News,
Catholic Education Service helped draft government anti-life sex ed guidance
The Catholic Education Service (CES) of England and Wales has helped to draft the government's anti-life/anti-family sex education draft guidance. The draft guidance promotes abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Oona Stannard of the CES has described the guidance as "a positive step forward". John Smeaton, SPUC director, described the CES's involvement in the guidance as "a systematic betrayal of the Catholic Church and of all this country's children, Catholic and non-Catholic, born and unborn." [John Smeaton, 10 February] http://is.gd/85Txr
Archbishop of Canterbury speaks out against assisted suicide
Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, spoken out against the legalisation of assisted suicide. The archbishop described the potential legalization of helping a sick-relative to die as crossing a moral boundary and entering into very dangerous territory. Dr Williams said that the legalisation of assisted suicide would create an ethical framework in which the worthwhileness of some lives is undermined. [Daily Mail, 10 February] [http://is.gd/84vo6]
UN pressures Nicaragua to allow abortion
The United Nations is pressuring Nicaragua to relax its ban on abortion, according to reports from a Mexican government newsagency. The UN is reported to have urged the Nicaraguan government to allow abortion for so-called therapeutic reasons and in cases of incest and rape. The United States, Mexico, Canada, Britain, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and France are all reported to have supported the move. [LifeSiteNews.com, 9 February] [http://is.gd/84yNs]
Philippines church warns of foreign anti-life pressures
Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, president of the Philippine bishops’ commission on family and life, has criticised efforts by the United States and UN agencies to promote anti-life policies in the Philippines. Those efforts come just months after the Philippines bishops published a catechism on family and life for this year's elections. The catechism instructs Catholics that it is morally impermissible to vote for an anti-life candidate. [CatholicCulture.org, 8 February] [http://is.gd/84F8q]
UN Vatican rep says population growth needed to fight poverty
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s representative to the United Nations, has said that population growth is needed to overcome poverty. The archbishop refuted the idea that population growth is the cause of poverty and said that the solution can only be found within the workforce. Archbishop Migliore’s words echo those of Pope Benedict earlier this year when he said that population was an asset, not a factor that contributes to poverty. [LifeSiteNews.com, 9 February] [http://is.gd/84xUc]
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