The Vatican condemned Britain’s proposed equality law yesterday, complaining that legislation to give homosexual equal rights “violates natural law”.

On the day Rome finally confirmed that the Pope would make a state visit to Britain this year, the Vatican launched an unprecedented attack on the human rights policies of Gordon Brown, claiming that they threatened religious freedom and urging Catholic bishops to fight back with “missionary zeal”.

In what was interpreted as an attack on Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill, which is going through Parliament, the Pope urged the 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales in Rome on a five-yearly ad limina visit to make a united stand against it. He claimed that the proposed equal rights laws threatened “longstanding British traditions” of freedom of speech.

• Full story at The Times.

• Filed under Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Christian News Monitor, Sexuality.