is it really a design by god?

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Pope Fires New Broadside At Gay Families
by The Associated Press

Posted: January 27, 2007 - 4:00 pm ET

(Vatican City) Pope Benedict on Saturday reiterated his defense of the traditional family, saying real marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Benedict's remarks to a Vatican tribunal were the latest by the pontiff on the issue as the Pope keeps up a campaign against unmarried couples and same-sex unions.

The Pope warned against what he said was a "cultural context marked by relativism" and against any views of marriage as merely a legal union "that human will could manipulate as it pleases, even depriving it of its heterosexual nature."

"Each marriage is certainly the fruit of free consent between man and woman," the Pope said in an audience at the Vatican marking the beginning of the judiciary year.

"The union occurs because of the design by God, who has created them male and female and gives them the power to unite those natural and complementary dimensions forever," he said.

The Pope went on to say the bond is indissoluble because "it is so in the design of creation."

The Vatican opposes divorce and other challenges to church doctrine that have become increasingly common in Europe and elsewhere.

It does allow annulment, a process by which the Church effectively declares that a marriage never took place, leaving faithful free to remarry and receive Communion.

In his remarks Saturday, the Pope appealed to the Roman Rota - the annulment-deciding tribunal - not to grant annulments too easily.

Circumstances for granting annulments include refusal by a husband or a wife to have children or the psychological incapability of one of the spouses to contract a valid marriage.

Benedict has condemned same-sex unions as anarchic "pseudo-matrimony," and has launched a campaign for the protection of families based on marriage between a man and a woman. The Vatican also has consistently criticized movements in Italy and other countries that call for granting legal rights to unmarried couples.

Last year, the Pontifical Council for the Family issued a document in which it said that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world.

On Thursday, the Pope called for unity among Christian denominations to fight same-sex marriage. (story)