Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, asking the Catholic leader to condemn the annual International Gay Pride parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem in August.

Amar asked the pope to “strongly and unequivocally come out against this terrible phenomenon, out of hope that a general protest from different religious leaders will awaken the lost hearts who are deceiving themselves and immeasurably harming their souls, and discourage the willful wrongdoer from cursing and corrupting the human way.”