Non-governmental group of Catholic pro-abortionists at war with "pope's army" in Europe
New York, Jan. 08 (AsiaNews/CWNews.com) - The steady drumbeat to eliminate the influence of Christianity from international political affairs continues among radical pro-abortion non-governmental organizations. In its latest report, issued this fall, "Catholics" for a Free Choice (CFFC) named names, citing dozens of orthodox Catholics active in European politics and culture, including cardinals, members of the European Parliament, journalists, even doctors and pharmacists, whose influence should be purged from any political discussion.
For instance, CFFC exposes the Lejeune family, writing that "Pope John Paul II created the Pontifical Academy for Life...in 1994, shortly before the death of the pope's intimate friend Jerome Lejeune, a French geneticist who discovered the cause of Down's syndrome. Lejeune, an ardently anti-choice Catholic, became its first president. His entire family is involved in some capacity in the Vatican's pro-moral order and anti-choice departments."
CFFC considers political advocacy by faithful Catholic organizations, including groups of laypeople, religious orders, and pontifical councils, to constitute a sinister conspiracy, which it labels the "Pope's Armada." CFFC claims that faithful Catholic lay groups "are rarely transparent; many of them work under the cover of several different organizations, foundations, and companies, and activities are not necessarily planned in a democratic way.... Central to their beliefs is the concept that the family is based on monogamous heterosexual marriage and that the essential role of women is as bearers of new life. Opus Dei, Focolare, and Communione e Liberazione are exemplars of the many Catholic lay organizations that try to infiltrate existing power structures and to exert pressure on decision-makers."
CFFC justifies this document, eloquently entitled "Preserving Power and Privilege, the Vatican's Agenda in the European Union," by arguing that post-Christian Europe must protect itself from any resurgence in Catholic beliefs if it is to be a counterweight to the Bush administration and remain an advocate for abortion rights. According to the report, "Europe is the last hope for the world's poor women.... And make no mistake, Europe and the European Union are the next targets of anti-family planning advocates from the Vatican and its conservative Catholic allies...."
CFFC also fears for what it claims is Europe's emerging "consensus" on sexual rights. According to CFFC, "European nations have led efforts to recognize the right to plan family size, choose homosexual or non-married partnerships, seek abortion, or form non-traditional families as basic human rights. The Catholic Church opposes this European consensus as the centerpiece of the Pope's battle with the 'culture of death.'"
CFFC hopes to ensure that secularism triumphs over Catholicism by limiting the recognition of religious freedom in the EU constitution now being debated, so that the Church does not possess the "right to organize and administer itself as a faith community according to its own rules." Presumably, without such a right, CFFC believes that the EU could impose its own agenda upon the Church.
In recent years the US-based CFFC launched an unsuccessful campaign to eliminate the presence of the Vatican's observer to the United Nations. For some time the US Bishops Conference had declared it as a "non-Catholic" organization "distorting the teachings of the Church and the Holy See" (May 2000). Thus, CFFC is still considered one among many pro-abortion organizations.
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