Pakistani Catholics Defend Pope’s Call to Decriminalize Homosexuality
In Pakistan, Catholic leaders have refuted ministers from other Christian churches in their country who have strongly criticized Pope Francis’ statement earlier this year that “being homosexual isn’t a crime.” Francis’ comment, made in a January interview with The Associated Press, has drawn ire from the nation’s Christian minority and and also its Muslim majority.
Pastor Jamil Nasir, a Canada-based Pentecostal leader with a significant Pakistani following, posted a video online entitled “Fatwa [religions edict] by Pope Francis,” in which he interpreted the pope’s statement as a promotion of homosexuality. In previous videos, he has called the pope “the beast in Revelation” and claimed that the church has “bowed down” to an “agenda to end the family unit.” A Pakistani television show also took aim at the pope’s comments.
In response, UCA News reported:
“The Catholic Bishops Commission for Catechetics (CBCC) posted a series of statements on Christian morality and human dignity on its Facebook page.
“‘Small churches use such statements to convert Catholics. They seek opportunity for such propaganda,’ said Emmanuel Neno, executive secretary of the CBCC.
“Neno said Nasir and like-minded evangelical pastors quote from the Bible to openly condemn people with homosexual tendencies while Muslims, who follow Sharia, also react strongly on the issue.
“‘They don’t understand what the pope is saying. It is difficult to speak about homosexuality in our context,’ he said referring to the Islamic nation, where some even advocate death for same-sex couples.”
Jasber Ashiq, director of Christian TV Pakistan, which is a ministry of the Archdiocese of Lahore, explained to UCA News why the outlet released a video responding to critics. Ashiq stated:
“We don’t favor homosexuals but condemn killing them….We were boiling inside and had to think long and hard and choose our words very carefully for the video statement. Our faith helps us to resist the cultural pressure from society.”
This controversy in Pakistan highlights the positive impact that Pope Francis’ repeated, clear condemnation of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation can have by leading other church leaders to follow his example. In societies where criminalizing LGBTQ+ relationships and identities is normative, Catholic leaders lean more and more into their important role of defending the human rights of all God’s children.
—Ariell Watson Simon (she/her), New Ways Ministry, April 14, 2023
Thank you Pakistan for applying critical thinking skills to very difficult moral issues. Our shared burden of humanity is to protect empathy which is damaged or missing in a significant portion of population’s brains from either poor upbringing not developing that region or emotional abuse damaging it. It’s a physical damage we cannot repair and the behavior that results is the cause of all violence and war. Eradicate racial, religious and gender supremacist ideologies by screening for this brain damage/ atrophy issue. The do unto others of empathy is missing in large groups of ideologues in many malign political and pseudo religious ideologies. A faith is not faith if it has no empathy for others it’s a death cult.