A 26 year old paraplegic man who wanted to get married in a Catholic church in Italy was recently denied a church wedding because he is impotent.
Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo, Italy said, "No bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment" of the marriage.
After being turned away by the church, the man and his fiancee, who was aware of his impotence, were married in a civil ceremony in Viterbo.
While I'm no fan of marriage, I'm appalled at this. This denial, totally lacking in compassion, shows that the official Catholic position on marriage is that it must be about having children and that any other reason, including love, is entirely irrelevant to them. Never mind that the world is already groaning under the weight of overpopulation. And never mind that there are millions of children waiting for homes that this couple could possibly adopt.
I'm wondering if they also refuse to marry elderly people past the age of reproduction or sterile people who don't have handicaps that are visually detectable? We already know they won't marry same sex couples, but denying a church wedding to a disabled person is a new one on me.
Thoughts?
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1 comment:
This is disgusting. To get married in my catholic church, we had to say we were "open to the idea of children" even though we knew we didn't want any. What a crock.
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