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Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual
behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
He explained that defending God's creation was not limited to saving the
environment, but also about protecting man from self-destruction.
The Pope was delivering his end-of-year address to senior Vatican staff.
His words, later released to the media, emphasised his rejection of gender
theory.
Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict XVI warned that gender theory blurred the
distinction between male and female and could thus lead to the
"self-destruction" of the human race.
Gender theory
Gender theory explores sexual orientation, the roles assigned by society to
individuals according to their gender, and how people perceive their biological
identity.
Gay and transsexual groups, particularly in the United States, promote it as a
key to understanding and tolerance, but the Pope disagreed.
When the Roman Catholic Church defends God's Creation, "it does not only defend
the earth, water and the air... but (it) also protects man from his own
destruction," he said.
"Rainforests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being ... does not
deserve it less," the pontiff said.
It is not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or
woman'", he told scores of prelates gathered in the Vatican's sumptuous
Clementine Hall.
"We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way."
The Catholic Church opposes gay marriage. It teaches that while homosexuality
is not sinful, homosexual acts are.
Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of Britain's Lesbian and Gay Christian
Movement, described the Pope's remarks as "totally irresponsible and
unacceptable".
"When you have religious leaders like that making that sort of statement then
followers feel they are justified in behaving in an aggressive and violent
way," she said.
'Rock festival'
The pope uses his traditional end-of-year speech to offer his Christmas
greetings and say a few words about what he considers the important issues of
the day.
This year, Pope Benedict also deplored the tendency to depict the Catholic
church's World Youth Day, which he attended in Sydney earlier this year, as
mere spectacle.
He stressed that the event should not be considered a "variant of modern youth
culture, as a kind of ecclesiastical rock festival with the Pope as the star,"
but as the fruition of a "long exterior and interior path".