Marriage is a natural reality, not a product of design, says archbishop

Madrid, Spain, Jun 19, 2005 / 22:00 pm

In his weekly letter issued on the eve of the pro-family rallies that took place Saturday in Spain, Archbishop Agustin Garcia-Gasco of Valencia said, “Marriage is a natural reality, not a product of design,” and “families need just laws.” 

The archbishop warned that the family “could suffer serious discrimination from confusing laws that do not recognize and that distort the essential elements of marriage” and he said, “promoting a change in the nature of marriage and the family is a fraud and an error that benefits nobody and harms the very foundations of society.”

In his letter, Archbishop Garcia-Gasco also called attention to “those who seem to be intent upon confusing the right to have a family with just another angle of the freedom of association.”  The family, he noted, “is a natural reality that has its own intertwined purposes that it does not share with any other group.”

Referring to the complementarity of male and female sexuality, the archbishop emphasized that this “is a joyous difference willed by nature for the procreation of the species and the survival of society and of the human race.”  The Church “recognizes this complementarity desired by God and raises it to the dignity of a sacrament,” he added.

“Just as nobody today can accept polygamy as a manifestation of civilization and of human rights, neither is it acceptable to confuse marriage with other relationships or realities with which it does not share the same complementary mission or finality of mutual donation, open to life and to the continuation of the human species.”

Weakening of democracy

Further on in his letter, Archbishop Garcia-Gasco wrote that “the family founded upon marriage, upon the faithful and indissoluble covenant between man and woman, is one of the fundamental elements of just coexistence, democratic freedoms and social peace,” and he warned that “attacking marriage weakens the democratic society.”

 Therefore, he insisted, “it is just that citizens demand just laws for the family and that we denounce those norms that directly or indirectly weaken or threaten the dignity of the family, make its mission difficult, or obscure and confuse its identity.”

Regarding persons with homosexual orientation, the archbishop wrote they should “be fully respected in their dignity” and he affirmed that “it is not licit or Christian to disrespect anyone.”  The Gospel “calls us all to strive and to commit, and it reminds us that the help of God is available to everyone, in whatever circumstances one finds himself.”

In conclusion, Archbishop Garcia-Gasco encouraged the faithful “to demand that lawmakers pass laws for the good of all.”  The Church “is not looking for nor desires confrontations with anyone, but rather she is emphasizing the specific superior good that is implied in the sexual complementarity of man and woman.”