Spain’s Catholic bishops have criticised recent government initiatives on issues from euthanasia to gender ideology.

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera of Valencia told Spain’s La Razón that the euthanasia law was “iniquitous, criminal, anti-life, anti-human and anti-social” law contradicted the Spanish people’s “common good, identity and moral tradition,” and warned there would be “no forgiveness or pardon” for politicians backing it unless they “recognise their guilt and the damage caused.”

Meanwhile, a draft law was introduced by the government on June 29, allowing people over 16 to identify as a different gender in the civil register by a simple court declaration, without medical or legal measures, and imposing heavy fines for all discrimination. A similar law already exists in Ireland.

Auxiliary Bishop Luis Argüello Garcia of Valladolid, secretary-general of the bishops’ conference, warned on Twitter that the proposed law, which has been protested by some feminist groups as an attack on female identity, would “transform sentiment into a legal category and enthrone the will to power without limit.”

“Whoever is born a man will always be a man, and whoever is born a woman will always be a woman, no matter which hormones they impose and operations they perform,” the archbishop told Catholics in a homily.