VATICAN CITY — A senior African Vatican official has called on U.S. and African Catholic bishops to respond more forcefully to efforts by the United Nations to impose policies on African nations that run contrary to the faith and the continent’s culture.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, responded forcefully to a speech given by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who told African nations to repeal criminal laws that place sanctions on homosexual conduct and to stop discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Speaking to the Register Feb. 13 on the sidelines of a conference on Africa at the Vatican, the Guinean cardinal said “African bishops must react” to such a move, as “this is not our culture; it’s against our faith.” He described the secretary general’s comments as “stupid” and added that the “Catholic bishops of America must help us in Africa, by reacting themselves.”

“It’s not possible to impose on the poor this kind of European mentality,” he said.

In a Jan. 28 address to 54 African nations at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ki-moon said discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender equality “has been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for far too long.” He added that some governments treat homosexual people as “second-class citizens or even criminals” and that “we must live up to the ideals of the Universal Declaration.”

According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), most African countries frown upon homosexuality as immoral and degrading, with many criminalizing homosexual acts, some even going as far as prescribing the death penalty. Many of these laws post-date the colonial period and have been enacted during the past 10 years. In most of these countries, “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” (LGBT) rights are not even contemplated as possibilities in the distant future.