Cardinal Egan said the specter of legal homosexual marriage would have a devastating effect on traditional values already eroded by a crude pop culture, the Daily News reported.
“History assured us that no civilization can survive if marriage is rejected,” he told worshippers Sunday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on World Marriage Day.
“Things we would never thought would happen” have happened, said the cardinal, in an apparent reference to last week’s Massachusetts court decision allowing homosexuals to wed.
Over the weekend, many of the most prominent religious figures in Massachusetts issued statements calling on the state Legislature to preserve marriage as a heterosexual institution.
Three groups representing African-American clergy jointly called for the Legislature to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Separately, a multifaith coalition, featuring Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Orthodox Jews and Muslims, declared their opposition to the notion of homosexual marriage, the Boston Globe reported.
