Given the outrageous sex scandals that have rocked the Catholic church for years now (and which show no sign of abating), you’d think that leaders of that institution would have learned never to cast the first stone.

Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the very influential diocese of Westminster in England, obviously missed the lecture on that particular biblical quote. Or perhaps he simply suffers from foot-in-mouth disease, a common affliction among conservative clergy these days.

In the wake of the Pope’s visit to Britain this month, Adamus recently went on a rampage against what he sees as the moral decay of his country because of its embrace of gay and women’s rights. He told Zenit, a Catholic news organization, that “Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicenter of the culture of death.”

The phrase “culture of death” was first used by former pope John Paul II to describe abortion and euthanasia.

Adamus feels that Catholics should “exhibit counter-cultural signals against the selfish, hedonistic wasteland that is the objectification of women for sexual gratification.”

“Britain, in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialization of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the ‘gay’ agenda, is such a wasteland,” he said.

“Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years or more,” he opined, “have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking, than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution.” Britain one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes on the planet? Open mouth, plant foot firmly inside.

Of course, not everyone in the country welcomed Adamus’ silly remarks. Peter Tatchell, a gay activist and member of the Protest the Pope coalition, which will not be welcoming the pontiff when he steps foot on British soil, said that “to claim that Britain is the center of a culture of death is absurd.” He cited the country’s contributions to “new medical treatments” and combating “hunger and poverty in developing countries.”

Keith Porteous Wood, who heads up the National Secular Society, said that Adamus’ comments show why “mass attendance here has halved in just 20 years and why only a quarter of Catholics agree with the official line on abortion -- and fewer still on homosexuality and contraception.”

Even the archbishop of England and Wales has distanced himself from Adamus. A spokesperson said that the pastor’s remarks “did not reflect the archbishop’s opinions.”

A wise decision on the archbishop’s part.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is co-editor of Avanti Popolo: Italians Sailing Beyond Columbus, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, which was nominated for both an American Library Association and a Lambda Literary award. His website is www.avicollimecca.com.