Anti-Faith Showing?
Officials with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) removed a controversial link from its website after a UN monitoring group called attention to it. The link, to an international feminist organization called the Center for Population and Development Activities (CEDPA), contained a series of documents which attacked the Catholic Church and other religious positions against population control. On 22 January, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI), a non-governmental organization which monitors the activity of United Nations, reported the link in its “Friday Fax.” By the Following Wednesday, the link to documents were removed. No one from UNFPA or CEDPA was available to comment on either the documents or their removal before we went to press.
The documents, which could still be found as of late January at www.cedpa.org, clearly attempt to isolate the Vatican from other religious authorities, other religious bodies and other Catholics. “The “majority view among Muslim scholars on contraception has been that it is permissible with the wife’s consent, though perhaps disliked in certain cases,” according to Azizah al-Hibri, a Muslim philosopher, jurist, and author,” CEDPA reported. The next paragraph continues: “The United Methodist Church says population growth must be addressed in the context of development. Most mainline Protestants agree that global population policies need to be considered within the context of social justice. The ICPD Programme of Action concurs.”
The drumbeat continues about Catholics. “Only 49% of U.S. priests and 37% of nuns say it is always or often a sin for a married couple to use artificial methods of birth control,” CEDPA states, citing a 1993 Los Angeles Times “mail back” survey of 5000 priests (2,007 responded) and 2,500 religious sisters (1,049 responded.) Given that there are about 50,000 priests in the United States and only 5% of them chose to participate in a self-selecting survey, there is reason to doubt the results. A similar willingness to play fast and loose with the numbers underpinned the assertion that “Catholics constitute 17% of global population. The Holy See had a seat as a state at the ICPD thus its views received more notice than those of other major world religions.” Only a search of the footnotes revealed that that quote had been taken from the stridently pro-abortion lobby, Catholics for a Free Choice.
Of course, UNFPA is free to link to whichever organization it likes, but appearing to adopt the positions which attack the faith of many of the developing world’s people should call the organizations motives into even deeper question.
“UNFPA and the population controllers have never hidden their hatred for organized religion,” said Austin Ruse. CAFHRI Director. “The great monotheistic faiths stand against the anti-natal policies of UNFPA. Of course they would attack the Catholic Church.”
Pro natalist forces marshaling
International policy makers met at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in January for a four-day conference on family policy. According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CAHFRI), diplomats and scholars from 25 nations convened at the World Family Policy Forum hosted by NGO Family Voice, a joint project of Brigham Young’s J. Reuben Clark School of Law and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. During the conference, participants heard from 19 mostly academic speakers, each of whom addressed some aspect of the impact of national and international policies upon families. The purpose of the conference was to provide policy makers with assistance in rebutting what many see as anti-family policies coming out of national governments, but most especially out of the United Nations.
Richard Wilkins, executive director of NGO Family Voice, said the purpose of the conference was “to gather together leading pro-family advocates and policymakers in one place where they can learn that the traditional family is not antique, not out of touch, unnatural or irrelevant.” Wilkins added, “we have spent three years going to UN meetings trying to stop anti-family policy. Instead of trying to plug up the old dike, pro-family advocates now intend to build a new one.”
