Pope slams gay marriage ahead of Italian vote

Pope slams gay marriage ahead of Italian vote
Reuters.uk, U

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, speaking just 10 days ahead of
Italy's national elections, lashed out against gay marriage and
abortion on Thursday and said the Church had the right to speak out on
thorny political issues.

Opposition centre-left politicians who advocate some legal recognition
of the rights of unmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples accused
the Pope of meddling in politics.

Addressing lawmakers from the European People's Party (EPP), Benedict
said the Church's position on such issues was "non-negotiable".

He said the Church had a right and duty to defend "the recognition and
promotion of the natural structure of the family as a union between a
man and a woman based on marriage".

It would oppose "attempts to make it juridically equivalent to
radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and
contribute to its destabilisation", he added.

Opposition politicians slammed the Pope's words on abortion and gay
marriage as political interference.

"It is ever more clear the Church hierarchy have decided to jump in to
the election campaign", said Daniele Capezzone of the leftist "Rose In
the Fist" party, part of a coalition led by former European Commission
President Romano Prodi.

"It is people who decide whether their relationships constitute a
family ... Not everyone shares the Pope's point of view," said Franco
Grillini, a homosexual and parliamentarian of the Democrats of the
Left, Italy's largest leftist party.

Centre-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a member of the EPP.
He had been due to attend the audience but backed out earlier this
month after opposition leaders said it would amount to a de facto
papal blessing for his re-election campaign.

The Pope said the Church was not interfering, but "enlightening consciences".

He asked lawmakers to defend its right to proclaim what he said were
principles "inscribed in human nature itself and therefore ... common
to all humanity".

"Your support for Christian heritage ... can contribute significantly
to the defeat of a culture that is now fairly widespread in Europe,
which relegates (religion) to the private and subjective sphere," he
said.

A survey released earlier this year cast doubt on how much influence
the Church will have on the elections, with a majority of Italian
Catholics disagreeing with papal doctrine on some moral and social
issues.

But last summer, a referendum on easing Italy's restrictions on
artificial fertility failed when too few people turned out to vote --
a victory for the Church, which had called on people to abstain in a
campaign explicitly supported by the Pope.

Leaders of Berlusconi's coalition, which sees itself as the natural
home for Roman Catholic voters, defended the Pope.

"This controversy is unfounded and out of place," said Deputy Prime
Minister Gianfranco Fini.

"Who can argue with the Holy Father's moral and religious authority to
defend values and concepts that are fundamental to Church doctrine."