Madrid rejects civil ceremonies in religious spaces after a gay wedding in a hermitage

The Archbishopric of Madrid has warned that "in no case is it permitted to perform a civil marriage within a religious venue" after the celebration of a wedding last Saturday between two men in the hermitage of a private estate in El Escorial.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
26 February 2024 Monday 21:29
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Madrid rejects civil ceremonies in religious spaces after a gay wedding in a hermitage

The Archbishopric of Madrid has warned that "in no case is it permitted to perform a civil marriage within a religious venue" after the celebration of a wedding last Saturday between two men in the hermitage of a private estate in El Escorial.

"In no case is it allowed to carry out a civil marriage within a religious venue," the Archbishopric of Madrid has settled in a statement, which assures that it was not informed or consulted about the possibility of carrying out said celebration "being a unilateral act of the estate." that will have canonical effects in this regard".

In this context, he recalled that family hermitages "can only be used for the purpose that the Church grants them." "They cannot be places of public religious celebrations unless expressly authorized by the bishopric, nor can they be the object of commercial purposes or places of civil celebrations of any kind," he adds.

In fact, the Archbishopric of Madrid details that at the time they were conceived solely for private devotional use of the family owners of the same and "in no case to be offered as an optional lucrative service of a company dedicated to the organization of social events." .

In this regard, the priest Juan Manuel Góngora, who shared a video of the wedding of the two young people on the social network Madrid".

"If you are Catholics and they invite you to similar irreverence, do not be complicit in a mortal sin. Let us pray for their conversion," said the priest in the publication, collected by Europa Press.

Along the same lines, Father Javier Olivera Ravasi has warned that "a Catholic cannot attend a homosexual 'wedding'." "It's hard to say, but it's reality," he acknowledged.

For priest Olivera Ravasi, a Catholic cannot attend a wedding between two men "because he exposes himself to formally cooperating with the other's sin, even being a 'spectator' and without sharing the intention." "Let us be the light of the world, let us love the sinner but hate the sin," he added.