Popes Francis and Benedict XVI have addressed the topic of same-sex marriage almost simultaneously.
On his return flight from Slovakia, Pope Francis upheld the value of civil union laws for same-sex couples, but clarified that marriage is between man and woman.
POPE FRANCIS
'(You ask me about) laws that seek to help the situation of many people with a different sexual orientation. And it is important to help these people, but without imposing things that, by their nature, are not part of the Church.'
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is also addressing same-sex marriage. He complements Pope Francis's words with this profound text, difficult to summarize in a single phrase.
The note was written it in April. It introduces this book of Pope Benedict XVI's speeches on Europe which is being published in Italy.
The Pope Emeritus does not dwell on the moral aspects of homosexual marriage, but on its consequences for humanity.
Pope Benedict explains that up until today, all cultures considered the transmission of life resulting from the union of a man and a woman as natural; an idea, he says, that changed after the advent of the pill, which separated fertility from sex, and equated all forms of sexuality.
According to the Pope emeritus, the result of this distinction is that “each person becomes a planned product and ceases to be a gift. And everything that is produced can also be destroyed.'
Pope Benedict XVI says same-sex marriage raises the question of 'What is a human being?' Is it a gift given by God, or a product made by others.
He concludes by saying that in the same way that environmentalism recognizes that 'nature reaches a limit which we cannot ignore without consequences...man also possesses a 'nature' that is given to him, and that denying it leads to self-destruction.'
JMB
TR: JM
