Pope puts stress on 'gay threat'

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Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.



Pope Benedict has called for "an ecology of the human being."


He explained that defending God's creation is not limited to saving the environment, but also protecting man from self-destruction.

The pope was delivering his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff.

His words, later released to the media, emphasised his total rejection of gender theory.

Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurs the distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.

Gender theory

Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to individuals according to their gender, and how people perceive their biological identity.

Gay and transsexual groups, particularly in the United States, promote it as a key to understanding and tolerance, but the pope disagreed.

When the Roman Catholic Church defends God's Creation, "it does not only defend the earth, water and the air... but (it) also protects man from his own destruction," the pope said.

"If tropical forests deserve our protection, humankind... deserves it no less," the 81-year-old pontiff said, calling for "an ecology of the human being."

It is not "outmoded metaphysics" to urge respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman," he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican's sumptuous Clementine Hall.

The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

'Rock festival'

The pope uses his traditional end-of-year speech to offer his Christmas greetings and say a few words about what he considers the important issues of the day.

This year, Pope Benedict also deplored the tendency to depict the Catholic church's World Youth Day, which he attended in Sydney earlier this year, as mere spectacle.

He stressed that the event should not be considered a "variant of modern youth culture, as a kind of ecclesiastical rock festival with the Pope as the star," but as the fruition of a "long exterior and interior path".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm

I don't really care what any former Nazi has to say on theology or on relationships between consenting adults.

darn it, i was gonna bring up the nazi angle. how 'bout, one of the wealthiest men in the world trying to ride a camel through a needle's eye? no need to mention any kind of sordid scandals re: homosexual child abuse that this man might be intimately involved with...

Nice to see this pope is so much more understanding then the last.

Heh... Must stamp out homosex... uuh... he did what?... the boy was how old?... umm... Cardinal so and so, could you arrange a transfer for ... where was I? Oh yes... Must stamp out homosexuality!

What do I care what he says, I'm protestant!

We're going to listen to someone about homosexuality that lets other men kiss his ring??

^ he doesn't just let them, he insists on it.

& to reiterate what everyone else has already said in this thread, who cares what the Pope thinks? it's not like he has any legitimate claim to be a moral authority.

Isn't the fundamental flaw not who is speaking.. but what he is saying?
How can homosexuality be a threat to mankind? We aren't all gay. We aren't even mostly gay. Humanity isn't just going to cease to exist because a few people have non-procreational sex with their own gender.

This couldn't be better timed for Ireland. More child abuse allegations have come to the fore and people are calling for the bishop of Cloyne to resign over the way he handled cases in his diocese. The arrogance he's displayed is amazing, so for his father in arms to show the same is no surprise, but useful to self hating catholics such as myself

Gay groups and activists have reacted angrily after Pope Benedict XVI said that mankind needed to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender.

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

The comments were "irresponsible and unacceptable", the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said.

Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words "hurtful".

The row erupted as news emerged that the pontiff is to pay his first visit to the Holy Land in May next year.

'Self-destruction'

Pope Benedict made the comments in an end-of-year speech to senior Vatican staff.

Defending God's creation was not limited to saving the environment, he said, but also about protecting man from himself.

It was not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or woman'", he said. It came from the "language of creation, despising which would mean self-destruction for humans".

Gender theories, he said, led to man's "auto-emancipation" from creation and Creator.

"Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection but the human being... does not deserve it less," he said.

LGCM head Rev Sharon Ferguson said the Pope's remarks justified "gay bashing" and bullying.

Mark Dowd, strategist for Christian environmental group Operation Noah, said the comments betrayed "a lack of openness to the complexity of creation".

And Ms Luxuria, who recently lost her seat in the Italian parliament, said suggesting people like her were destructive was very hurtful.

"I'm someone who was born as male and has a spiritual and female soul, and it's contradictory that a Pope just thinks of people just made as flesh and not made of a spiritual aspect."

The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

Earlier this month, the Vatican said that a proposed United Nations resolution decriminalising homosexuality went too far.

"Unjust discrimination" against gay people should be avoided, but the use of wording such as "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in the text would "create serious uncertainty in the law", it said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk./2/hi/europe/7797269.stm
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so the pope and the catholic church wish to make homosexuality, on the whole, illegal.


one part the fuhrer one part the pope; it's the inevitable return of the great white dope.

Hahaha, he does realize that there have been gay Catholics throughout history, right?

And the Catholic Church wonders why it's losing members... Who the hell takes advice on sexuality from an old virgin?

Nazi Jugend Ratzenhoffer has far more sway then we'd like to think he does.

JP2 had *some* redeeming qualities, this new one is taking the catholics back to a draconian belief system.

The power of the church was always based on the control of information, it's power has been in a steady decline since the invention of the printing press, and will continue to decline. But, until such time as the Catholic church realizes that they can't control the population indefinitely through misinformation and fear, their power will continue to decline.

If they would take a step back, review the teachings of their own messiah, and teach a message of love and acceptance, as he did.... they might make it into the next century.

Eventually they're going to run out of people to exclude and excommunicate themselves out of a congregation.

So Benny the Enforcer is mouthing off? Big, fat, hairy deal. There is more to this world than Catholicism and religious dogma, and His Popeliness ain't exactly at the center of all creation!