Bologna, February 1, 2014 – "A serious and dishonest operation, carried out by shady individuals who use the crucifix as a political crowbar, blackmailing, mystifying, and attempting in every way to influence the outcome of government debates": Flavio Romani, president of Arcigay, points the finger at the pressure from the Bishop of Cremona, Dante Lafranconi, to have the European Parliament reject the Lunacek report, which focuses on LGBT rights. This interference was publicly denounced by Sonia Alfano, MEP for the ALDE group and Chair of the European Parliament's Anti-Mafia Committee, who reported receiving a personal letter from the prelate, also alleging his involvement in shady legal cases, now time-barred. We thank the Hon. Sonia Alfano for her public denunciation, unique and isolated in the face of what we believe to be a massive and widespread attempt at interference, directed at all Italian elected officials in the European Parliament. The emperor is naked, or rather: the bishop is naked. This is the way the Italian Catholic lobby operates, in defiance of the Pope's wishes and fine words, which are evidently completely ineffective in correcting the bad habits of the prelates. The report by the Hon. Ulrike Lunacek raises important and urgent questions regarding discrimination and the recognition of LGBT people: depriving Europe of this directive means completely abandoning the ambition for the European Union to represent a model of civilization and a driver of progress, and not just a financial constraint. In recent weeks, the European Parliament missed a great opportunity by burying the Estrela resolution on the right to safe abortion. That rejection immediately paved the way for reactionary outbursts on gender policies, and today, precisely, the Women in Spain and elsewhere are demonstrating en masse against Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón's bill, which seeks to ban abortion as a woman's free decision, limiting its use to cases of sexual violence or serious risk to the woman's health. The rejection of the Estrela resolution, it should be remembered, is also due to the support that some Italian elected officials (including Democrats Vittorio Prodi and David Sassoli) have provided to the clerical lobby. "We are not making insinuations," Romani emphasizes, "but the public denunciation by the Hon. Alfano exposes once and for all the murky and illicit connection between the Church and Italian politics. The upcoming vote on the Lunacek report is therefore a crucial test: we ask parliamentarians to reject the Vatican emissaries' requests and to uphold the dignity of their mandates. In their votes, they should respond to the wishes of the electorate who voted for them and to the platforms of the political parties to which they belong." representatives. Any vote that deviates from this will inevitably be interpreted as the result of manipulation and evidence of a hidden power insinuating itself into our democracy.“.