Pope John Paul II Saturday criticized the Spanish socialist government's plans for social change, including same-sex marriages, faster divorces and abortion.
The pope used the presentation of credentials of a new Spanish ambassador to the Vatican to express his displeasure at Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's social policy package considered radical by its critics which includes liberalizing abortion rights, developing embryonic stem cell research and a freeze on an education bill that favored Catholic religious teaching in schools.
Zapatero also faces opposition from the Catholic church in Spain over these issues.
"Public authorities, in their role as the guarantors of everybody's rights, have the obligation to defend life, especially the life of the weakest and the most defenseless members of our society," he told Ambassador Jorge Descaller de Mazarredo.
"We must point out the inconsistencies of current trends that, on the one hand, stress the importance of well being, yet on the other hand destroy people's dignity, and their most basic human rights, such as when the right to life is limited or used as a tool, which is the case of abortion," the pontiff said.