Pope Francis. (AP)

(CNSNews.com) – Although Pope Francis was praised for his “who am I to judge?” comment about gay individuals and was named Person of the Year by the homosexual magazine The Advocate in 2013, the Pope has rejected the idea of same-sex marriage as an “anthropological regression” and stressed that when it comes to adoption, “every person needs a male father and a female mother.”

Pope Francis explained his views on these hot-button issues in his book, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-First Century, which he co-wrote with Rabbi Abraham Skorka in 2010 and which was republished after the then-Argentine cardinal was elected to the papacy in March 2013.

The book is a dialogue between Skorka and the future Pope and includes a chapter on same-sex marriage, which is where the pontiff also talks about adoption.

Skorka first explains that Judaism “prohibits sexual relations between two men” and then expresses worry about how a proposed gay-marriage law in Argentina could change “the core values of our society.”

Pope Francis (then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio) says, “I have the exact same opinion; in order to define it I would use the expression ‘anthropologic regression,’ a weakening of the [marriage] institution that is thousands of years old and that was forged according to nature and anthropology.”

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“We know that in times of momentous change the homosexual phenomenon grew, but in this period it is the first time that the legal problem of assimilating it to marriage has arisen, and this I consider an anti-value and an anthropological regression,” says the Pope. “I say this because it transcends the religious issue, it is anthropological.”

“If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party nor is society affected,” he writes. “Now, if the union is given the category of marriage and they are given adoption rights, there could be children affected.”

“Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help them shape their identity,” says Pope Francis.

Explaining further, he says, “It is often argued that a child would be better cared for by a same-sex couple rather than in an orphanage or an institution. Those two situations are not optimal. The problem is that the State does not do what it has to do."

“They should streamline the procedure of adoption, which are never-ending, so that these children can have a home,” says the pontiff. “One failure of the State does not justify another failure of the State. The underlying issue must be addressed. More than a marriage law so that people of the same sex can adopt, we have to improve the adoption laws, which are excessively bureaucratic and, in their current implementation, encourage corruption.”