Bishops of Spain launch pro-marriage campaign

Madrid, Spain, Dec 13, 2004 / 22:00 pm

The Bishops Conference of Spain has announced that December 26 it will dedicate the traditional “Family and Life” Day to the defense of marriage between one man and one woman.

During the announcement, General Secretary of the Conference Father Juan Antonio Martinez Camino said, “Whoever attempts to erase that distinction between marriage and other forms of living together and unfortunately attempts to erase a distinction that is evident to anyone who has eyes to see, causes grave harm to reason and to society.”

The defense of marriage between a man and a woman as a “natural, rational and human” reality is defended in a pamphlet published by the bishops called, “He Created Them Male and Female,” the phrase from Genesis that emphasizes “the fundamental anthropological basis” for marriage; as “all marriage based on reason and human nature has this fundamental characteristic” which guarantees “the biological, spiritual and moral survival of humanity.”

“The Church did not invent marriage,” Father Martinez Camino said.  Marriage is a reality that “exists chronologically and culturally even before Christianity” in cultures such as that of the Roman empire.

The pamphlet also points out that “through a father and a mother, a child acquires his personal and identity as a male or female.”

“Man is a being meant to live in community and therefore human beings are fundamentally different as men and women,” the pamphlet states.

“Not all human relationships are marriages nor can they be, but not only when they are sacramental, because marriage is a human reality, not merely a Catholic one, which enables society to welcome children with dignity.”