Pope Benedict's Christmas address to the Curia which dealt, among other things,with marriage and the differences between the sexes, has been badly misquoted in a series of media outlets which claim the Pope suggested that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. A range of media outlets, including the BBC, suggested that the Pope had attacked homosexuals in his address.
However, the Pope's address did not refer to homosexuals or transsexuals at all.
It said we do need a human ecology, just as we need a natural ecology, but it did not say the pursuit of the gay rights agenda was as threatening to civilisation as the destruction of the rain-forests.
Instead, he pointed out that the Church needed to affirm that there are differences between the sexes and that this should not be denied. He described this denial as destructive.
With regard to the need to a human ecology he said: “We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way. The Church speaks of human nature as 'man' or 'woman' and asks that this order is respected.
"This is not out-of-date metaphysics. It comes from the faith in the Creator and from listening to the language of creation, despising which would mean self-destruction for humans and therefore a destruction of the work of God himself."
With regard to the differences between the sexes he stated: “What is often expressed and signified with the word 'gender' leads to the human auto-emancipation from creation and from the Creator. The human being wants to make himself on his own and to decide always and exclusively by himself about what concerns him.
"But, in so doing, the human being lives against the truth and against the Spirit creator. Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection but the human being - as a creature which contains a message that is not in contradiction with his freedom but is the condition of his freedom - does not deserve it less."
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(Source: CIN)