Voice of the Family, the global pro-life, pro-family initiative, recently launched its Family and Life Academy, an innovative online learning platform dedicated to providing a truly Catholic education relating to life issues. SPUC has welcomed this “wonderful and profoundly necessary programme of education that affirms pro-life values”.

“The Family and Life Academy is dedicated to forming students, parents, pro-life and pro-family advocates and all the faithful in the crucial moral issues of our day in the light of the unchanging teaching of the Church.”

The online platform, run by Voice of the Family, provides comprehensive courses and free webinars in a live virtual classroom, with academics and other educators handpicked for their specific expertise.

A dedicated pro-life programme 

His Excellency Eduard Habsburg opened the Family and Life Academy’s inaugural programme with a webinar on Blessed Karl and Empress Zita of Austria, whose holy marriage and profound service to their state stands as an exemplar and inspiration for families today. The webinar is available to view for free online here.

Every Family and Life Academy live lesson and webinar is followed by a Q&A, in which all participants are invited to take part, and are made available to watch online later.

Last week, Dr Joseph Shaw commenced an in-depth six-week course on natural law, from its Greek origins to St Thomas Aquinas, and why it is still relevant and just as vital today to life and family matters and values.

John Smeaton, co-director of Voice of the Family, will also be presenting an authoritative six-week course on the scientific case against abortion. Mr Smeaton will be joined by Dr Greg Pike, the esteemed neurobiologist and bioethicist, as well as prize-winning author, Ann Farmer. Topics covered include Catholic moral teaching, the development of life before birth, the iniquitous influence of the eugenics movement in the worldwide abortion revolution, abortifacients, contraception and IVF.

Rebuilding a culture of life in a time of moral confusion

Mr Smeaton, who was chief executive of SPUC from 1996 to 2021, emphasised the importance and timeliness of the Family and Life Academy: “The last seventy years have seen unparalleled moral confusion in society, and confusion in the Church on an even deeper level…

“By helping the faithful to grasp the contemporary relevance of critical moral principles handed down by the Church, we hope to rebuild a culture in which our Catholic faith is not only believed but lived…

“The curriculum of the Family and Life Academy has been designed with a view to providing young people, parents, pro-life and pro-family advocates and all the faithful with the tools necessary to develop their understanding of life and family issues in the light of the unchanging teaching of the Church.”

“Think on these things”

Dr Daniel Frampton, SPUC’s Editorial Officer, said: “The Family and Life Academy is a wonderful and profoundly necessary programme of education that affirms pro-life values in an age that has not only lost its moral centre and basic common sense but also, as a result, underwritten the deaths of millions of unborn children.

“Increasingly, young people are robbed of education – and accordingly, their history and culture – by a contemporary nihilism that is the enemy of the good and the beautiful, of tradition itself, which is the treasure house of civilization.

“Having been deprived of the greatest minds of civilization, is it vital that the young in particular be provided with a basic moral platform that was once the foundation of the West, underpinned by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which has for centuries placed an especial primacy on the value and sanctity of life.

“Whether that affirmation comes in the form of the great mind of St Aquinas or the inspiring virtue of the Blessed Karl, the battle for the family, for the unborn child, must ultimately be won on the battleground of culture.

“In a world where contemplation, reason, faith and virtue are increasingly undermined and even scorned openly, it is more important than ever before that we stand up for the family, without which there can be no civilization but only a gross lack of it, as we can see today.

“To defend civilization, then, we must teach it, and do as St Paul counselled: ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.’”

To find out more about the Family and Life Academy and visit its website, please click here.