Brazil’s Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, who was named a cardinal by Pope Francis last week, has insisted that homosexual acts are only sinful for Christians and that gay marriages should be permitted.
Cardinal Steiner told LifeSiteNews that the Church should not try to force its beliefs on non-Christians, citing the principle of not imposing confessional morals on non-Christians.
“How do we say if it is a sin if they do not live the Christian faith?” Steiner asked, regarding non-Christian gay couples.
“This is not about a fundamentally moral question,” Steiner said. This is about life. This is a question about a son of God.”
Christian teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts has always been based on natural law, which means that the Church considers such acts to be objectively immoral for anyone, regardless of religious affiliation.
According to the Catholic Church’s Catechism, “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to natural law,” and thus “cannot be approved under any circumstances.”
The Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF) issued a document in 2003 asserting that “marriage exists solely between a man and a woman,” and that this truth is “evident to right reason and recognised as such by all the major cultures of the world.”