AMERICA/PERU - We are concerned that this attack on the family is happening in Catholic Spain. It is sad and concerning that the government has failed to consider the consequences in Spain and elsewhere, including Latin America, says president of Peruvian Bishops’ Conference

Lima (Fides Service) - In a statement to Fides Bishop Hugo Garaycoa Hawkins of Tacna-Moquegua, President of the Peruvian Bishops Conference said “the apporval of the law to legalise same sex unions in Spain is a decision which poses a serious threat to the institution of the family and therefore to the future of the world”. It is against nature to equal same sex unions to marriage between a man and a woman. In fact “God gave man and woman sexual characteristics which enable them to procreate and form families based on matrimony.”
On the other hand everyone agrees that homosexual people have their rights and that therefore if they wish to give stability and legalità to their inheritance situation there must be laws to protect their union which should be called a “contract” as in France, “but we cannot accept the fact that they want to call their union, a marriage - the Bishop said- because matrimony is a sacrament celebrated between a man and a woman”.
Bishop Hugo Garaycoa Hawkins continued: “We are concerned that this attack on the family is happening in Catholic Spain. It is sad and concerning that the government has let itself be influenced by populism without considereing the consequences of this law in Spain and elsewhere, including Latin America where Spain has considerable impact and from where Latin America received the faith”.
The President of the Bishops’ Conference said he hoped that “King Juan Carlos will not sign this unhappy law because Spanish Catholics expect him to refuse like King Balduino of Belgium in 1990 who abdicated for a day rather than sign the law laglising abortion”.(RZ) (Agenzia Fides 2/7/2005, righe 23, parole 319)