QUITO, Ecuador–A top Roman Catholic official said the country’s draft constitution is incompatible with the faith because of its provisions on abortion and same-sex unions. A special assembly controlled by leftist President Rafael Correa&rsquo
QUITO, Ecuador–A top Roman Catholic official said the country’s draft constitution is incompatible with the faith because of its provisions on abortion and same-sex unions.
A special assembly controlled by leftist President Rafael Correa’s political movement recently approved the 444-article constitution, which will be put to a national referendum Sept. 28. More than 90 percent of Ecuador’s nearly 14 million people are Catholic.
Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil criticized the draft charter for including what he called ambiguous abortion laws and granting the same benefits to same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples.
“A union between homosexuals is not a family,” Arregui said in a news conference Monday. “We’re going to request that the entire Christian conscience takes note of the nonnegotiable incompatibilities of this constitution with our faith.” He also said the proposed document is “leaving the door open to the deletion of a new baby.”
Theology professor leaving traditionalist seminary over Bible claims
GLENSIDE, Pa.-A theology professor who was suspended for suggesting the bible was the work of both God and people has agreed to leave the conservative seminary where he taught.
In a joint statement, Westminster Theological Seminary and professor Peter Enns said they “arrived at mutually agreeable terms.” No other details were released.
Westminster trustees voted in March to suspend Enns, a tenured 14- year veteran of the school, because of his 2005 book, Inspiration and Incarnation.
Enns’ book was written to help students grapple with recent scholarship suggesting contradictions in the bible, especially the Old Testament. In it, Enns urges readers to understand the bible is both divine and human.
Trustees said it appeared that Enns had defied the school’s founding principle, based on the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, the core creed of the Presbyterian tradition. It says that scripture is solely the word of God and proclaims the “infallible truth” and “entire perfection” of the bible.
Westminster, located near Philadelphia, was founded in 1929 by former Princeton Theological Seminary faculty who believed that school was becoming too liberal. (AP)
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
About Post Author
