Ahead of Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia next month and a Vatican synod on family matters in October, some 470,000 individuals have signed an online petition urging the church leader to condemn homosexual unions and the “hedonistic propaganda” of the “decades-long sexual revolution.”
Among those who signed the petition: Rick Santorum, Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights Armando Valladares, Archbishop of the Military Services Rev. Timothy Broglio, CitizenLink CEO Tom Minnery, and Family Research Council Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg.
AFP reports:
The Filial Appeal on the Future of the Family, launched by a group describing itself as an alliance of lay Catholics and pro-Life organisations, has also secured the backing of more than 100 senior clerics, including many bishops from the developing world and American cardinal Raymond Burke, an arch-conservative who has been sidelined within the Vatican hierarchy since Francis was elected two years ago.
The petition claims that a first synod held last year had caused, “widespread confusion arising from the possibility that a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery — by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion — and would virtually accept even homosexual unions when such practices are categorically condemned as being contrary to divine and natural law.”
Read the full anti-gay appeal letter here.
