Pope Francis congratulates UNESCO, a leading promoter of birth control and sex education
17 November 2021
By John Smeaton
According to Vatican News, Pope Francis sent a message (12 November 2021) to the UN organisation, UNESCO, on its 75th anniversary “congratulating it for its work in reflecting the Gospel”.
UNESCO is a UN agency known for its promotion of abortion, contraception and anti-family sex education. They are partners with the Vatican in the Global Compact on Education which has the aim, according to Pope Francis, of creating “a global change of mentality through education” and to forge a “new humanism”.
In his 12 November message to UNESCO, Pope Francis said that the Church is at the service of the Gospel “which has inspired countless educational initiatives in every age and in every place and has animated the scientific and cultural growth of the human family”.
It was for this reason (the service of the Gospel), the Pope said, that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation is “a privileged partner of the Holy See in the common service to peace and solidarity among peoples, to the integral development of the human person and to the protection of the cultural heritage of humanity”.
“Best wishes to UNESCO!”, said the Pope. “All the best! May God bless you and good work! Thank you!”
Last month, Voice of the Family reported:
“In January 2018, despite the objections of UN member states, UNESCO had published technical guidance on ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education’ that aims to promote a global standard for governments, educators, and sexual and reproductive health advocates.[1] Stefano Gennarini of C-Fam pointed out that the guidelines recommend helping children as young as five to identify ‘trusted adults’ other than their parents to ‘help them understand themselves, their feelings and their bodies’. It proposes teaching children from the age of five that gender is a social construct and, from the age of nine to ‘appreciate their own gender identity and demonstrate respect for the gender identity of others’. These objectives also include telling children about various types of ‘non-traditional families’ and places a heavy emphasis on LGBTI ‘rights’.”[2]
It is evident to faithful parents and pro-life activists around the world that far from reflecting the Gospel, UNESCO is a leading force in the corrupting of children worldwide and the suppression of parents as the primary educators and protectors of their children and that the privileged partnership with the Holy See constitutes a painful betrayal.
Pope Francis’s commitment to a new “humanism”, to which he refers in his message to UNESCO, has been a recurring theme of his papacy, including in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, in which he referred to the urgent need for:
“a humanism capable of bringing together the different fields of knowledge, including economics, in the service of a more integral and integrating vision. Today, the analysis of environmental problems cannot be separated from the analysis of human, family, work-related and urban contexts, nor from how individuals relate to themselves, which leads in turn to how they relate to others and to the environment.”
In pursuit of this “new humanism”, Pope Francis has championed leading pro-abortion advocates as well as policies which run entirely contrary to the doctrine of the Church, such as abortion and contraception.
For example, last month, Voice of the Family reported that Pope Francis had appointed Professor Jeffrey Sachs, an outspoken advocate of population control and abortion, as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Over the past seven years, Jeffrey Sachs has played a leading role at Vatican conferences and workshops on “sustainable development” including taking part in a workshop organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2016 which discussed how to “use children as agents of change” in pursuing sustainable development and the environmental agenda. The briefing paper of this workshop, for instance, warned against “parents” and “agencies” that “basing themselves on religious principles, oppose scientific evidence to the detriment of children.”
And on 1st September 2016, Pope Francis in his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, said
“I am gratified that in September 2015 the nations of the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals … Now governments are obliged to honour the commitments they made, while businesses must also responsibly do their part. It is up to citizens to insist that this happen, and indeed to advocate for even more ambitious goals.”
The Sustainable Development Goals 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 programs” (Goal 3 Target 7)
The term “sexual and reproductive health care services” is defined by United Nation bodies as including contraception and its abortifacient forms. The United Nations Population Fund states that “sexual and reproductive health” includes access for all to “the safe, effective, affordable and acceptable contraception method of their choice”. Furthermore, it is used by many international governments, including that of the United States, and by agencies such as Planned Parenthood, to include other forms of abortion.
[1] International technical guidance on sexuality education, UNESCO, 2018, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260770/PDF/260770eng.pdf.multi
[2] Stefano Gennarini, “UN Agency Defies General Assembly, Promotes ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education’”, Center for Family and Human Rights, 19 January, 2018, https://c-fam.org/friday_fax/un-agency-defies-general-assembly-promotes-comprehensive-sexuality-education-part-1/