Vatican Official:
Gays Are Treacherous
by Malcolm Thornberry 365Gay.com from the Web, October 19, 2004
Vatican City -- A high ranking Vatican official has denounced what he calls a powerful cultural, economic and political lobby that is drowning out the voice of the Pope
-- gay civil rights groups and organizations supporting a woman's right to choose.
Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, the former Papal Nuncio to the UN and now the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said the groups were "inspired mainly by anti-Christian prejudices".
"It is enough to think of how nonchalantly and blithely, yet tenaciously, these lobbies promote confusion over the role of gender identity, mock marriage between a man and a women, and take aim against life itself which is made the object of absurd forms of experimentation," Cardinal Martino said Monday.
Without mentioning by name Rocco Buttiglione, the embattled European Union's incoming Commissioner for Justice, it was clear that the remarks were aimed at Buttiglione's foes.
During confirmation hearings, Buttiglione called homosexuality "a sin", and on the weekend criticized single mothers.
His nomination is headed for a showdown in the European Parliament.
Buttiglione is an arch conservative Catholic and a personal friend of Pope John Paul.
The Vatican is anxious to see him in office.
Cardinal Martino said critics of the Church were putting the Pope "on trial".
"Who ends up in the defendant’s dock of these lobbies, these new holy inquisitions full of money and arrogance?
The Catholic Church and Christians mainly, against whom “anything goes” -- from intimidation to public contempt, from discrimination to cultural outcasting -- as long as they are silenced.
Yet, the Church, with the force of its God-given strength and its bimillenial experience, will continue to announce the Gospel of salvation, preaching the full truth of man against all forms of relativism and obscurantism of post-modern Enlightenment."
Martino also accused Spain of turning its back on Catholicism. The Spanish government is moving forward on plans to legalize same-sex marriage.
Once the most Catholic country in Europe, Spain in the post Franco era has become one of the continent's most liberal societies.
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