The Pope said that "saving" humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforests.
By Our Foreign Staff
Last Updated: 8:13AM GMT 23 Dec 2008
In comments at the Vatican that are likely to provoke a furious reaction from homosexual groups, Benedict also warned that blurring the distinction between male and female could lead to the "self-destruction" of the human race.
In his address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, he described behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work" and said that the Roman Catholic Church had a duty to "protect man from the destruction of himself".
It is not "outmoded metaphysics" to urge respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman," he added.
"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 described homosexuality as "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 also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected".
