Madrid, Spain - One of the leading figures in Spain's catholic church has launched an attack on the country's politicians and media for "sowing fundamentalist, laic and anti-Catholic discord".
Cardinal Julian Herranz, who is one of two Spaniards who serves in the papal Curia in Rome, complained the recent granting of the right to marriage between gay people was part of a "libertarian demagogy".
He called on Christians to fight "the enemy". "Be wise and don't sleep," he said. "It's time to shake off laziness and drowsiness. Don't forget that there are places on earth that in other times were witness to flourishing churches which are now wastelands, where the name of Christ is never spoken."
Herranz made his remarks during a service at the church Concepcion de Nuestra Senora in Madrid to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a priest.
The cardinal described contemporary Spain as suffering from "cultural and moral degradation". Politicians, he said, "invent rights which don't exist and on the other hand deny or make difficult legal principles and rights based on the dignity of the person and the common good of society, which came before any political system and any government of the left or the right".
He said parents had "an inalienable right" for their children to receive a religious education in schools which they were financially supporting and said Spain's current culture of "libertarian demagogy" went against Catholic values which were held by 90 percent of Spaniards.