In his message for the World Day of Peace,
Pope Benedict XVI suggested that gay marriage is an attempt to harm
society.
The 46th annual World Day of
Peace takes place on January 1.
In a lengthy message posted on the
Vatican's website in 8 different languages, the head of the Roman
Catholic Church called heterosexual unions the “natural structure
of marriage.”
“There is also a need to acknowledge
and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man
and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent
to radically different types of union; such attempts actually harm
and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and
its indispensable role in society,” Benedict
wrote.
“These principles are not truths of
faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious
freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to
reason and thus common to all humanity. The Church's efforts to
promote them are not therefore confessional in character, but
addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation.
Efforts of this kind are all the more necessary the more these
principles are denied or misunderstood, since this constitutes an
offence [sic] against the truth of the human person, with serious
harm to justice and peace.”
(Related: Pope
Benedict XVI calls on the French church to fight gay marriage.)