Pope Says Church Should Say "Yes" to Authentic Love Derived From God and Say "No" to Deviant Forms of Love

Daily Mail Staff/TN : Oct 21, 2006
The Daily Mail

. . . thousands of listeners "strongly applauded" his statements.

The Daily Mail reports that Pope Benedict, without specifically using the term "gay marriage," has urged Italian Catholics through a speech he gave at the fairgrounds outside Verona, to defend the traditional family, saying they should oppose any moves to legalize "weak and deviant" unions. The report states that thousands of listeners "strongly applauded" his statements.

Specifying that the Church did not want to be "a political agent" but wants to help shape social policy, the pope is quoted as urging the Church to fight "with determination...the risk of political and legislative decisions that contradict fundamental values and anthropological and ethical principles rooted in human nature," and also to defend "the family based on matrimony, opposing the introduction of laws on other forms of unions which would only destabilize it and obscure its special character and its social role, which has no substitute."

He is also quoted as saying the Church must say "'yes' to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God...but 'no' to weak and deviant forms of love."