Vatican-funded Group Comes Out for Equality

The chief executive of Marriage Care, a marriage counseling organization partly funded by the Catholic Church, voiced his dissent with the Vatican’s teaching that same-sex couples are unfit to raise children.

Terry Prendergast, the chief executive of the organization, pointed out that same-sex couples who lead good lives, follow the church’s gospel, and raise children healthfully are nonetheless continuously “consigned to the dustbin,” the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reports.

Prendergast added the families are advertisements for the church but are often disregarded. He will present these statements when he addresses Quest, a group of gay Catholics.

A church spokesperson for England and Wales rebuffed Prendergast’s comments, telling the Herald Catholic, “Defining ‘family’ is a notoriously difficult task. Yet the views expressed by Terry Prendergast about the definition of family and marriage are clearly not a reflection of the Church's teaching, nor those of the Bishops’ Conference.”