EU Parliament Members Seek Holy See Silence, Ouster From UN

By C-FAM Staff | 2002

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Members of the European Parliament have stepped up their attacks on the Catholic Church, circulating a number of resolutions condemning the Church's moral authority on subjects like abortion and demanding that all Church influence on temporal matters cease. To this end, one of the resolution calls for the European Union to "initiate…the procedure to cancel the official status that the Holy See enjoys at the UN." In an explanatory letter, Maurizio Turco, a member of the Radical Party and the author of the resolutions, notes that such unprecedented actions are necessary because of the Catholic Church's "desire to lay down the law" and to interfere with "national legislations on sexual and reproductive health."

     These new resolutions appear less than three weeks after the European Parliament approved the controversial Van Lancker report, which called upon all current and future EU nations to legalize abortion. According to the BBC, the Van Lancker report "singled out largely Roman Catholic Poland and Ireland" as the nations most in need of reform. The Van Lancker report also registered "regrets" that the Holy See worked successfully with other countries to keep the recent UN Special Session on Children from expanding adolescents' access to abortion.

     One of the proposed resolutions "denounces the statements of the Pope" made "on 3 February 2002, on the occasion of the celebration of the Pro-life Day, [when] the Pope called for…the juridical safeguard of the unborn child from the moment of conception." The resolution also condemned "the unbending opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to voluntary interruption of pregnancy [abortion] as well as to every other non-natural method of contraception." It is unclear why the resolution calls abortion a form of contraception.

     Another resolution "stresses that the principle of secularity implies the total independence of public institutions and their sphere of competence from ecclesiastical and religious influences and organizations." The resolution seems to be calling for the exclusion of religious-minded people of all denominations from participation in the political process.

     One resolution cites "the wave of [sexual] scandals that have broken out in various parts of the world" and seeks to "lay down a specific principle of aggravating circumstance if the abuse of minors has been committed by a minister of religion."

     When asked to explain the resolutions, an assistant of Turco directed C-FAM Europe to a website called "anticlericale." The website exhibits a deep-seated animosity to the Catholic Church and its teachings. It equates the Vatican with the Taliban. In a cartoon on the website, the Pope is shown holding an emaciated African child, saying "I will help you not to die." The child responds, "I would have preferred that you helped me not to be born."

     Ten members of the European Parliament have already signed the resolutions, while the effort to garner more signatures continues. If the resolutions gain enough momentum, they will be taken up by a Parliamentary committee, which could then recommend that the entire Parliament vote on them. Dana Scallon (MEP-Ireland) told C-FAM Europe that this is "yet another attempt to try to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church all across the globe."

     Additonal reporting for today's Friday Fax was provided by C-FAM Europe.

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