Pope calls for courtship and chastity on Valentine's eve

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2004

VATICAN CITY (AFP) — As thoughts turned to romance on the eve of Saint Valentine's Day, Pope John Paul II urged young lovers to become engaged and remain chaste until they are married.

In a message to the young people of France, the pope said the Roman Catholic Church affirms that love should develop gradually through a period of chaste courtship.

"Marriage between a man and a woman, and the creation of a family, is built on strong ties between two persons and a definitive commitment, and not merely on the emotional aspect, which cannot by itself constitute a basis for marriage," the pope said in his message delivered to a delegation of French prelates.

The pope said the media had created "a culture of the immediate and the fleeting that is not always...