Bishop slams letter claims against gays

The Auxiliary Bishop has stepped in to censure an incendiary letter – that stated there could only be lust, not love between homosexuals – and make the Church’s teachings clear. “Joe Zammit has managed to do a great disservice to the Catholic ethos by presenting a caricature of the Church’s teaching on gay relationships,” Mgr Charles Scicluna told The Sunday Times. He felt he had to step in and reply to the letters Mr Zammit, an ardent churchgoer from Paola, wrote in The Times sparking a furore with their provocative statements distinguishing between love and lust in gay relationships. Mr Zammit wrote: “Love comes from God, unites the couple and draws them to him; lust comes from the devil, separates the couple from God and draws them to hell.” In his latest letter, published on Valentine’s Day, Mr Zammit continued to stoke the fire when he said: “On the spiritual level, homosexual acts are against God’s loving law for us. On the natural level, they go against nature’s intrinsic purpose of all its sexual organs.” To quell the debate, championed by a person who armed himself by quoting the commandments, Mgr Scicluna insisted Mr Zammit’s opinion “does not represent the teachings of...