Powerful anti-Christian lobbies drown voice of Pope and Church, says cardinal

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2004 / 22:00 pm

In a press conference this morning in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal Renato Martino of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, stated that “the voices of the Holy Father and the Catholic Church are little heard, above all in rich and comfortable countries…they are submerged under the noise created by powerful economic, cultural, and political lobbies, which mobilize against all that is Christian.”

During the conference, in which the book "Pope John Paul II and the Challenges of Papal Diplomacy," was presented, Cardinal Martino said that these lobbies create “confusion between gener identities, laugh at marriage between a man and a woman and attack human life, which passes for an object of dangerous experiments.”

He called these lobbies “new holy inquisitions full of money and arrogance” that attack the Catholic Church and Christians “using any valid method to silence their voices, from intimidation to public rejection and cultural discrimination and marginalization.”

Remarking on the case of the rejection by many in the European Parliament of the designation of Rocco Buttiglione – a devout Catholic and friend of the Pope – as a comissioner, based on his Catholic views concerning marriage and homosexuality, Cardinal Martino said that “the Church is concerned” in the face of a “mystified democracy based on the axiom that if you are not in agreement with us, you get out.”