The Vatican (LifeNews.com) -- The second-highest ranking Catholic official on church doctrine has stepped up the church's condemnation of abortion calling it "terrorism with a human face." The Catholic church has always taken a strongly pro-life position but the description of abortion that Archbishop Angelo Amato used to describe abortion is especially intense.

Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made the comments in an address to chaplains in Italy.

In the speech, he denounced the "abominable terrorism" of suicide bombers and compared abortion to that calling it "terrorism with a human face, which also occurs daily and is equally repugnant."

He blasted the mainstream media for misleading the public and manipulating language "to hide the tragic reality of the facts," according to a Reuters report.

"For example, abortion is called 'voluntary interruption of pregnancy' and not the killing of a defenseless human being, an abortion clinic is given a harmless, even attractive, name: 'center for reproductive health' and euthanasia is blandly called 'death with dignity'," he said

He said the shootings at Virginia Tech University are a result of the "daily ration of evil" that abortion has produced and he described the media's presentation of abortion "as an expression of the 'progress' of humanity," as contributing to it.

Amato referred to abortion businesses as "slaughterhouses of human beings," as well as condemning euthanasia and the "parliaments of so-called civilized nations where laws contrary to the nature of the human being are being promulgated."

He also referred to abortion facilities and biotech labs as "the laboratories where, for example, RU-486, the morning-after pill, is made or where human embryos are manipulated as if they were simply biological material."