Archbishop defends “eternal and irrevocable” nature of marriage during family meeting

Madrid, Spain, Sep 20, 2006 / 22:00 pm

Speaking during the 17th Marian Day of the Family on September 16th, in Torreciudad, Spain, Archbishop Manuel Ureña of Zaragoza reminded participants that marriage between a man and a woman is “irrevocable, it’s eternal, because the bond is the bond that exists between two realities, the fruit of two expropriations that form a sole reality in themselves and is objective and indestructible.”

The celebration, which brought together 10,000 people to give thanks for the visit by Pope Benedict XVI last July, culminated in the celebration of the Mass with Archbishop Ureña, who in his homily said the event served to “celebrate marriage as a privileged expression in the world of the love that God is and that He loves.”

Celebrating the family means “celebrating marriage between a man and woman,” the archbishop said, “because that is what true marriage is.”  While the times and fads can change, he continued, that which is natural is “recorded in the human person from the first day of creation and nobody can ever change that.”

Referring to the new laws on marriage in Spain that put homosexual unions on the same level as marriage, Archbishop Ureña noted that “sin has attempted to alter an institution that has natural rights and was created by God in the very act of creation, and is therefore, not as such, something that was positively given by Christ but rather was given during creation itself.”

Mankind, he went on, can discover this truth “through the light of natural reason.”

“Any attempt to attack or change the essence of marriage and the family is destined to fail,” he warned.

In a message sent to the participants of the event, Pope Benedict XVI evoked “the unforgettable moments that were experienced at the Meeting of Valencia,” and he encouraged families to “earnestly promote and strengthen the Christian values and roots of the family.”