MALTA – The auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, Charles Scicluna has weighed in to condemn a provocative letter written by a zealous Catholic churchgoer.
Pinknews.com repoted that Joe Zammit, a devoted Catholic from Paola in Malta, wrote a series of letters in the Times of Malta with offensive statements distinguishing between love and lust in same-sex relationships.
In a recent letter, published on Valentine’s Day Zammit stated: “On the spiritual level, homosexual acts are against God’s loving law for us. On the natural level, they go against nature’s intrinsic purpose of all its sexual organs.”
According to the Pinknews report Bishop Scicluna felt compelled to step in and dismissed Mr Zammit’s comments saying his opinion “does not represent the teachings of the Church”.
Bishop Scicluna told the Sunday Times of Malta: “Joe Zammit has managed to do a great disservice to the Catholic ethos by presenting a caricature of the Church’s teaching on gay relationships.”
Bishop Scicluna maintained that “Gay people are not called to marriage which is the permanent union between one man and one woman open to the gift of parenthood,” but then added, “they are indeed called to chaste friendship and chaste friendship is chaste love.”
“To say, as Mr. Zammit keeps harping, that ‘there can never be love but only lust between homosexuals’ is to deny the truth of what the Church teaches.”
