“Dear friends, on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, remember that the first of all rights is the right to life,” the pope said.
"We would want to emphasise that civil partnerships actually provide a structure in which people of the same sex who want a lifelong relationship," said Archbishop Vincent Nichols.
“The seriousness of the challenges which the Church in America, under your leadership, is called to confront in the near future cannot be underestimated,” the pope said.
On Sunday, at the closing Mass of his visit to Africa, Pope Benedict XVI presented a document – Africae Munus - to chart evangelization of the continent in the coming years.
“The destruction of even one human life can never be justified in terms of the benefit that it might conceivably bring to another,” said the pope, referring to embryonic stem cell research.