The Vatican has continued its fight against marriage equality in Europe and around the world, saying gay couples live in a ‘different reality’ hoping for a ‘false utopia’.

L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, printed a front-page editorial titled titled ‘Marriage Is Not A Contract’.

Think Progress reports it claimed same-sex couples live in a ‘different reality’ where they believe society will crumble if an ‘unattainable utopia’ of equality is not achieved.

The paper said: ‘Saying that marriage between a woman and a man is equal to that between two homosexuals is, in fact, a denial of the truth that affects one of the basic structures of human society, the family.

‘We cannot base a society on these foundations without them paying a very high price as happened in the past when there was an attempt to achieve total economic and social equality.

‘Why repeat the same mistake and chase after an unattainable utopia?’

The Vatican’s editorial also condemned gay couples in families trying to have, or adopting children, saying it would only lead to ‘new forms of exploitation’ in science.

The editorial follows the Pope Benedict XVI’s claims in a World Day of Peace speech that same-sex marriage is unnatural, against human nature, and poses a threat to ‘justice and peace’.

He said: ‘There is also a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of union.

‘Such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society.’

On 16 December, gay rights activists held a peaceful protest outside St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.