Poland has accused Germany’s justice system of putting European standards at risk after a Cologne court fined a Polish theologian for an article describing gay people in the Catholic clergy as “parasites.” The court imposed the €4,800 penalty on Dariusz Oko, a conservative theology professor based in Krakow, for inciting hatred through his article in a German magazine on alleged homosexual influence in the Vatican. In comments to German news agency DPA published Sunday, Polish Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski said he saw “anti-freedom tendencies in the German legal protection system.” “The imposition of penalties for scientific activities represents a threat to fundamental freedoms and European standards,” Romanowski said. The clash over Oko’s broadside in the magazine Theologisches is inflaming a simmering culture war within both the Catholic church and the EU over values and liberal democratic institutions.