As the Catholic Church marked the 80th anniversary of the Vatican State the dissident pro-abortion group "Catholics" for a Free Choice (CFFC) has once again used the opportunity to renew its attacks on the Church even claiming falsely that the Holy See is duplicitous and that when it participates as a state in the international system, religious freedom is endangered, women's lives are placed at risk and public health efforts are hampered.
In reality the truth is the exact opposite, not only does the Catholic Church uphold religious freedom and the value of all human life, it provides practical support through its many agencies for women whose lives would otherwise be endangered.
Jon O’Brien of CFFC in a statement says that the Vatican’s claims to statehood can change depending on the circumstances and recently it “claimed statehood to ask for diplomatic immunity from sex abuse cases in the US while denying statehood to refuse co-operation with the International Criminal Court”.
The statement also says the Holy See is represented at these meetings by the hierarchy and blatently claims their views are in no way reflective of the views of the one billion-plus Catholics the world over. What nonsense.
The statement directly attacks the status of the Holy See at the UN and seeks to have it treated as a religious institution not a state.
This is not the first time the dissident group sought to have the international community review the position of the Holy See and appears to be a revival of its earlier "See Change" campaign to have the Holy See expelled from the United Nations.
The use of the name Catholic as a platform for promoting the taking of innocent human life and to ridicule the Church is offensive to all Catholics and the actions of CFFC prompted the US Bishops conference (NCCB) in 2000 to issue the following statement,
a group calling itself Catholics for a Free Choice has been publicly supporting abortion while claiming it speaks as an authentic Catholic voice. That claim is false. In fact, the group's activity is directed to rejection and distortion of Catholic teaching about the respect and protection due to defenseless unborn human life.
