Pope Benedict On Marriage

In line with at least 6000 years of human history, Pope Benedict confirms God’s plan for men and women, vis-à-vis sex and marriage.

VATICAN CITY [Reuters]: Pope Benedict said Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

The Church "should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."

The pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work."

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Maher Apologizes

NEW YORK, April 19 /Christian Newswire/ -- On his HBO show last night, Bill Maher apologized for accusing the pope of being a Nazi; he acknowledged that the Catholic League was right when we said that Joseph Ratzinger was forced to join a German youth organization (from which he fled at the first instance). Maher then said that if a CEO were in charge of an institution that housed molesters, he would be fired.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented as follows:

"We accept Maher's apology for accusing the pope of being a Nazi. Too bad he didn't stop there. For him to suggest that Pope Benedict XVI was in charge of policing molesters, and failed in doing so, is patently absurd.

"As Pope John Paul II's right-hand man, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's principal job was to make sure that theologians were faithfully presenting the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was, to some extent, the Church's Academic Dean, someone who was charged with enforcing academic standards. He was not the Church's Dean of Students, i.e., he was not discharged with enforcing codes of conduct. Indeed, it wasn't until after the scandal hit the newspapers in 2002 that he was put in charge of dealing with predatory priests, and by all accounts did so effectively.

"Maher has to understand that no one person, including the pope, could possibly be held accountable for the behavior of its employees in a global institution. There are priests from Boston to Bosnia, and it is simply preposterous for any one person to know exactly what is going on everywhere at any given time. Maher would have been better advised to focus on those bishops who proved to be enablers-it is the bishop's job to know what is going on in his diocese, not the pope's.

"The larger issue remains. It would be great if Maher gave up his Catholic-bashing obsession once and for all."

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. Founded in 1973 by the late Father Virgil C. Blum, S.J., the Catholic League defends the right of Catholics - lay and clergy alike - to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination.

For Pope Benedict XVI, Defending the Right to Life is Very Personal

NORTH HAVEN, Conn., April 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- Many people are expecting Pope Benedict XVI to speak out in defense of human life and against abortion during his visit to the United States next week. What few people realize, however, is that the pope knows first hand what happens when a society refuses to defend the most defenseless of its citizens.

As a boy of fourteen, Joseph Ratzinger had a cousin who had been born with Down's Syndrome, only a bit younger than himself. In 1941, German state "therapists" came to the boy's house and probably informed the parents of the government regulation that prohibited mentally handicapped children from remaining in their parents' home. In spite of the family's pleas, the representatives of the Nazi state took the child away. The Ratzinger family never saw him again. Later the family learned that he had "died," most likely murdered, for being merely "undesirable," a blemish in the race, and a drain on the productivity of the nation. This was Joseph Ratzinger's first experience of a murderous philosophy that asserts that some people are disposable.

Author Brennan Pursell heard this horrifying, heart- wrenching story while collecting material for his ground-breaking biography, Benedict of Bavaria (Circle Press, 2008). While most available biographies of the pope are based on Western news coverage, Pursell, who is fluent in German, went to Germany, especially to Bavaria, where the Pope is from and collected his information from what he calls "intimate sources" - the friends, neighbors, colleagues, and co-workers who have known Joseph Ratzinger for years.

As the pope said during his visit to Austria in 2007, the right to life is the first of all human rights. To speak, then, of a "right" to abort an unborn child is a contradiction in terms. This is a truth that, for Pope Benedict, is self-evident. But how will he convey this message in America where the abortion movement is so firmly entrenched? "He will present the Catholic teaching as a positive," Pursell says. "But at the same time he will be unapologetic about it."

Poll Shows Overwhelmingly Positive View of Pope on Eve of His U.S. Visit

Marist Poll Commissioned by Knights of Columbus Released at National Press Club

WASHINGTON, April 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- Americans have an overwhelmingly positive view of Pope Benedict XVI on the eve of his visit to the United States, according to a new poll released today at a Newsmaker event at the National Press Club.

The poll was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus and conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion between February 25 and March 5, 2008. The results were announced by Supreme Knight Carl Anderson.

By a ratio of four and a half to one (58% to 13%), respondents said that they had a favorable or very favorable view of Pope Benedict. The poll also found that an even higher percentage - 65% - have a favorable view of the Catholic Church, although a higher portion, 28% have a negative view.

Forty-two percent of Americans said that they would like to attend one of the Pope's public appearances while he is in the United States, and 66% of Catholics said they'd like to attend one of the events. Pope Benedict will be celebrating large open-air Masses in Washington, D.C. (at Nationals Stadium) and New York City (Yankee Stadium), and will host several smaller gatherings with Catholic educators, seminarians and leaders of other religious faiths. Anderson also unveiled a special new website ( www.papaltrip.org) that offers detailed information about the Pope's trip, as well as historical material about previous popes and their dealings with the Catholic Church in the United States.

Seventy percent or more want to hear Pope Benedict talk about: allowing God to be a part of their daily lives (73%), finding spiritual fulfillment by sharing their time and talent (71%) and how they can make a positive difference in the world, their state, and communities (70%). Nearly two-thirds (64%) expressed an interest in hearing Pope Benedict talk about how they can have a society where spiritual values play an important role.

"The bottom line," Anderson said, "is that, despite years of very negative stories about the Catholic Church scandals, and dissenting view of the Pope as some sort of "panzercardinal" determined to pursue the unorthodox to the ends of the earth, the American people have a very sensible and balanced view of Benedict and the Church. And they are very open to hearing his views on matters of how they might live their faith and put it into action in their daily lives."

The full results of the poll can be found at the Knights of Columbus website, at http://www.kofc.org/un/cmf/resources/maristpoll.pdf.