Are you listening, Papa?
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
http://mcv.e-p.net.au/news/are-you-listening-papa-2577.html (http://mcv.e-p.net.au/news/are-you-listening-papa-2577.html)
Approximately 2000 demonstrators, including numerous representatives of Italy's gay, lesbian and transsexual communities, were protesting what they say is the Vatican's unwanted interference in public debate.
As well as calling for equal rights for gays and lesbians, protesters demanded the abolition of religious courses in public schools; freedom of choice in all aspects of life, including women's rights to abortion on demand; and an end to the Vatican's tax exemptions and other privileges the Catholic Church enjoys under the Lateran pact of 1929 separating it from the Italian state.