Soon
after Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine suggested the
Catholic Church would change on same-sex marriage, the Bishop of
Richmond has said Catholic teaching on marriage is constant.
“More than a year after the
U.S.
Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage, and despite recent statements from
the campaign trail, the Catholic Church’s 2000-year-old teaching to the
truth about what constitutes marriage remains unchanged and resolute,”
Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond said Sept. 13.
“As Catholics, we believe all humans warrant dignity and deserve love
and respect, and unjust discrimination is always wrong,” he said. “Our
understanding of marriage, however, is a matter of justice and fidelity
to our Creator’s original design.”
Bishop DiLorenzo’s statement does not mention Kaine.
The former U.S. Senator is a parishioner at St. Elizabeth Catholic
Church in the Diocese of Richmond.
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[...] While the abortion lobby has showered Kaine with praise, several
U.S. Catholic bishops have challenged Kaine’s claim to being a faithful
Catholic by citing his open dissent from essential moral teachings of
the Church.
In a Facebook post titled “VP Pick, Tim Kaine, a Catholic?” Bishop
Thomas J. Tobin of Providence noted that Kaine “has been widely
identified as a Roman Catholic” while at the same time “he publicly
supports ‘freedom of choice’ for abortion, same-sex marriage, gay
adoptions, and the ordination of women as priests.”
“All of these positions are clearly contrary to well-established
Catholic teachings; all of them have been opposed by Pope Francis as
well,” Tobin wrote, dashing the left’s spurious claim that Kaine is
some kind of “Pope Francis Catholic.”
“Senator Kaine has said, ‘My faith is central to everything I do.’ But
apparently, and unfortunately, his faith isn’t central to his public,
political life,” Bishop Tobin concluded.
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