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The Vatican today published a sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilisation and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened.

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.

Gay activists in Italy condemned the report as a grotesque attack against modern life, freedom and social redemption.

The 57-page document does not break any new ground but summarised traditional Vatican positions.

"Man of modern times has radicalised the tendency to take the place of God and substitute him," it states. "Never before in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its natural place, been so threatened as in today’s culture."

It makes no mention of the debate within the Catholic church on whether condoms could be used in the fight against Aids, in particular to protect the wife of a man who has the virus. It reaffirms the 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, that stated the Vatican’s opposition to contraception.

The document also condemns IVF treatment, artificial insemination and the use of embryos. "If a man takes on the power to fabricate man, he also takes on the power to destroy him," it says.

"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."

There was controversy when Cardinal Trujillo asserted three years ago that condoms do not prevent Aids and may help spread it because they create a false sense of security. The Vatican insists sexual abstinence is the only sure way to fight Aids.

Several other cardinals have argued that the use of a condom within a marriage would be the lesser of two evils if it prevents passing on HIV infection to the partner.

The document made a broad attack on what it said were threats to the "the natural institution of marriage".

"Couples made up of homosexuals claim similar rights to those reserved to husband and wife; they even claim the right to adoption. Women who live a lesbian union claim similar rights, demanding laws which give them access to hetero fertilisation or embryo implantation.

"Moreover, it is claimed that the help of the law to form these unusual couples goes hand in hand with the help to divorce and repudiate," the document said.

"Abortion and infanticide show the absence of efficient juridical protection for the conceived. Such practices in fact constitute a violation of the fundamental right to life which is the right of every human being from the moment of conception," it said.

Franco Grillini, a deputy in the Italian Parliament and honorary president of the activist group Arcigay, condemned the Vatican document as "grotesque," and said that other European countries that give legal recognition to unmarried and gay couples have done so with great benefit to society.

"To maintain, therefore ... that this would represent an attack against the traditional family is a falsehood that has been scientifically contradicted by the facts," said Signor Grillini.

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