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    VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- The Vatican newspaper has emphatically condemned a French government decision that will afford legal recognition to common-law marriages and homosexual unions.

    L'Osservatore Romano said that the new French policy, formally approved by the Socialist government on October 13, was "a reckless offense against reason, common sense, and the dignity of the person and of the family." The paper added that the measure would lead to "discrimination against families founded on marriage."

    The criticism appeared in the L'Osservatore Romano edition dated October 15. Because the newspaper appears in the evening before its cover date, the report was in circulation on October 14.

    Father Gino Concetti, the moral theologian for the Vatican newspaper, said that the French policy was based on a point of view which is "unacceptable from the Christian moral perspective." He wrote that the French National Assembly had gone beyond the limits of its legitimate authority by granting legal recognition to partnerships which cannot logically be compared with marriage. The decision, he said, is "repugnant to the conscience and the truth founded on the identity of the human person."

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