Pope winds up Spain trip defending family

VALENCIA, Spain, July 9 (Reuters) Pope Benedict wound up a quick trip to Valencia today, 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 about 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''.

The Spanish royal family attended the mass but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero did not. His government has clashed head-on with the Church over several issues, mainly last year's legalisation of gay marriage.

Zapatero was heckled and whistled by a small crowd when he arrived at the archbishop's residence for a meeting with the Pope yesterday.

As well as the homosexual marriage law, which gives gays the same adoption and inheritance rights as heterosexuals, the Church has criticised moves to make divorce and fertility treatment easier and to cut Catholic education in schools.

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

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