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.”