While gay and lesbian groups try to prosecute a Spanish bishop after he gave a sermon repeating the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexual behaviour,  and his subsequent endorsement of psychological treatment to help people to deal with same-sex attraction, an international group of Catholic doctors has come out in his support.

Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla of Alcala de Henares has been attacked in the liberal press after remarks made in a Good Friday sermon in which he condemned sexual practices he believes to be harmful – in line with Catholic moral teaching.

The International Federation of Catholic Doctors Associations (F.I.A.M.C.) in an April 17 statement (reported in CBCP News) voiced support for the bishop and defended his criticism of the destructive behaviours which he described within the local gay community.  The federation supported his remarks as a valid insight.

“Catholic doctors”, the statement said, “profoundly respect persons with homosexual traits,” but “do not support the practice of homosexuality.”

The bishop’s address provided a wide-ranging  critique of sexual behaviour in modern society and he lamented how some with same-sex attraction are encouraged to  “corrupt and prostitute themselves or go to gay night clubs” in order to “validate” their struggle.

The Federation pointed out the broader issues addressed by the bishop – such as the scourge of sex trafficking in Europe and controversial sex-education programs aimed at young children.

“Catholic doctors,” the statement said, “profoundly lament the failure of modern states and of public international institution to combat ‘sexual tourism,’ involving adults or children,”

They also joined the bishop in denouncing “the contents of some textbooks,” especially those used in Spain’s recently axed Education for Citizenry course, which encouraged children “to ‘explore’ all areas of sexuality.”

“We are right in every way to consider these lessons perverse,” the doctors said, “And Bishop Reig is right in every way to condemn these and other abuses of the human being.”

Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Plà’s Good Friday sermon was on “the death of the soul as a result of sin.”

Referring to various kinds of sinful behavior, including adultery, theft, and failure to pay wages to workers, Reig Plà added homosexual behavior to the list as well. With regard to each example of sin, the bishop spoke of the act itself, and the resulting destruction of the soul.

After expressions of outrage regarding the bishop’s statement, which reflects the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church on sexual deviance, Reig Plà gave an interview to the Internet news service Religion en Libertad (Religion in Liberty), in which he explained his statement in more detail, and added that homosexual tendencies can be cured through therapy.

In contemporary society, we are confronted with “a program of calculated ‘deconstruction’ that is tolerated in every setting (in education from the earliest stages of childhood, in part of the media, in work and leisure, etc.) which additionally includes the promotion and protection of a great number of evil laws and some powerful lobbying groups that determine what is politically correct, and therefore, socially acceptable,” said the bishop.

“Based on these factors, many children, adolescents, and adults are increasingly invited to question their sexual identity, and eventually they are urged to ‘verify and prove’ their ‘sexual preferences’, and some fall into the trap,” he added.

“Those of us priests who know about the private lives of people, listening to and helping those faithful who request it, know that the consequences for many people are suffering and destruction, colloquially speaking a ‘hell’ in their lives.”  You will find a fuller report on the controversy on LfeSiteNews.