Pope John Paul II said mentally disabled people's sexual and emotional needs are the same as everyone else's, appealing Thursday for more attention to their dignity and rights.
"Care for the emotional and sexual dimensions of the handicapped person is also worthy of attention," the pope said in a message to a symposium this week at the Vatican about the rights of the mentally handicapped.
"They also need to love and be loved. They need affection, closeness and intimacy," the message said.
"Unfortunately, handicapped people must live these legitimate and natural needs in a disadvantaged situation which becomes ever-more evident with the passage from childhood to adulthood. They seek authentic relationships in which they can be appreciated and recognized as persons," the pope wrote.
John Paul wrote that the disabled people's difficulties "are frequently perceived as a scandal and a provocation, their problems as a weight" in a world "so eager for hedonism and fascinated by ephemeral and false beauty."
The pope said that community life has shown that, with adequate support, handicapped persons can have "rich, productive and satisfying interpersonal relationships."
"Handicapped people, even when they have mental limitations or sensorial and intellectual handicaps, are completely human subjects with the sacred and inalienable rights due to every human creature," John Paul wrote.
"Discrimination based on efficiency is no less condemnable than discrimination based on race, sex or religion," the pontiff said.