Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now, possible signals that the Roman Catholic Church may be softening its attitudes on gays and divorced Catholics. That’s what some observers are taking from a report out today marking the midway point of a two-week meeting of bishops at the Vatican.
Joining us from Rome to fill us in on all this is John Allen. He covers the Vatican and the Catholic Church for The Boston Globe and its Web site, Crux. He also serves as senior Vatican analyst for CNN.
John Allen, welcome back to the “NewsHour.”
I was just reading, some gay rights groups are calling this a seismic change in a positive direction. How do you see it?
JOHN ALLEN, The Boston Globe: Well, Judy, I think it’s important to be clear about what this is and what it is not.
What it is not is a change in Catholic teaching on marriage. The bishops at this gathering, which is called a synod, have made it abundantly clear there is not going to be any change in Catholic doctrine, which is that marriage is a relationship between a man and woman that is permanent and it’s open to life.
Now, that said, the bishops have also made clear that they want a more positive way of engaging people who don’t live that teaching, whether we’re talking about gays and lesbians, whether we’re talking about people who are cohabitating outside a marriage, whether it’s people who have divorced and remarried or whatever.
They don’t want the first thing they hear from the Catholic Church to be a note of condemnation. They want it to be a note of friendship and then, after that, we will see where the conversation goes. So, fundamentally, this is a change in tone, rather than a change in content. But given the fact that gays and lesbians in particular have become quite accustomed to hearing messages of condemnation and disapproval from the Catholic Church, I guess, you know, you could call that a seismic change in tonality, if not a dramatic change in content.
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