It’s typical of the conservative movement to blame the media rather than than themselves, their message, or their motives, whenever the public moves in a direction they don’t like. Now U.S. Catholic Church leadership is taking a page from their playbook it seems.

While speaking with David Gregory on Meet The Press this weekend, a top Catholic official claimed that the church is ‘out-marketed’ by supporters of marriage equality.

During the news program, which also addressed the Catholic Church’s stance on the Affordable Care Act, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York admitted that Catholic leadership has fallen behind in the same-sex marriage debate, attributing the trend to the Church’s portrayal as “anti-gay.” “I think maybe we’ve been out-marketed, sometimes. We’ve been caricatured as being anti-gay,” Dolan said. “When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion-molders that are behind it, it’s a tough battle.”

More: Cardinal: The Catholic Church Has Been ‘Out-Marketed’ by Gay Marriage Advocates