A top Italian
cardinal was scheduled to address Italian bishops
Monday amid a debate in this overwhelmingly Catholic country
over whether the government should grant
unmarried couples--likely including gay
couples--some form of legal recognition. Cardinal
Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian bishops'
conference and the pope's vicar for Rome, was expected
to reiterate the church's opposition to unmarried couples
and its defense of families as unions of men and women
founded on marriage.
The debate was sparked last week when Romano
Prodi, the center-left leader expected to challenge
Premier Silvio Berlusconi in general elections next
year, said he favored giving legal status to unmarried
couples. Prodi stopped short of proposing legalization of
same-sex marriages, such as is the case in Spain, but
said he was looking to a 1999 French law that gives
unmarried couples, including gay and
lesbian couples, extensive legal rights if they
register their unions with the state.
Italy, where Vatican influence is strong, does
not recognize unions of unmarried couples, including
same-sex relationships. Gay rights groups have been
pushing for legal recognition for common-law couples in
hopes that the move might pave the way for granting
legal status to gay couples as well.
In an interview published Sunday in Italian
paper La Repubblica, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan,
president of the Vatican's health department, said proposals
to give recognition to unmarried couples can only
create confusion and threaten traditional families.
(AP)
