Vatican urges Italy to stop proposed anti-homophobia law

Law calls into question church's freedom of organisation' and threatens freedom of thought', letter claims

The Vatican has made an unprecedented intervention urging the Italian government to change a proposed law that would criminalise homophobia over concerns it will infringe upon the Catholic church's freedom of thought".

A letter delivered by the British archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's secretary of relations with states, said parts of the legislation violated a treaty made between Italy and the Catholic church in the 1920s that secured the freedoms and rights of the church, Corriere della Sera reported.