VATICAN CITY, APRIL 25, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Chamberlain Eduardo Martínez Somalo sharply criticized the Spanish government’s decision to forge ahead with a same-sex marriage bill.
Last Thursday the lower house of the Spanish Parliament approved the government’s bill, a major step toward making Spain the third European country to legalize the marriages. The bill, which also will pave the way for homosexual couples to adopt children, will now go to the Senate.
In an address, during a dinner Saturday for the Spanish delegation that attended the Mass for the inauguration of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, Cardinal Martínez Somalo referred to the recently approved legislation.
«One cannot go against the natural law and a person’s morality,» the Spanish prelate said, addressing three government ministers attending the dinner.
It marked the second pronouncement by a high Vatican official in two days against the same-sex marriage legislation.
On Friday, the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera quoted Colombian Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, as saying: «What is being done in Spain, moreover with a restricted majority, is the destruction of the family, brick by brick.»
At the end of the dinner, Spanish Cardinal Julián Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, also spelled out a criticism of the legislation to the Socialist ministers.
