Reuters reports that in his New Year address to diplomats from nearly 180 countries on Monday, January 9, Pope Benedict said that "gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined ’the future of humanity itself.’"
The pope went on to say that the education of children needed proper "settings" and that "pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman." He said, "This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself."
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Reuters noted: "The Roman Catholic Church, which has some 1.3 billion members worldwide, teaches that while homosexual tendencies are not sinful, homosexual acts are, and that children should grow up in a traditional family with a mother and a father."
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The report did not say if Pope Benedict XVI also discussed the charges of pedophilia against some members of the clergy. In 2010, as detailed in a CBS News report, the pope got flak for saying, "In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. It was maintained - even within the realm of Catholic theology - that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ’better than’ and a ’worse than.’ Nothing is good or bad in itself."
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