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Pope's Christmas Greeting Says We Must "Protect the Human Being against Self-Destruction" of Sexual Aberration

By John-Henry Westen
 
VATICAN CITY, December 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During his exchange of Christmas greetings with the Roman Curia this morning, Pope Benedict XVI noted that the Church "cannot and should not limit herself to transmitting just the message of salvation to her faithful."  It must also he said "protect the human being against self-destruction" - a destruction which comes from a warped understanding of marriage and human sexuality.
 
"It is necessary to have something like an ecology of the human being, understood in the proper manner," said the Pope. "It is not a surpassed metaphysics when Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected."
 
Unless we "listen to the language of creation" he said, we end up with "destruction of the work of God."  The Pope suggested that the gender ideology which seeks to redefine the sexes to allow for homosexuality, transgenderism and such things are examples of mankind separating himself "from creation and the Creator."  With such attempts to decide for himself, mankind "lives against the truth and the Spirit of the Creator."
 
Appealing to concern for the environment to heighten awareness of the gravity of the matter, Pope Benedict said, "Yes, the tropical rainforests deserve our protection, but man, as a creature is no less deserving" of protection.  Rather than a limit of our freedom, the Pope emphasized that it was a condition of that freedom.
 
Quoting great theologians of the past, the Pope called marriage "between one man and one woman for life" the "sacrament of creation" and urged his listeners to reread the Encyclical Humanae Vitae.  It was the intention of its author Pope Paul VI, he said, to defend against treating sexual love as a commodity.
 
At the conclusion of his address, the Pope returned to the theme of being in harmony with creation and the Creator.  "The Holy Spirit grants us joy," he said,  "This joy is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with oneself, which is only possible if one is in harmony with God and His creation".
 
See the full address (in Italian) here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/december/documents/...

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