Sunday, October 07, 2012

Cardinal of Vatican ‘Justice and Peace’ says no Catholic funds to pro-abortion groups

In an interview with Canadian Catholic News reporter Deborah Gyapong, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, “warned against Catholic development agencies getting involved in the push for abortion or contraception through the guise of improving women’s lives in the development world.” 
 
Speaking specifically of groups such as Canada’s Development and Peace (D&P) which fall under the umbrella of the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis, he said, “we cannot have a group that is Church-based which is at variance with Church teaching.” 

The comments come in the wake of the annual Plenary session of the Canadian Catholic Bishops Conference last week where the matter of Development and Peace was discussed.  

After LifeSiteNews and others such as Socon or Bust exposed that D&P was funding abortion-promoting groups in the developing world, the Bishops of Canada struck a committee to investigate and eventually formed an oversight committee of Bishops to liaise with D&P on needed reform.

The chair of that committee, Toronto Auxiliary Bishop John A. Boissonneau, reported to the Bishops at the Plenary that D&P is now developing documents that will guide its identification of groups to fund and contract with partners.  

The documents are to be reviewed by the bishops before being approved and released publicly.  

Moreover, the report noted that D&P was working to integrate the teaching of the Pope’s latest encyclical dealing with Catholic charities ‘Caritas in Veritate’ into its work and training of D&P members.

As LifeSiteNews reported prior to the Plenary, however, D&P continues to fund groups which advocate for abortion and contraception and also refuses to divulge publicly the names of the groups it is currently funding.

Turkson, reported CCN, “stressed the inseparability of spreading the Gospel from justice and peace, as well as the inseparability of respect for unborn life from the Church’s social doctrine.”