Smash hit

"Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."

'Homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity', 2003

Doctrinal document

"According to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies must not be accepted. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is by our law an abomination and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity.' " . . .

"In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection."

'The inclination must be seen as an objective disorder', 1986

Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs... The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in work, in action and in law."

Pope John Paul II on homosexuality, 1992

“Recently, legislation had been proposed in some American states which would make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal. ...Such initiatives, even where they seem more directed toward support of basic civil rights than condonement of homosexual activity or a homosexual lifestyle, may in fact have a negative impact on the family and society... Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved.”

In his 2005 book Memory and Identity, the last published before his death, Pope John Paul II said homosexuality was an “ideology of evil”.

He said of gay marriage that, “It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.”