Dolan Says Catholic Church Should Be More Welcoming to Gays and Lesbians

In two television interviews on Easter Sunday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the Catholic Church could be more welcoming of gays and lesbians, despite its opposition to same-sex marriage, The New York Times reported.

As one of the leading voices of the Catholic Church in the United States, Dolan did not suggest any changes in church teachings. In fact, he still defined marriage as “one man, one woman, forever, to bring about new life.”

But, on the ABC News program “This Week,” he told TV host George Stephanopoulos, “We’ve got to do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people.”

The cardinal used the regional spotlight he gets on Easter to offer a refreshed message, a first step for the Catholic Church toward regaining relevance. He added that more and more people are questioning what the Catholic Church believes are God-given principals that have been revealed and are already settled.

“I think what we can’t tamper with what God has revealed,” he told Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation. But, he said, “we can try to do better in the way we present them with more credibility and in a more compelling way.”