One Day After Thousands March In Rome Gay Pride, Pope Says Kids Must Have Heterosexual Parents

Is Pope Francis playing defense? The pontiff came out attacking same-sex marriage just after Rome gay pride and a resolution from Italy’s parliament supporting civil unions.

Speaking before a crowd of about 25,000, Pope Francis on Sunday spoke to followers from the Diocese of Rome, telling the faithful that children must have heterosexual parents. 

“Parenthood is based on the diversity of being, as indicated by the Bible, male and female. This is the ‘first’ and more fundamental difference, constitutive of the human being,” the pontiff told the crowd.

“Children mature seeing mom and dad’s…reciprocity and complementarity,” he added.

Religion News Service reports the Pope “likened a long-lasting marriage to a good wine, in which a husband and wife make the most of their gender differences.”

“They’re not scared of the differences!” the pope said. “What great richness this diversity is, a diversity which becomes complementary, but also reciprocal. It binds them, one to the other.” 

Heterosexual marriages not only ensured couples’ happiness, the pontiff said, but were deemed essential for good parenting. 

“Children mature seeing their father and mother like this; their identity matures being confronted with the love their father and mother have, confronted with this difference,” Francis said.

On Saturday, thousands of marchers attended Rome’s gay pride festival, as this Reuters’ video shows:

And earlier last week, the lower house of Italy’s parliament passed a motion in support of same-sex civil unions, promising to take up the issue.

Decrying the “insidious dangers” of “secularism and relativism,” last week the Pope told a group of bishops, “today marriage is often considered a form of emotional gratification that can be constituted in any way and change according to the sensitivity of each one,” a subtle strike at same-sex marriage.

 

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Image by Jeffrey Bruno/Aleteia via Flickr and a CC license