From an address given by Pope Benedict XVI at the welcoming celebration of World Youth Day in Sydney, July 17, 2008:

"I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation 'explain' that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely 'entertainment'?"

From a letter to legislators:

Wife, husband, child-these are not historical holdovers from a bygone era, but realities rooted in our human nature.

Commitment and sexual acts do not by themselves establish marriage-they must correspond to human nature, a reality discerned from observation and right reason. Applying this natural law, society has come to recognize that a parent should not marry their own child, that an individual should not marry their blood sibling, and that an individual should not have multiple spouses. Likewise, it shows us that an individual should not marry a member of the same sex.

Proponents of marriage between members of the same sex want us to ignore these realities of our human nature. But it is not without significance that our species has two sexes, male and female. That between these two sexes we observe differences, most obvious on a biological level, but on additional levels as well. That these differences are not contradictory, but complementary, and that from the natural biological complementarity of the sexes, new human life is brought forth. And of that new human life, we see that it is best nurtured and developed within the lasting union formed by its biological parents, who themselves grow and develop by this union. In this structure we call family, the child finds identity, protection, provision, and the inimitable loving care of a mother and a father. Proponents would have us ignore that this is the optimal environment to raise children, and that while practical considerations can sometimes prevent this from happening, it is a model we nevertheless recognize and strive toward, not away from. The nature of homosexual relations contradict these realities, and therefore marriage between members of the same sex is equally contradictory. The same can be said of bisexual relations, transgendered, foursomes, and other practices.

These are only a few of the reasons that I ask you to support legislation which protects the definition of marriage and family consistent with human nature, and oppose legislation which would cause the civil law to contradict human nature through marriage between members of the same sex, or its equivalent form, civil unions.

Don't all laws 'tell someone what to do with their body'?

How does a mother have a right to kill her child, simply because it's her child?

How can the reproductive act between a man and a woman produce anything other than a human?

If an embryo is not truly a human person, what reason is there for an abortion?

Why do some folk say they don't know how human life starts? Did they not get the 'birds and the bees' talk?

Why do we have laws to protect unhatched bald eagles, but not unborn humans?

Why is the scientific fact that DNA uniquely identifies every human person, suddenly forgotten when we talk about humans in the embryonic stage?

How are zygote, blastocyst, embryo, newborn, infant, toddler, child, teenager, young adult, adult, and senior different?

How can personal choice trump an innocent baby's life?

True science and true faith have nothing to fear from each other.

The story goes something like this: religious belief arose from man's need to explain the natural world. With the advent of science, reason was now capable of dispelling man's myths, and a mutual distrust ensued: On the one hand, science undermines religious power, and on the other, religious belief biases the objectivity of science.

So the story goes anyway, and in certain cases there's some truth to it. But we'd be mistaken to think that science and faith are therefore eternal enemines. Quite the opposite, they are partners in truth.

Probably the best place to begin is to show that while science can explain the physical world, it is not equipped to explain the metaphysical world. One of the tragedies of the atheistic scientist is that he has latched onto the truths of science, and has concluded that all truth is therefore scientific. Or, said differently, anything that is not scientifically verifiable is dubious. But you cannot test justice with the instruments of science, nor can you test patience for that matter. And to claim that justice and patience therefore don't exist, is its own leap of faith. Rather, we should not be surprised that the tools for discovering the physical world, tell us very little about the metaphysical world.

For its part, faith isn't very equipped to probe the inner workings of the physical world. Its aim is to address the metaphysical part of reality we all live in. Our own experience shows the human drive toward selfishness, and yet the allure to selflessness. We know of love, and of hate. Of the irrepeatability of the human soul. This is the purview of faith.

The danger, then, is when science tries to take on the role of faith, or faith that of science. Perhaps this is a good measure of true science or true faith: Is the science making claims about God? Or is the faith defining physical laws? For example, science can go so far as to document the facts around a miracle, but it cannot make the next step to draw conclusions. Likewise, faith can go so far as to affirm the order of the created world, but it cannot make the next step to draw conclusions.

For that, you need something where science and faith can meet as one--a human.

"You can't legislate morality."

There's some truth to this saying, but it often leads to the wrong conclusion that morals and laws shouldn't mix. The reality is, they can't be separated.

Law-making is inherently about the question of what is just, and what is just is unavoidably about the question of right and wrong. So you don't get to a law without passing through the realm of morality. In fact, if you remove their moral basis, laws merely become the tyranny of the majority, incapable of being challenged on any other grounds.

So does this mean we should rush to our legislatures and pass all morals into law? Hardly. The sphere of morality is broad, while the role of goverment is limited. Governments are established not to regulate the good of individuals, but to protect and promote the common good. Protecting the common good means establishing outer boundaries within which civilized society can take place, and beyond which society has been so injured as to warrant public interference (e.g. murder and theft). Promoting the common good means establishing those initiatives which foster mutual benefit in a society (e.g. roads and historical preservation).

So when dealing with laws, the question isn't so much whether morals can be legislated, but what morals can be justly legislated.

From a letter written to legislators on consideration of an embryonic stem cell research bill:

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you vote against any legislation which funds stem cell research on human embryos.

In our day science has begun to probe the beginnings of human life, but we cannot forget that it is still human life. Eyes and limbs may not yet be developed, but each of us began our own life in this manner. Embryonic stem cell research freezes human life at this early stage, and makes it the object of experimentation. We deny, quite plainly, their right to live, without which every other human right is meaningless.

Again, I ask that you vote against any legislation which funds stem cell research on human embryos. Thank you for your consideration.

"Can God create a rock he couldn't lift?"

This is an example of a bad question. Like, "How big is honesty?" Or, "What color are ideas?" The one is a physical description, the other a metaphysical description. They are incongruous.

A rock is, by definition, a finite physical reality. God is, by definition, an infinite spiritual reality. There can be, by definition, only one infinite. Everything else is finite. For a rock to be bigger than God, or beyond his ability to lift, God would no longer be infinite, the rock would be.

So the question of: "Can God create a rock he couldn't lift?" really breaks down to: "Can something be more infinite than infinity?".

A bad question.