VATICAN CITY – The Vatican issued a sweeping condemnation Tuesday of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world.
The document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, is a strong opponent of the use of condoms under any circumstances.
However, the document did not mention an ongoing debate within the Vatican on whether the Roman Catholic Church could permit condoms to battle AIDS in a particular circumstance — when one partner in a marriage has the virus.
It reaffirmed the famous 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae" that stated the Vatican's opposition to contraception. Since then, it said, couples "have been limiting themselves to one, or maximum two children."
"Never before in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its natural place, been so threatened as in today's culture," said the 57-page document.
It also condemned in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and the use of embryos.
"The human being has the right to be generated, not produced, to come to life not in virtue of an artificial process but of a human act in the full sense of the term: the union between a man and a woman," the document said.
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