POPE DENOUNCES GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Times

Pope John Paul II unequivocally condemned gay marriage and weighed in on a host of other social questions on Monday in a strongly worded message meant to define the position and agenda of the Roman Catholic Church.

The 84-year-old pope addressed the 174 ambassadors who make up the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See with an incisive account of the Vatican's definition of family.

"Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural pressures that tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which--at times directly--challenge its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a man and a woman founded on marriage," said the pope, who spoke in French.

Family, he said, "must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man."

In recent months, senior Vatican officials have increasingly attacked what they see as the decaying of Christian tradition.

In October, the Vatican rallied around Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian minister whose effort to win a post in the European Union was rejected after he expressed his conservative Catholic views, like considering homosexuality a sin.

But the message on Monday was perhaps an even stronger indictment of what the church sees as loose secular values, both because it was delivered in the pope's own words and because it came during the so-called state of the world address, which establishes the Vatican's priorities for the coming year.

more
posted by Eve at 5:01 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home