.- In his latest pastoral letter, Bishop Jose Manuel Lorca of Teruel and Albarracin, said he still does not understand why Spanish Socialist leaders are upset over the pro-family march held in Madrid on December 30 and that “there was nothing more said there than what the Church has always said and defended in this area.”
Recalling some of the most “marvelous” events of the season of Christmas, Bishop Lorca made particular mention of the pro-family march that brought together more than two million people. “I still don’t understand what people are upset about,” he wrote in reference to the socialist government’s attacks on the Church for her stance. The truth is that “there was nothing more said there than what the Church has always said and defended in this area,” he stressed.
In his letter entitled, “Don’t Shut Off the Christmas Lights,” Bishop Lorca said it was logical that if the institution of the family is under attack, “we need to come to its defense.”
He listed a series of issues affecting the family, including the legalization of same-sex unions, the replacing of the term sex with the word “gender” to define a person, the attack on the rights of parents to educate their children, “imposing the indoctrination of Education for Citizenship,” and the suppression of “all protection of human life in its beginnings, subordinating it to technological and economic interests.”
“This is the true meaning of the Encounter in Madrid, this is what seriously concerns us, both those who were in Madrid as well as the rest of us who were unable to go…. We still value marriage and the family,” the bishop said.
He also praised Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela of Madrid for the success of the march, and he invited the faithful to be on the alert against those who would lead them down “false paths towards perdition.”
