The Vatican newspaper has criticized a
ruling on gay adoption handed down Friday by Italy's highest court,
the Court of Cassation.
The court rejected the claims of a
Muslim man that his child is being damaged because his former partner
is now living with another woman. The judges chalked up the man's
beliefs as “mere prejudice.”
The ruling was hailed as “historic”
by Flavio Romani, president of the gay rights group Arcigay.
“The Cassation Court today reaffirmed
what we've been saying for a long time,” Romani is quoted as saying
by the Italian news agency ANSA.
“Love is what makes children grow, and not the sexual orientation
of their parents.”
In an editorial published in
L'Osservatore
Romano, the 151-year-old paper of the Vatican, Adriano Pessina,
director of bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart,
criticized the ruling, saying no one has the “right” to children.
“The human is the masculine and the
feminine … the monogamous family is the ideal place to learn the
meaning of human relations and is the environment where the best form
of growth is possible,” he wrote.
The Roman Catholic Church has been an
outspoken opponent of marriage and adoption rights for gay and
lesbian couples.
(Related: Thousands
protest French plans to legalize gay marriage.)