The church will never accept homosexuality – Palmer Buckle

The Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra has reiterated the Catholic Church’s position on gayism and homosexuality indicating that the church has always considered the act as “intrinsically and morally disordered.”

Archbishop Palmer Buckle speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues explained that “intrinsically, means that in itself, sex was meant for a purpose and Genesis Chapter 1 vs 26-28 makes it very clear – Let us make man in our own image and likeness, God said.

“Male and female, God created them… Then God blessed them and said - Be fruitful, increase and multiply and fill the whole earth. So sex and sexuality belong to the original aim of God when he created them - male and female.

“So man was meant to enter into a heterosexual relationship, either as a man to a woman or a woman to a man.”

His comments come on the back of the debate on homosexuality and the recent endorsement of the act by the American Supreme Court which has made it acceptable in that country.

In Africa, the act is seriously frowned upon and many have condemned it stating that it is not the way of life of the African. Whereas only three countries on the African continent have legalized the act, many have spoken quite openly against it.

Archbishop Palmer Buckle further indicated that “anything that does not favour procreation of the human species is disordered and does not order or augur well… so the church has always been against homosexuality. That a person may have a tendency, may have an inclination, this is a scientific issue that needs to be found out or needs to be consolidated and approved…

“But up till now, there’s been no scientific proof that a person for instance has genes that are ordered towards homosexuality. Now the church believes that every human being is a property of a larger society and he or she must be contributing to the common good or greater good of society…”

He further indicated that it is on the back of some of these reasons that “homosexuality we believe is turning sex inward and making it not fruitful and we think that that self centeredness that homosexuality brings about is contrary to the common good of society so the church has always considered homosexuality morally and intrinsically disordered.”

Asked what the church does to members of its clergy who are found to be practicing the act of homosexuality, the Accra Metropolitan Archbishop said “if a priest should be found indulging in it, definitely he is off what he promised to stand in for. I can tell you, when we are training young people to become priests and we find out that somebody is gay, that means he is active and propagating it, we think the person is not to be considered for the priesthood because the person stands totally in contradiction with what God meant us to be.”

He concluded that “when it is known that this person is a homosexual or is gay, we normally withdraw them from service. They are withdrawn from service immediately, that’s the first thing we do. Secondly we normally put them through therapy. The person himself must be willing to be helped and must have accepted that I have this inclination, I have this tendency which is contrary to what I stand for….

“We have come round to realise that it is not very easy. Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that the person must be withdrawn from society so that the person can be given the chance to start really looking at themselves totally and entirely.”