The bishops of the Lagos ecclesiastical province in Nigeria have expressed “total agreement with the position of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria and that of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar [SECAM] concerning the blessing of homosexual unions or same-sex couples.”
In January, SECAM announced that the episcopal conferences of Africa are united in the belief that “the extra-liturgical blessings proposed in the declaration Fiducia Supplicans cannot be carried out in Africa” without creating scandal.
“We affirm that the teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage as the union of a man and a woman in a stable and exclusive relationship, open to bearing children, remains the same,” the province’s bishops added. “We also affirm the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and urge the faithful to be guided by it.”
The Lagos-area bishops also lamented the insufficiency of government actions in addressing insecurity.
Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa and the sixth most populous in the world; Lagos is Nigeria’s largest city.