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Pope Issues New Gay Condemnation As Senate Continues Marriage Debate
 06
June 2006- Vatican City -The Vatican issued a sweeping condemnation
Tuesday of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex
marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so
threatened as in today's world.
The document
was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Alfonso
Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, is a strong opponent of the use of condoms
under any circumstances.
However, the
document did not mention an ongoing debate within the Vatican on whether
the Roman Catholic Church could permit condoms to battle AIDS in a
particular circumstance when one partner in a marriage has the virus.
It reaffirmed
the famous 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that stated the Vatican's
opposition to contraception. Since then, it said, couples "have been
limiting themselves to one, or maximum two children.''
"Never before
in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its
natural place, been so threatened as in today's culture,'' said the
57-page document. It also condemned in-vitro fertilization, artificial
insemination and the use of embryos.
"The human
being has the right to be generated, not produced, to come to life not
in virtue of an artificial process but of a human act in the full sense
of the term: the union between a man and a woman,'' it said. The
document did not break any new ground but summarized traditional Vatican
positions.
Lopez Trujillo
sparked controversy three years ago when he said condoms don't prevent
AIDS and may help spread it because they create a false sense of
security. The Vatican insists sexual abstinence is the only sure way to
fight AIDS.
But several
other cardinals have argued that the use of a condom within a marriage
would be the lesser of two evils if it prevents passing on an HIV
infection to the partner.
Tuesday's
document made a broad attack on what it said were threats to "the
natural institution of marriage.''
"Couples made
up of homosexuals claim similar rights to those reserved to husband and
wife; they even claim the right to adoption. Women who live a lesbian
union claim similar rights, demanding laws which give them access to
hetero fertilization or embryo implantation. Moreover it is claimed that
the help of the law to form these unusual couples goes hand in hand with
the help to divorce and repudiate,'' the document said.
"Abortion and
infanticide show the absence of efficient juridical protection for the
conceived,'' it added. "Such practices in fact constitute a violation of
the fundamental right to life which is the right of every human being
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