Pope slams gay marriage - again
2006-06-30 21:15
Vatican City - Days before his first visit to Spain - where gay marriages are now legal - Pope Benedict XVI has stepped up criticism of the decision, saying gay marriage is damaging to the traditional family.
Speaking during a meeting with Uruguay's new ambassador to the Holy See, Maro Juan Bosco Cayota Zappettini, on Friday, the pope said families were "the key structure of society" and based on the "marital union between a man and a woman according to the plans of the creator".
He lashed out at "those who from certain media, disparage or ridicule the high values of marriage and the family, giving a boost to selfishness and disorientation rather than generosity and sacrifice, which are necessary to maintain the force of this true 'first cell' of mankind".
"If we are to encourage the family, help it fulfill its commitments, we must work for social cohesion and, above all, respect its rights which cannot be dissolved by other kinds of unions that seek to replace it," he said.
Benedict XVI will be in Valencia, Spain, on July 8 and 9.
'Culture is dismantling the family'
The head of the Roman Catholic Church will be in the eastern Spanish port city at the end of the Catholic world meeting of families, which has been held every three years since 1994.
Valencia was the scene of a gay pride parade on Saturday, in which participants criticised the Vatican's attitudes.
Spain made same-sex marriages and adoptions by gays and lesbians legal last year, and in so doing roused Vatican ire.
The Roman Catholic Church is also opposed to giving unmarried heterosexual couples more legal rights.
On Wednesday, the Vatican's "minister of the family", Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, said that being a defender of "life" was almost a crime in certain countries.
"The church risks being dragged before an international court" because of its opposition to abortion and gay marriage, the cardinal said in an interview with the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana.
"Legislators and a large part of the lay culture are in the process of dismantling the family piece by piece," he said, citing Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain.