Archbishop of Burgos: marriage existed before any religion

Burgos, Spain, May 10, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Archbishop Francisco Gil Hellin of Burgos and member of the Committee on the Family and the Defense of Life of the Spanish Bishops Conference, said in a statement last week that “marriage is an institution that has its origins in creation and preexists any religion.”

In the statement distributed by the Fides news agency, Archbishop Gil Hellin explained the Catholic position regarding the legalization of homosexual “marriage,” noting that “what the Church defends is a natural institution, the marriage of any person no matter what their faith.”

“The Church does not wish to ignore society’s appraisal of homosexuals nor the social repercussions that would occur from making their unions equivalent to marriage; rather, the Church always goes out to meet man in order to give him an answer in conformity with the truth,” the archbishop noted.

He went on to note that the Church’s response to the reality of so-called homosexual “marriages” “is not arrogant or pretentious because God himself has become present in history and has manifested to man his end, his destiny and his final goal.”

Archbishop Hellin also noted that, thanks to God’s revelation to man, “the Church knows that in the beginning the Creator created man and woman to form a stable community oriented toward procreation.”  The Church cannot abandon this truth, he said, “even knowing that she will be misunderstood, misinterpreted, persecuted and mistreated.”

The Church’s opposition to same-sex unions “is not a question of scorn or discrimination against people with homosexual tendencies,” the archbishop maintained.  “Rather, what the Church defends is that the foundation of society is in the interpersonal communion between one man and one woman, that is, in marriage.”

Lastly, Archbishop Hellin pointed out that “the men and women of our day should realize that the attacks against the Church are in reality attacks against them.”