Archbishop Peter Comensoli of Melbourne, Australia, has decried the passage of new legislation that restricts the protections accorded to religious groups in anti-discrimination law.

The new bill is “an unbalanced law on people of faith,” the archbishop said. He remarked that Catholic institutions will now face new burdens, despite the lack of any evidence of discrimination. The law, he said, is “a serious overreach by the Victorian government into the rightful freedoms of faith-based organizations.”