WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An increasingly influential Polish Catholic legal institute has inaugurated a university in Warsaw that aims to educate a new generation of conservative lawyers in central Europe. The institute, called Ordo Iuris, backed the recent restriction of abortion rights in Poland and works to oppose the legalization of same-sex unions. Ordo Iuris is regarded with suspicion by LGBT and women’s rights groups in Poland and elsewhere in Europe as it pushes an agenda which they see as extreme. They accuse the group of working internationally to erode the rights they have gained in the past decades. The Catholic institute insists that it is widely misunderstood and unfairly characterized. It says it is working to protect families and free trade.
