Pope Benedict
sharpened the tone and tenor of his attacks
against gays and lesbians at a pro-family rally
in Madrid, Spain on Sunday, the Associated
Press reports. This is the third anti-gay
attack from the pontiff in weeks.
The pope told
hundreds of thousands of people attending a Mass
designed to counter the country's three-year-old
gay marriage law that Christian families need to
remain strong.
“Dear families, do
not let love, openness to life and the
incomparable links that join your homes weaken,”
read a statement from the pope. “The pope is by
your side.”
Antonio Maria
Rouco Varela, the archbishop of Madrid, added:
“the future of humanity depends on the family,
the Christian family.”
“It is possible to
conceive, organize and live marriage and family
in a very different way from what is in fashion
in so many areas of our society,” Rouco Varela
said in a homily.
The pope, who has
strongly condemned gay unions in the past,
appears to be increasing the severity and
frequency of his attacks. His support for the
anti-gay marriage rally comes on the heels of
being criticized for saying that mankind needed
to be saved from gender confusion. Many gay
leaders believed his words justified “gay
bashing.”
Last Monday,
speaking to the Vatican's central
administration, the pope attacked what he
described as “gender” theories which “lead
towards the self emancipation of man from
creation and the creator,” and said there were
important distinctions between men and women
that need to be “respected.”
“The tropical
forests do deserve our protection; but man, as a
creature, does not deserve any less,” he said.
Gay rights
activists interpreted the remarks as anti-gay
and anti-transgender.
“What keeps the
pope awake at night is the idea that human
beings might be able to seek out their own
sexual identity to have a happy life,” Franco
Grillini, of the Italian association Gaynet,
told UK-based daily the Guardian.
A Vatican
spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said the
pope was not attacking gays and lesbians at all,
and pointed out that the text never made
references to homosexuality.
And earlier this
month, the Vatican said it opposed a United
Nations resolution calling for the universal
decriminalization of being gay. They said they
feared it would lead to gay marriage and also
objected to the inclusion of gender identity in
the text which would “create serious uncertainty
in the law.” Sixty-six nations have signed on to
the non-binding statement, not among them is the
U.S.
The pope has often
spoken out against gays and lesbians –
especially in Spain, a predominantly Roman
Catholic country that has legalized gay marriage
and has made divorcing easier – but rarely has
he been this vocal in such a short period of
time.
In 1986, before he
became pope, Joseph Ratzinger said that being
gay “is a more or less strong tendency ordered
toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the
inclination itself must be seen an an objective
disorder.”