Vatican City (AFP) – A top African cardinal has described the threat posed by Islamic extremism and western liberal culture as the twin “Beasts of the Apocalypse” comparable to Nazism and communism.

In an intervention at an ongoing synod of bishops on the future of Catholic teaching on the family, Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah reportedly described Islamist militants and western thinking on abortion and homosexuality as sharing “the same demonic origin.”

“Theological discernment allows to see in our times two unexpected threats — almost like the Beasts of the Apocalypse — from two opposite positions: on one side the idolatry of western freedom, on the other religious fanaticism,” said the cardinal, who is one of the leaders of the Church’s conservative wing.

“What Nazism-fascism and communism were to the 20th century, western ideologies on homosexuality and abortion and Islamic fanaticism are to today,” the cardinal said in comments made last week in the closed-doors synod and published Tuesday by several Italian media outlets.

Sarah reportedly said the secular western world’s way of thinking threatened to destroy the family through “quickie divorces, abortion, homosexual unions: look at gender theory, Femen (a feminist group known for topless protests), the LBGT lobby.

“On the other side, there is the pseudo-family of an ideological Islam which legitimizes polygamy, sexual slavery, child marriage: look at Al-Qaeda, IS, Boko Haram.

Read the article “Cardinal Says Sexual Liberalism and Islamic Extremism are ‘Beasts of Apocalypse’” on news.yahoo.com.