NEWS FLASH
France’s Catholic Church Revives ‘National Prayer’ Against Gay Adoption | In symbolic opposition to same-sex adoption, the French Catholic Church plans to revive the “15 August Prayer for the Assumption” later this month, a custom originally decreed by Louis XIII in 1638. The prayer — which fell out of favor after World War II — asks God to compel those elected to govern to have a “sense of common good of society” which “outweighs the special requests” they receive. In this case, “special request” refers to the new President Francois Hollande’s intended legislation to grant nationwide same-sex marriage and adoption rights in 2013. French bishops usually lay low, but a church spokesman told Reuters that they wanted to “raise the consciousness of public opinion about grave social choices,” as the prayer specifically makes note of the “benefit from the love of a father and a mother.” Recent polling shows that about two-thirds of the French support marriage equality.
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