Pope Benedict XVI on Friday announced
that New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan will become a cardinal, The
New York Times reported.
“I am honored, humbled and grateful,”
Dolan said. “It's as if Pope Benedict is putting the red hat on
top of the Empire State Building or the Statute of Liberty or on home
plate at Yankee Stadium.”
Dolan will be elevated to cardinal at a
ceremony in Rome on February 18.
The 61-year-old Dolan, as president of
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has led
Catholic opposition to gay marriage laws in the United States.
In November, the USCCB launched the
website MarriageUniqueForAReason.org, which is described by the group
as part of an effort to “promote and defend marriage as the union
between one man and one woman.”
A video posted at the website features
a good-looking child-less heterosexual couple talking about how their
bodies complement each other.
“Every time we make love it's like
we're making life, we're giving life to one another. It's not just
sex. I come alive and there's a sense of forever in that. And I
don't think a man can have that any other way,” Josh says in the
nearly 13 minute video.
The website uses the video to claim
that “True marital union is not possible without sexual
difference.”
“This is why sexual difference is
essential to marriage. Sexual difference is the necessary starting
point for understanding why protecting and promoting marriage as the
union of one man and one woman isn't arbitrary or discriminatory.
Rather, it's a matter of justice, truth, love and real freedom.”
Dolan also virulently opposed New York
becoming the sixth state to legalize gay marriage, calling it an
“ominous threat” to society and “a violation of what we
consider the natural law that's embedded in every man and woman.”
He added that the law would open the door to government recognition
of polygamous unions.
After the law's passage in June, Dolan
tempered his remarks, saying he loved the gay community.
“To the gay community, I love you
very much. If anything I ever said or did would lead you to believe
that I have anything less than love and respect for you, I
apologize,” he said the Sunday after lawmakers had approved the
legislation.
However, Dolan was at hand in November
to unveil the USCCB's anti-gay marriage campaign and, as Archbishop
of New York, banned
marriages between members of the same sex from taking place in Roman
Catholic churches.