper contradicts John Paul II – and even Amoris Laetitia

Kasper’s words regarding homosexual unions appear to directly contradict not only the doctrines of John Paul II but even Amoris Laetitia, the document he purports to explain.

Under the papacy of John Paul II and the administration of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), the Holy See’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expressly repudiated the idea that homosexual unions can be “analogous” to marriage. The document was issued in 2003 and received the approval of John Paul II. [HUH? 2003? That was 15 years ago! So much has changed since then.]

“There are [NB:] absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,” the Congregation declared. “Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts close the sexual act to the gift of life.’ They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

The paragraphs in Amoris Laetitia cited by Kasper to justify treating homosexual unions as “analogous” to marriage contain no clear reference to homosexual unions but simply refer to the “constructive elements in those situations which do not yet or no longer correspond to her teaching on marriage.” [Okay.]

However, Amoris Laetitia states in paragraph 251, “In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, ‘as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’” Francis and the Synod Fathers are quoting the same 2003 document of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith mentioned above.

[…]