More sex please, says Pope
Christopher Howse Dec 23,
2008
Where on earth did the BBC get its radio news headlines: "Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest"?
The Pope's message was more about swans than homosexuality - did he even use the word homosexuality?
I'm not even sure that he used the word "homosexual". It is not quoted on the BBC News website, though the editors kindly wrote in an explanatory couple of sentences: "The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are."
| A better headline for the Pope's message would be: "Keep on breeding, says Pope." It is pretty obvious that unless some people do, then the human race will dwindle. Already in Europe we are having too few children to replace the ageing population. Britain's population grows only because of immigration. |
Pope Benedict is keen on saving rainforests and things. "The ultimate basis for our responsibility towards the earth lies in our faith regarding creation," he said in his message. "It is not simply our property, which we can exploit according to our own interests and desires."
It is here that he introduced an interesting analogy. The Church "must also defend the human person against its own destruction. What's needed is something like a 'human ecology', understood in the right sense. It's not simply an outdated metaphysics if the Church speaks of the nature of the human person as man and woman."
A consequence of this "human ecology", to my mind, is that morality follows from the physical make-up of human beings. Each person has to follow the way that develops his moral potential. But human beings have bodies as well as minds. So, for example, it is wrong to deny someone food and water, because human beings need food and water to survive. It is wrong to commit adultery because human beings pair up to raise children, as swans do, they say.
The Catholic Church has never been backward in urging procreation. I don't suppose the Pope himself has ever engaged in this activity, though you never know. He has chosen his path of chastity, just as the Dalai Lama has. Breeding is not an obligation for all. But someone has to do it, or not just our pensions but the very existence of future generations will fail.
Homosexuality
is as great a threat as rainforest destruction, says Pope
Daily Mail Reporter 23rd
December 2008
The Pope has declared that saving the world from homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the rainforests.
In a Christmas message, Benedict XVI stressed the importance of traditional marriage and condemned gay acts as against God's will.
He also attacked transsexuals, saying: 'It is not man who decides who is a man or woman but God.'
Pope Benedict, 82, known as God's Rottweiler for his hardline views, made the comments in his festive address to the Vatican's governing body, the Curia.
He said: 'The Church must defend not only the earth, the water and the air as gifts of creation belonging to everyone, but it must also protect mankind against the destruction of itself.
In a clear reference to homosexuality, he said the failure to respect the union between a man and a woman amounted to the 'auto destruction of mankind'.
Humanity needed to 'listen to the language of creation' to understand the intended roles of man and woman, he added. Anything that deviated from this was a 'destruction of God's works'.
The Pope – who acquired a reputation as an aggressive, doctrine-enforcing cardinal before he was appointed to the Vatican top job – also defended the Church's right to 'speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected'.
Vatican spokesman: Father Federico Lombardi said the Vatican continues to condemn the use of the death penalty
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are a sin. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality 'a deviation, an irregularity, a wound'.
This month the Vatican opposed a proposed UN declaration, backed by all 27 European Union states, calling for an end to the practice of criminalising and punishing people for their sexual orientation.
The declaration was seen as an important condemnation of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality can be punished by death.
A Papal spokesman was later forced to clarify that the Vatican continues to condemn the use of the death penalty for any crime, including any related to homosexuality.
Instead, the Vatican said its opposition to the UN proposal was driven by concern that countries that prohibit gay marriage would somehow be targeted.
The Italian gay rights association Arcigay branded this an 'excuse' to distract people from the real intent of criminalising gays.
The Pope also used yesterday's address to criticise the idea that he is seen by the young as some form of rock star.
He said Christian gatherings such as World Youth Day should not be seen as 'a sort of rock festival modified in an ecclesiastical sense'.
The week-long youth festival in July culminated in a mass celebrated by Benedict in Sydney, attended by some 350,000 people.
See also
Vatican to use psychologists to weed out homosexual priests
Homosexuality and Christianity
Gay bishops
The causes of sexual orientation
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