BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, JULY 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Marching under the motto «We Want a Mommy and Daddy for Our Children,» citizens of Argentina will demonstrate Tuesday before Congress, as legislators contemplate approving same-sex «marriage.»
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires and primate of Argentina, appealed to parish priests, rectors and chaplains of churches to facilitate the participation of the faithful.
The march is expected to draw participants from a range of social groups, including Church movements and groups from a variety of creeds, as well as labor unions and other civil organizations. The cardinal recalled that marchers are to carry «only Argentinean flags or positive slogans for man-woman marriage.»
Last Sunday, the bishops’ statement «On the Unalterable Good of Marriage and the Family,» was read at Masses.
There, the bishops stress that «marriage as a stable relationship between man and woman, who in their diversity complement one another for the transmission and care of life, is a good that does much for the development of persons as well as society. We are not before a private event or religious option, but before a reality that has its root in the very nature of mankind.»
They affirmed that «heterosexuality as a requisite for marriage is not to discriminate,» but rather to base marriage on an objective premise. «The contrary would be to ignore its essence.»
«Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the numerous variations that it might have undergone in the course of the centuries in various cultures, social structures and spiritual attitudes,» the prelates noted. «These differences must not make one forget its common and permanent features.»
