A top Vatican cardinal on Monday assailed what he called attempts to silence the Roman Catholic Church on issues of gender and marriage, blaming "powerful cultural, economic and political lobbies."
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Justice and Peace Council, said "new holy inquisitions full of money and arrogance" were taking aim at church positions, particularly in Europe. He said the unidentified lobbies have been confusing the roles in gender identity and "mocking marriage between a man and a woman."
Pope John Paul II has led the Vatican in a campaign to deny legal status to same-sex marriages.
Above all in Europe, Martino said, the voices of the pope and the Catholic Church have been drowned out by the "uproar and noise orchestrated by the powerful cultural, economic and political lobbies."
In response to a question, Martino cited an attempt several years ago by a Catholic abortion rights group to change the Holy See's observer status at the United Nations.
Martino, the former Vatican representative at the United Nations in New York, also said the Vatican has been following with concern the case of the Italian minister nominated to oversee civil liberties in the new European executive, who is under fire after saying he considered homosexuality a sin.
A European Parliament committee concluded last week that Rocco Buttiglione, Italy's European affairs minister, was unfit for the post of EU justice, freedom and security commissioner. Buttiglione is close to the Vatican.