EUROPE/SPAIN - “We cannot just passively accept such a serious attack on our traditions and our way of life”: Bishops of Spain defend authentic marriage and the family for the good of the nation and society

Tuesday, 19 July 2005

Madrid (Fides Service) - Since the Spanish parliament approved amendments to the law to allow homosexual couples to “marry" and adopt children and to make divorce proceedings “express” the Catholic Bishops of Spain have continued to raise their voices in defense of the values of authentic marriage and family for the good of the nation and society in general.
In a recent Pastoral Letter “Defending the Family” Archbishop Fernando Sebastián Aguilar Pamplona said that a vision and a practice of sexuality humanly impoverished reduced to individual pleasure and wellbeing which has spread in recent years is now “sustained by our government’s legislative activity”. What is most serious, he said, is that same sex unions are recognised as authentic marriage. This alters the very notion and understanding “marriage”. He also warned against the effects of “express divorce proceedings”. “From now on Spanish law supports fleeting unions and all the painful consequences for the adults and children involved”. These laws “damage marriage and the family and therefore they damage also happiness of individuals and the wellbeing of society”.
The Archbishop encouraged believers to defend the authentic concept of marriage: “we defend the family because we recognise it as a decisive good for society”. When asked what people can do to defend the family, Archbishop Fernando said first of all by respecting and appreciating one’s own family and rendering visible the unique value of the family “understood and lived with a firm and stable commitment of love”. The Archbishop stresses the need to pray that young people may discover the value of chastity and that famililies may live in the spirit of Jesus Christ following the teaching of the Church. The Archbishop concluded his letter by saying “we can and we must strive to influence public opinion and politics using the resources offered by democracy… We cannot just passively accept such a serious attack on our traditions and our way of life”.
For his part Archbishop Braulio Rodríguez Plaza of Valladolid wonders if the Spanish government is aware of the negative effects of the reforms which it has just approved. In a pastoral letter on Marriage and Young People he said: “The institution of marriage has been robbed of its proper conotation of legal stability and reduced to a merely superficial contract which one partner can break without consulting the other only three months after its stipulation”. The Archbishop said these reforms are “a step into the void which will have its effect on society”. Archbishop Braulio underscored that this is not only an attack on the Church and on canonical marriage as it is generally said, it is an attack the human person because in the end “it denies the anthropological and social reality of the union of man and wife in all its specificity and unique value for the common good and concretely for the personal realisation of the spouses and for the procreation and education of children”. The Archbishop stressed the need to educate young people to authentic marriage and family, “to prevent them from falling into trivialities which only destroy the person” because “in the depth of the human heart there is a longing for a love which is beautiful and pure”. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 19/7/2005, righe 40, parole 569)


Share: