Firm support of Spanish bishops for June 18 protests

Madrid, Spain, Jun 12, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Spanish Bishops Conference has published a statement expressing support and encouragement for the upcoming June 18 protests against a law that would make homosexual unions equivalent to marriage. 

Organizers are expecting some 500,000 people to show up and express their support for marriage and the traditional family.

The Executive Committee of the Conference called the protests a “just cause” and noted, “We are dealing with a question of the greatest moral and social transcendence that demands a clear and incisive response from citizens, especially Catholics, through all legitimate means.”

 “By making use of their democratic rights to express their disagreement through peaceful protests, the lay faithful are appropriately responding to this challenge,” the bishops state.  “It is a legitimate means of carrying out their duty to serve the common good.”

The bishops underscore that the on two occasions the Conference has denounced the legislation that would legalize homosexual marriage and allow for gay couples to adopt children.  Such a law would mean the “corruption” of marriage, “a vital and irreplaceable institutional for persons and for society.”  The government’s policy is degrading to marriage, which “would cease to be a union between a man and a woman,” the bishops add.