Vatican criticizes court ruling on gays' children

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican is pressing its opposition to gay marriage, insisting Saturday that children should grow up with a father and a mother after Italy's high court upheld a lower court ruling and granted custody of a child to his gay mother.

In its decision Friday, the Court of Cassation said there was no "scientific certainty or experience-based data" to support the father's claims that the child's development was being damaged by living with his mother and her female partner. Such an argument was "mere prejudice," the court said.

On Saturday, bioethicist Adriano Pessina sought to downplay the significance of the ruling, writing in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that children often grow up in less-than-ideal circumstances and turn out fine.

"But no one would argue that you should create these situations just because in some cases they don't create damage," he wrote. He echoed the pope's recent insistence that no one has a "right" to a child and that children should be raised by a mother and father.

"Monogamous families constitute the ideal place to learn the significance of human relations and represent the social and anthropological environment in which the best type of growth is possible," he wrote.

On Vatican Radio, the Vatican official in charge of family echoed his argument in voicing opposition to legislative proposals in France to let gays adopt, saying children aren't "merchandise" that people have a right to.

"In reality, the child must be born and grow up in ... the ordinary way, that is with a father and mother," Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, told Vatican Radio.

The Vatican has ratcheted up its opposition to gay marriage in the face of gains by its supporters in the U.S. and Europe. Last month, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his annual speech to the Vatican government to the issue, saying gender theory was blurring the lines between male and female and contributing to the current crisis in families.

On Sunday, a major demonstration against gay marriage is planned for Paris.

Comments

[Jim]

Children also have a right not to be raped by priests.

[LOrion]

I like Jim's comment!

[Katie Murphy]

A complaint from the Pope who showed his lack of humanity by

1. UNexcommunicating a Holocaust revisionist / denier, Bishop Williamson in 2009

2. A pope who is involved with much of his hierarchy in the hiding of the endless hidden molestation of children by his power hungry and sex starved priests

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-26/world/pope.holocaust.denial_1_bishop-richard-williamson-bishop-bernard-fellay-holocaust-denier?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Pope-Benedict-accused-of-masterminding-Catholic-Church-sex-abuse-cover-up-91038229.html#ixzz1lf7MasmO

CAtholics who support the church in the Bennedict XVI ERA are putting their immortal souls at riskt

Yes, marriage equality is occuring all over the world. The only places where it will be long delayed are the commie and Islamic states.

Buy and read the book by David Gibson - a catholic writer "pope Benedict and his battle with the modern world"

Try search engine www.bookfinder4u.com

[Katie Murphy]

the biz about gender theory is simply religion masquerading a medical science

In the middle ages the church burned books on the human body. They realized that some built in mechanism cured some illnesses. and they wanted to have people pray and then assume that was why the cure happeneed.

the church has also opposed stem cell research. they claim that creating a whole new branch of biology based drugs is destroying human Zyglots.

By that rational we should disband most of our army. why should REAL humans risk death to save others.

Conservative religion brainwashed into people from before they have the ability and experience to say BS= it actually becomes like an Obsessive compulsive disease, eg prayer is like OCD people who will do over and over the same thing, whatever thaT MIGHT BE> A friend of mine- he washes his hands 10 times a day and takes a bath once a year.

[PolarBeast]

A loving household is the best place for a child to be raised. Gender doesn't matter.

[meriequalityjustus]

There are many children that grow up with only 1 mom or 1 dad and those parents have sometimes MULTIPLE partners
for instance one lady i knew she had 14 husbands in her life span and that is supposed to be ok? oh and 3 of the husbands molested her daughter and nothing was ever done?
but a child has a chance in a loving home where they will be cared for and cherished but because it is 2 men or 2 women they cannot? what sense does that make?

[Ted Faigle]

The Catholic Church, exclusive male bastion of fancy dress child rapists who eschew relationships with women -- they know absolutely NOTHING about love.

[Scott]

Who the HELL cares what the idiots in the Vatican are thinking. They should all be in jail.