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MANAGUA, January 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Archdiocese of Managua, Nicaragua, is urging legislators to oppose homosexual “marriage,” which it said is a threat to the “authentic institution of the family,” according to the local press.

Denouncing “bills that openly or obliquely seek to equalize unions between people of the same sex with homosexual marriage,” the archdiocese warns that such legislation distorts “the perception of fundamental moral values and trivializes the marriage institution as such.”

The statement was read in the cathedral on December 26 following an opening statement by the Apostolic Nuncio, Henryk Jozef Nowacki. It was formulated by the Family, Life, and Infancy Pastorate of the Archdiocese of Managua.

Calling marriage the “essential foundation of the family,” the archdiocese notes that the family is “a most important value that has to be defended against every threat that endangers its soundness,” and demanded that the government act to protect the institution.

Marriage, the archdiocese said, “is not just any union,” but is established by God.

Noawcki, who officially represents the Holy See in Nicaragua, noted that “Nicaragua will be tomorrow what its families are today,” and added that “the family is at the center of a great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and those who are opposed to love.  The future of society is closely linked to a healthy, well-formed family.”

The archdiocese clarified that its statements are not directed against homosexuals as human persons, but rather against homosexual behavior, which the Catholic Church teaches is unnatural and “intrinsically evil.”

While the Churches teaches respect for “every person independently of his sexual orientation,” it “rejects homosexual and lesbian practices as acts that are objectively against the plan of God for the human person,” the archdiocese said.