"Church is Your Home": Bishop says to Gays & Lesbians

Bishop Raul Vera Lopez

Celebrating Mass for participants in a diocesan-endorsed forum on sexual diversity, Bishop Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo told gays and lesbians, “The church is your home.

“Jesus founded the church to bring in those on the outside, for those suffering exclusion and rejection … so that they find the love of God,” he said March 27.

Bishop Vera has made the inclusion of homosexuals in the Catholic Church a priority in his northern Mexican diocese, which has a reputation for championing human rights issues.

The Diocese of Saltillo recently held the “Fourth Sexual Diversity, Family and Religion Forum” and now sponsors a ministry for homosexuals that promotes the ideas of providing gays and lesbians with expanded legal protections and human rights — along with an expanded sense of dignity for individuals whose emergence from the margins of society has caused conflict for many Catholics.

Bishop Vera told Catholic News Service he objects to the mentality of love the sinner and hate the sin promoted by many Christians and the view that people are “homosexual by choice.”

“I can’t judge a gay person or a lesbian by their sexual preferences,” Bishop Vera said. 

“The most important thing for us is that they have legal protections. Period.”

He emphasized that gays will not marry in the Catholic Church and the sacrament of marriage is exclusively for heterosexual couples, even though he endorsed a 2007 law in Coahuila state — which includes his diocese — allowing same-sex civil unions.

Bishop Vera said the church needed to better address the issue of same-sex couples adopting children, too.

“How am I going to evangelize to these people who already have children in their care?” he asked.