VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI waded deep into U.S. campaign politics Friday, urging visiting U.S. bishops to beef up their teaching about the evils of premarital sex and cohabitation, and denouncing what he called the “powerful” gay marriage lobby in America.

As debate over health care coverage for birth control rages in the United States, Benedict said there was an urgent need for Catholics in America to discover the value of chastity.

Benedict has long championed traditional marriage between man and woman, as well as fidelity within marriage and opposition to premarital sex. But his strong comments to visiting U.S. bishops took on particular significance given the culture wars that have erupted in the United States this campaign season.

U.S. bishops are currently locked in an election year battle with the Obama administration over federal funding for birth control.

Bishops also have been at the forefront of the campaign against same-sex marriage, with at least five U.S. states scheduling ballot measures on the issue in coming months.

The 84-year-old pope acknowledged that his comments might sound anachronistic or “countercultural,” particularly to the young. But he told bishops to not back down in the face of “powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage.”

He also denounced what he called the failure of priests and bishops to instruct Catholics in core church teachings on human sexuality, saying many Catholics seem unaware that living together outside of marriage was “gravely sinful, not to mention damaging to the stability of society.”

The entire Christian community, he said, must recover an appreciation of the virtue of chastity.

 

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