Catholic Newspaper Accuses Irish Government of Deceit at UN

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) According to the largest Catholic newspaper in Ireland, the recent UN Conference on HIV/AIDS illustrates how the Irish government must deceive its own citizens in order to mask its involvement in what many Irish see as the radical social agenda of the European Union. At the Conference, the EU, including member-state Ireland, led an unsuccessful effort to adopt a document called the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights as a privileged source for policy initiatives against AIDS. Among its many recommendations, the document calls for worldwide recognition of homosexual marriage, the legalization of prostitution and "safe and legal" abortions, all of which are illegal in Ireland.

     When the Irish Catholic investigated Ireland's rationale for endorsing policies deemed illegal by its own constitution, the Irish government's response was "disingenuous at best," according to Irish Catholic editor David Quinn. According to the newspaper, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs misrepresented the nature of EU membership by suggesting that, when the EU accepts an international document, member states still retain the right to reject provisions within that document. Tom Hanny, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, told the Irish Catholic, "We weren't endorsing the guidelines. There were elements of the guidelines Ireland might have problems with. However, it was a la carte, you could look through them and take out what you want." But the EU speaks with one voice at all UN conferences, and when it sought recognition of the Guidelines, it did so with no reservations or objections from Ireland. Thus, Ireland endorsed all of the recommendations in the Guidelines, even those at odds with Irish law.

     Quinn considers Hanny's statement an example of the "amazing sophistry" engaged in by the Irish government in an effort to conceal the gulf between its own constitution and the social policies of the EU. The Irish government insists that Ireland will retain control over internal policies concerning family and life issues, regardless of what it might assent to on the international scene as a member of the EU. But, according to Quinn, this argument shows a misunderstanding of the potential uses of international law. Quinn believes that the EU fights for radical language within international treaties in the hopes of establishing this language as international law. EU courts will then be able to cite this language as an international norm, and therefore binding upon its own member states. This will be the judicial mechanism for a "Roe v. Wade for Europe. Given a few years, this will be how some European court quashes our constitutional commitment to life," concluded Quinn. Thus, by allowing the EU to speak for it, Quinn believes that the Irish government may be preparing to forfeit its own sovereignty.

     Quinn worries that this pattern will be repeated in many of the other states now seeking membership in the EU, states including Malta, Poland and the Czech Republic. The EU will provide an opportunity for these countries' elites, who are usually more liberal than average citizens, to change their own constitutions without the consent of their own people.

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