.- The president of the Bishops' Conference of Costa Rica, Archbishop Hugo Barrantes of San Jose, exhorted Catholic lawmakers to reject measures currently under consideration in the National Assembly that attack the family and human life.
During a meeting with Catholic lawmakers, the archbishop expressed the Church's concern about some measures that would modify the law to make room for same-sex unions and so-called "sexual and reproductive rights," which mean nothing more than the promotion of abortion, sterilization, contraceptive methods and the introduction of the morning after pill.
Archbishop Barrantes said believers cannot lead two parallel lives, one "spiritual" and the other "secular." "The branches, connected to the vine which is Christ, bear good fruit in every sector in which we act and exist. Thus the rupture between one's faith and one's life is avoided," he said.
He urged lawmakers to "promote the objective moral and inalienable truth that implies defending human life and dignity from conception to natural death," to protect the family founded upon the union between a man and a woman, to defend the right of parents to educate their children, to work for the common good and to watch over religious freedom and non-discrimination.
