How Catholic officials assist the abortion lobby
By John Smeaton | 31 May 2023
During the thankfully failed attempt of the enemies of life and the family to enact compulsory RSE legislation in 2010, Mr Ed Balls, the Labour Government’s secretary of state for children, schools and families, said:
“To have the support of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Nichols in these changes is, I think, very, very important … a huge step forward.”1
Tragically, seven years later, under a Conservative Government, similar legislation became law — with the backing of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.
Then too, the Catholic Bishops’ policy of support for the Government’s Relationships and Sex Education guidelines was of great political importance. Their support was emphasised in a statement from Nick Gibb, the Conservative Government’s Minister for School Standards, who said:
“The guidance was carefully crafted to build the widest possible consensus for this policy, which is why it went through this House with an overwhelming majority and the other House without a Division.”2
Mr Nick Gibb continued:
“Those people who are opposed to it are at the other end of that consensus. I am afraid that it is unlikely that we will bring those extreme ends of the debate into that consensus, but I am very content that we have secured the support of the Catholic Church … for the guidance we have created.”
In the Voice of the Family Digest, nº 21,3 I explained more fully the nature of the Catholic bishops’ support for the Government, which included welcoming the government’s final draft guidance on RSE as “compatible with the Catholic model curriculum”. This document presented abortion as an option to which pupils must be signposted without any reference to parents, and reaffirmed in an intimidatory way the obligation of schools to teach LGBT content.
The great care taken by abortion revolutionaries in building an alliance with the Catholic Church was also seen in the United Nations’ assiduous courting of Pope Francis to gain his support for their Sustainable Development Goals.
In April 2015, the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, travelled to Rome to open a Vatican conference on environmental issues. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Ban Ki-Moon said: “The reason I am coming to the pope is that now I need moral support.”4 The year 2015, the United Nations leader said, was a year for global action on climate change and achieving more sustainable lifestyles.
In September 2016, Pope Francis published a message for the celebration of the world day of prayer for the care of creation in which he said:
“The protection of our common home requires a growing global political consensus. Along these lines, I am gratified that, in September 2015, the nations of the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, and that, in December 2015, they approved the Paris Agreement on climate change.”5
The Sustainable Development Goals, which were endorsed by the Paris Agreement on climate change, call on member states to:
“ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes” (Goal 3, Target 7)
The term “access to sexual and reproductive health care services” is defined by the United Nations Population Fund as including access for all to “the safe, effective, affordable and acceptable contraception method of their choice”.6 Furthermore the term “reproductive health care” is used by many powerful governments throughout the world, including by President Biden’s administration in the US, to refer to access to abortion.7
And the term “universal access” includes access to reproductive health care services for all, including adolescents, according to the UNFPA.8 Adolescence, in its turn, is defined by the World Health Organisation, a UN body, as “the phase of life between childhood and adulthood, from ages 10–19”9
This kind of extremely dangerous alliance with revolutionary tendencies on the part of Catholics, is not a new phenomenon. Pope Pius IX explained its dangers in a letter to the president and members of the Saint Ambrose Circle of Milan on 6 March 1873, in which he wrote:
“Though the children of this world be wiser than the children of light, their snares and their violence would undoubtedly have less success if a great number of those who call themselves Catholics did not extend a friendly hand to them. Yes, unfortunately, there are those who seem to want to walk in agreement with our enemies and try to build an alliance between light and darkness, an accord between justice and iniquity, by means of those so-called liberal Catholic doctrines, which, based on the most pernicious principles, adulate the civil power when it invades things spiritual and urge souls to respect or at least tolerate the most iniquitous laws, as if it had not been written absolutely that no one can serve two masters. They are certainly much more dangerous and more baneful than our declared enemies, not only because they second their efforts, perhaps without realising it, but also because, by maintaining themselves at the very edge of condemned opinions, they take on an appearance of integrity and irreprehensible doctrine, beguiling the imprudent friends of conciliations and deceiving honest persons, who would revolt against declared error. In this way, they divide the minds, rend the unity, and weaken the forces that should be assembled against the enemy.”10
Notes
- The Today programme, the BBC’s flagship news broadcast (23 February 2010).
- House of Commons debate (entitled Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act) on 25th June 2019.
- https://voiceofthefamily.com/the-political-significance-the-catholic-bishops-of-england-and-wales-support-for-compulsory-relationships-and-sex-education/
- https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/un-leader-asks-francis-help-addressing-climate-change
- https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2016/documents/papa-francesco_20160901_messaggio-giornata-cura-creato.html
- https://www.unfpa.org/sexual-reproductive-health
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/03/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-executive-order-at-the-first-meeting-of-the-task-force-on-reproductive-healthcare-access-2/
- https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA_Reproductive_Paper_20160120_online.pdf
- https://www.who.int/health-topics/adolescent-health#tab=tab_1
- https://tfpstudentaction.org/resources/forgotten-truths/no-one-can-serve-two-masters-1