Pope urges traditional family life over other forms of partnership

Pope urges traditional family life over other forms of partnership
Sat May 20, 5:07 PM ET
AFP

Children have the right to the benefits of traditional family life rather than being brought up in other forms of partnership, Pope Benedict XVI said in a veiled criticism of gay marriage.

The pope spoke of "the right to be born into, develop and live in a family without this being supplanted or diminished by other forms or institutions."

Speaking at a reception for the new Spanish ambassador to the Vatican, the pontiff also reiterated the Church's opposition to abortion.

"The Church proclaims without reservation the primordial right to life, from its conception to its natural end," he said, speaking in Spanish.

Pope Benedict is scheduled in July to visit Spain where gay marriage was legalized last year.

He said his attendance at a World Family Meeting in Valencia would be an opportunity for him to "celebrate the beauty and fertility of the family founded on marriage, its very great significance and its eternal social value."

The pope spoke earlier this month against civil unions in the wake of the Italian election victory of a centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi.

Some coalition parties are in favour of legalising civil unions, including gay unions, on the lines of France's civil solidarity pact.

Prodi, an Italian former prime minister and head of the European Union Commission, is himself a practising Roman Catholic who opposes gay marriage.

But his coalition programme includes legal acknowledgement "of the rights of those in a de facto union," in which neither the sex of the partners nor their sexual orientation would be an obstacle.