The Pope has declared that saving the world from homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the rainforests.

In a Christmas message, Benedict XVI stressed the importance of traditional marriage and condemned gay acts as against God's will.

He also attacked transsexuals, saying: 'It is not man who decides who is a man or woman but God.'

Pope Benedict, 82, known as God's Rottweiler for his hardline views, made the comments in his festive address to the Vatican's governing body, the Curia.

He said: 'The Church must defend not only the earth, the water and the air as gifts of creation belonging to everyone, but it must also protect mankind against the destruction of itself.

'The tropical forests deserve our protection, but man as a creature deserves it no less.'
In a clear reference to homosexuality, he said the failure to respect the union between a man and a woman amounted to the 'auto destruction of mankind'.

Humanity needed to 'listen to the language of creation' to understand the intended roles of man and woman, he added. Anything that deviated from this was a 'destruction of God's works'.
The Pope – who acquired a reputation as an aggressive, doctrine-enforcing cardinal before he was appointed to the Vatican top job – also defended the Church's right to 'speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected'.

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