SAN ANTONIO, February 26, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bishops from Canada, the United States and Latin America met in San Antonio, Texas, last week to consider the question: ‘Is the institution of the family threatened in America?’ The February 16-19, 2004, produced a statement which shockingly ignores the threat to marriage currently posed by very aggressive homosexual activism. According to a release prior to the meeting, the bishops were to be reflecting on Pope John Paul II’ 1999 warning to the Catholic church in America that, “Many insidious forces are endangering the solidity of the institution of the family in most countries of America, and these represent so many challenges for Christians.” The only ‘insidious forces’ hinted at in the final statement from the meeting are: the “market economy”, delayed marriage, marriage instability, likely break up, “Unemployment and job instability”, “Difficulties, exhaustion, conflicts and daily worries”.
LifeSiteNews.com reported on concerns from pro-family groups in Canada about the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) delegation to the meeting which included one prominent Canadian prelate who minimized the importance of the recent Vatican statement on homosexual unions. (https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04021702.html ) The closest the statement came to addressing the homosexual activist onslaught on marriage was to define marriage as “the lifelong union of a man and a woman”. Other highlights of the statement were noting that the family, “remains the privileged place where human beings are formed and where children discover the mission that God entrusts to them in the world and in the Church”; and telling parents that “by welcoming children as gifts of God, a family fulfills its mission as the foundational unit of society and the Church.” See the full statement from the meeting online: https://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2004/04-038.htm