Pope: ' marriage is only between a man and a woman'

On Saturday at Castelgandolfo, the Pope repeated the Church's teaching on marriage, during a visit from Donald Smith, Canada's new ambassador to the Holy See. After recalling Youth 2000 and praising many features of Canadian life including her multicultural society and great contribution to the developing world he said: "Canada's openness to migration has brought increasing diversity and a great richness to your culture, fostering mutual accommodation and respect between ethnic groups. ... The successful integration of the multiple ethnic communities ... also illustrate for other nations that the respect due to every person is rooted in the common origin of all men and women, rather than in the fact of differences between peoples. It is this sublime and fundamental truth concerning the human person - created male and female in the image and likeness of God - which constitutes the immutable basis for all other anthropological truths." "For generations Canadians have recognized and celebrated the place of marriage at the heart of your society. ... The institution of marriage necessarily entails the complementarity of husbands and wives who participate in God's creative activity through the raising of children. Spouses thereby ensure the survival of society and culture, and rightly deserve specific and categorical legal recognition by the State. Any attempts to change the meaning of the word "spouse" contradict right reason: legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, cannot be applied to unions between persons of the same sex without creating a false understanding of the nature of marriage." The Pope closed by expressing confidence that "the splendid vision of supportive and stable family life, so dear to the people of Canada, will continue to offer to society the foundation upon which the aspirations of your nation can be built." Source: VIS