Portugal has no other worries: in the holy city of Fatima, the Pope calls for gay marriage to be abolished. It threatens the community.
Many Catholics believe that on 13 May 1917, the Virgin Mary came to the small Portuguese village of Fatima and spoke to three poor shepherd children. In three visions, she is said to have predicted the start of the Second World War, the rise of the Soviet Union to superpower status and the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981.
On 12 May 2010, Pope Benedict XVI gave a sermon to thousands of employees of Catholic charities in what has become Portugal's most important place of pilgrimage and intervened in Portuguese daily politics.
Among other things, he said that he was deeply grateful "for any kind of initiative" that would support the "fundamental and most important values of human coexistence", including "the sacred, indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman". He thus made it clear that, in his view, same-sex marriages are among "some of the most insidious and dangerous challenges to the common good in our time". This is tantamount to a direct call to those present to oppose gay marriage in Portugal with all the means at their disposal.
Last January, the socialist minority government under Prime Minister Jose Socrates passed a law opening up marriage to homosexual couples - in the face of massive opposition from the conservative opposition. It still has to be signed by President Anibal Cavaco Silva. He is under enormous political pressure to veto the bill. Should he do so, parliament can still pass the law after another vote.
(Paul Schulz)
