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'People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual'
Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan
Vatican rebukes cardinal who said gays won't go to heaven
The Vatican has issued an indirect rebuke to the cardinal who said that gays and trans people "will never enter the kingdom of heaven" and are "an insult to God".
Javier Lozano Barragan, until recently the Vatican's top health official, made the claim to the Italian news agency Ansa on Wednesday. "Transsexuals and gays will never enter the heavenly kingdom. It's not me who says so, it's St Paul," he said, citing the epistle to the Romans.
But Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican's press office, has stated that the website was not considered to be an authority on "complex and delicate issues such as homosexuality". He said that the Vatican's official position was that while homosexual acts are sinful, they are the result of a disorder and gay people should be treated with respect.
Barragan, who still has positions on various church bodies, had gone on to say: "People are not born homosexual, they become homosexual, for different reasons: education issues or because they did not develop their own identity during adolescence. It may not be their fault, but acting against nature and the dignity of the human body is an insult to God."
However, he added that this did not mean that discrimination against gay people was acceptable. "Homosexuality is therefore a sin, but this does not justify any form of discrimination. God alone has the right to judge. We on earth cannot condemn, and as human beings we all have the same rights," he said.
Barragan's remarks drew a prompt response from the Italian gay rights group Arcigay, which said: "Yes it's true, we won't ever get into your heaven, which is a murky and unjust place."
