The controversy may appear to be an internal Catholic matter (it has received virtually no coverage in the mainstream media) but it has broader implications. The nature of Lifesite’s attacks could well hamper the way in which D&P [Development and Peace] conducts is development work in poor countries. Lifesite insists that agencies described as Catholic should be prohibited from being involved in projects related to family planning of any kind, including contraception – and that Catholic groups be prohibited from associating with other organizations who are so involved. Such a policy, if enacted, would prevent Catholic groups from working for justice in many circumstances. This would be a victory for the Catholic right and would signal a return to a form of triumphalism that was supposedly discarded by Vatican II in the 1960s. Accepting this protocol would also set back the cause of women’s rights by decades and place Catholic organizations in the company of some of the world’s most religiously fundamentalist regimes.
Gruending's usual good read.
The CCCB has also placed itself into a position of requesting dialogue with an organization that many bishops have long considered to be on the church’s extremist fringe, and one that has no official status as a Catholic organization.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic hierarchy is scared to death of these people, mostly because they can lie with impunity.
"Allegations are unfounded" = "They made it up" = "They lied."
Biography of Lifesite "News" editor, John-Henry Westen:
ReplyDelete“I had met a friend in university who did stuff that wasn’t legal,” Westen says. He indulged with his friends, lost his licence through too many speeding tickets and would find himself entangled in the court system after being caught driving without a licence. “I felt my whole life falling apart,” he said. “I had graduated from high school young and gone to university early. Now, here I was, 21, I was in trouble with the law and my whole life was going down in the dumps.”
Same old story. Scratch a self-righteous, moralising religious scold and find a former felon.