Pope ends Spain trip defending family

Pope Benedict wound up a quick trip to Valencia yesterday, implicitly condemning some key social legislation of Spain's Socialist government and stressing that marriage had to be heterosexual and for life.

At the last major event of his 26-hour visit, the German Pope presided at a Mass for more than a million people on the grounds of a sprawling futuristic arts and science complex in Spain's third largest city.

In his homily, the Pope, wearing green and white vestments, several times praised the traditional family, founded on "indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman".

To press the message home, the Pope again hailed marriage as a "permanent bond" just before he boarded an aeroplane back to Rome.

The Pope's comments on family values were in stark contrast with new laws in Spain to legalise gay marriage, make divorce and fertility treatment easier and cut Catholic education in schools.

Prime Minister Josè Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has often clashed head-on with the Catholic Church, did not attend Mass yesterday and was heckled by a small crowd when he arrived at the archbishop's residence to meet the Pope on Saturday.

Polls show around two thirds of Spaniards support gay marriage, a sea change from the 1939-1975 dictatorship when right-wing Francisco Franco banned homosexuality and divorce. Less than a fifth of Spaniards now practise their faith.

During his trip, the Pope defended Christian education, urged Spanish bishops to hold firm at "a time of rapid secularisation" and decried attempts to restrict faith and ethics to the private sphere.

"In contemporary culture, we often see an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual," he said yesterday, speaking in Spanish as pilgrims sheltered under umbrellas against the beating Mediterranean sun.

The Pope, who often speaks out against abortion, also reiterated that "at the origin of every human being there is not something haphazard or chance, but a loving plan of God".

Despite the shortness of the Pope's trip, the third since he was elected last year, the pontiff received a tumultuous reception in Valencia with thousands of faithful from around the world cheering and waving white and yellow Vatican flags.

Many of the families at yesterday's Mass had attended a rally with the Pope that ended around midnight on Saturday and had camped out overnight to get a good spot for the service.

At the end of his visit, the Pope announced the Church's next World Meeting of Families would be in Mexico City in 2009.

Mr Zapatero's decision not to attend Mass caused what a Vatican source called a "certain irritation" in the papal entourage.

A Vatican spokesman noted Communist leaders Fidel Castro of Cuba and Poland's Wojciech Jaruzelski had gone to Masses presided over by the late Pope John Paul II. Other Western leaders have not attended services during papal visits.