The general secretary of a traditionalist Anglican group has defended an attack by the Pope earlier in the week on homosexual and transsexual behaviour.

In an end-of-year address to prelates in the Vatican, the Pope said that saving mankind from homosexual and transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction and that the Catholic Church had a responsibility to “protect man from the destruction of himself”.

The Rev Geoffrey Kirk, General Secretary of Forward in Faith, contrasted the Pope’s clarity with the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, who has faced criticism for his handling of a dispute in the Anglican Communion over homosexuality.

"It should not be a surprise that the Pope is a Catholic and makes clear statements supporting Catholic teaching,” he was quoted by The Telegraph as saying.
"If there is confusion about what he said it is not because he is not clear it will be because people chose not to listen to what he said.

“If there is confusion about what Rowan Williams says it is because he is not clear.
“We are in such a mess in the Anglican Church, clarity on sexual morality is now impossible."

Rev Kirk predicted that the Pope’s comments would not prompt the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue fresh statements on homosexuality.

“Rowan will not be any clearer on the issue,” he said, according to the newspaper. “He is an Anglican.”

The Pope told the Curia, or the Vatican’s central administration, on Monday that non-heterosexual relationships were a “destruction of God’s work”.

"The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less,” he said.

“It's not simply an outdated metaphysics if the Church speaks of the nature of the human person as man and woman, and asks that this order of creation be respected."