January 14, 2013 - The Vatican newspaper underlined the Catholic Church’s opposition
to gay adoption on Sunday as same-sex marriage supporters staged a topless protest
in front of the pope in St. Peter's Square. The Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano
published a response to an Italian court's rejection of an appeal by a father who
feared his son would not have a balanced upbringing if he lived with his mother and
her female partner. The Court of Cassation ruled it was "mere prejudice" to assume
that living with a homosexual couple could be detrimental for a child's development.
While gay rights group Arcigay called it a "historic ruling" for Italy, where it is
illegal for gay couples to adopt, Catholic leaders were quick to defend the traditional
family unit. In an editorial, the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper rejected the
court ruling, saying that children often grow up in difficult circumstances without
a mother or father. "But no one believes that these situations should be created
just because in some cases they don't cause damage," wrote Adriano Pessina, director
of bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. "The human is the masculine
and the feminine ... the monogamous family is the ideal place to learn the meaning
of human relations and is the environment where the best form of growth is possible,"
he wrote. He reaffirmed the Vatican's view that no one has the "right" to children
that he said gay couples who want to adopt are claiming. In Paris, hundreds of thousands
of people, backed by French Catholic bishops and other religious leaders, protested
against President Francois Hollande's planned legalisation of same-sex marriage.
The Vatican has become increasingly vocal against homosexual marriage in recent months.
Pope Benedict strongly reaffirmed the Church's opposition to it in December, saying
heterosexual marriage had an indispensable role in society. While the pope was delivering
his weekly midday address on Sunday, four women from the Ukrainian Femen group who
were in the crowd, pulled off their T-shirts to reveal the slogan "In Gay we Trust"
painted over their bodies. Italian police overpowered the protesters and pulled them
away from the crowd.