Population trends cloud Europe's post-recession outlook

The Independent reports that population trends are clouding Europe's post-recession outlook. This is in fact an issue that some commentators have been warning about for a number of years. For a nation’s population to survive it is necessary that the minimum fertility rate should not fall below 2.1. Most European nation states are below this level, many being as low as 1.2 - 1.5. See my BLOG POST of August 2010

Much has also been written about the consequences of this population collapse for national economies and national pension funds, which will inevitably lead to further recession and eventual collapse.

One of the basic questions to be answered is why is this happening, why are whole nations choosing a path that will lead to economic suicide? There are many answers to this question but the most obvious ones are often overlooked because they are inconvenient truths. The now, almost global, push for more and more access to contraception and abortion is central to the population collapse and European Governments should take cognizance of this before it is too late.

The following is the text of the Independent article.

Slowly but unsurely, Europe is facing up to population trends that will sap long-run economic growth and force nations to choose between cutting pensions and welfare benefits or paying higher taxes to maintain them.

Some countries are getting an early taste of difficulties that await Europe as the continent's baby boomers retire and, because of flagging fertility rates, the average age of those left in the labour force rises.

In France, trade unions are planning protests against modest plans to rein in the country's pension funding gap of €14bn and rising.

Spain, pressed by the European Commission, is drawing up reforms to tackle underfunding in its pension system that forced the government to dip into the social security reserve fund last year.

"There's a recognition that something needs to be done, and it's just a question of the pace at which they move," said Edward Hugh, an economist and demographer in Barcelona.

Spain's pension plight is partly cyclical: more than 3 million workers have lost their jobs since the onset of recession and have stopped paying into the pensions system.

Emigration is making the funding crunch worse. More than half a million foreign workers - lured to Spain during the boom years - have left since the start of 2010, while young Spaniards are moving abroad in droves in search of jobs.

Spain, Portugal and Ireland all lost about 2pc of their working-age adults between 2010 and the first quarter of 2013, said Marchel Alexandrovich, an economist with Jefferies, an investment bank, in London.

In the medium term, he said, this raises the question of who pays for pensions and age-related health care costs in countries that are educating their youngsters only to see many of them emigrate and pay taxes elsewhere.

"Without some corresponding system of fiscal transfers (i.e. U.S.-style federal taxes), this is not a sustainable arrangement," Alexandrovich said in a note.

VICIOUS CIRCLES

Spain is also paying the price of a low fertility rate for the past 25 years - a trend compounded by the recession - which is reducing the number of entrants to the workforce.

The risk is that low fertility, high emigration and a rapidly ageing labour force form a vicious economic circle.

"So even when the recession ends, the damage to some euro area economies will be more permanent than may be commonly recognised," Alexandrovich said.

With fewer workers having to pay for more retirees, Spaniards who are braced for lower pensions will tend to save rather than spend, holding back the recovery and thus further eroding the tax base, Hugh fears.

"Since they're not going to get the kind of economic recovery they're expecting, and since young people are leaving, they're going to have to do even more pension reforms than they imagine," Hugh said.

Countries across Europe are feeling the demographic pinch.

Bulgaria's population has shrunk by 582,000 people in the past 10 years to 7.3 million. In 1985 it was almost 9 million. The Baltic states have also witnessed extensive emigration.

NOT ENOUGH BABIES

Many countries fall well short of the total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 children that women need to bear to hold the population constant in the absence of net migration.

The TFR in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia fell by more than 30pc between 1990 and 2011. Hungary had a TFR of just 1.2 live births per woman in 2011, with Poland and Romania at 1.3 - considered by demographers to be the danger level.

Germany is already experiencing the fallout of a fertility rate that has been far below replacement level for 30 years.

Across the 28-member European Union, Germany has the smallest proportion of people in the 0-14 age bracket, the joint-highest proportion of pensioners (with Italy) and the highest median age, according to the European Commission.

Germany's domestic labour force fell by 70,000 in the past year. Immigration is coming to the rescue for now - foreigners accounted for all the employment growth in 2012, Alexandrovich said - but the country's growth prospects are darkening.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reckons Germany's potential growth will fall to less than 1 percent a year after 2020, from an already low 1.5pc today, due to population ageing.

By 2050 France and Britain, with much more favourable demographic profiles, are projected to have bigger economies than Germany, whose population is set to shrink to just over 70 million from nearly 82 million now.

The danger of intergenerational conflict as fewer workers have to provide for more pensioners is a future risk, but adverse demographics are already affecting parts of the economy.

Car sales in Germany are falling in part because an ageing population drives less, exacerbating industry-wide overcapacity, according to Douglas Roberts, an economist with Standard Life in Edinburgh.

"As with changing pension conditions, restructuring of a major industry such as autos will be difficult and meet major resistance both from unions and governments," he said.

More broadly, a shrinking workforce will make it harder to meet future pensions - as Detroit has discovered - and to service the increased public and private debt that Europe has racked up in recent decades, especially since the recession.

The Commission's central projection is that EU employment will fall by 5 million, or 2.5pc, between 2010 and 2030.

Rich economies will lose more than 1 percentage point of annual growth in the decade 2012-2021, mainly due to the ageing of their workforces, a 2012 Bank of Spain research paper found.

Not everyone is confident that Europe will rise to the challenge and make its welfare states affordable.

"Age-related spending plus slow-to-negative growth in labour forces will keep driving most developed nations toward bankruptcy until they reform their governments and financial sectors," wrote Leigh Skene with Lombard Street Research, a London consultancy.

The Irish Presidential Election and Rendering to Caesar

The election for the presidency of Ireland is over, and it appears that the votes of one million people of those eligible to vote in the election resulted in the appointment of a former member of the Labour Party Michael D Higgins to that exalted position.

 Picture shows president elect Michael D Higgins

On many occasions in the past, I have quoted the words of Archbishop Charles Chaput (now archbishop of Philadelphia, U.S.A.).   In August 2010 the Archbishop addressed those attending the 15^th Symposium for the Canon Law Association of Slovakia.   He commented that many Catholics in the U.S. and Western Europe today do not understand the costs of Christian witness under fifty years of Nazi and Soviet regimes.  He continued:

‘[…] Many are indifferent to the process in our countries that social scientists like to call “secularisation” – but which, in practice, involves repudiating the Christian roots and soul of our civilization. […]

‘The Enlightenment-derived worldview that gave rise to the great murder ideologies of the last century remains very much alive.  Its language is softer, its intentions seem kinder, and its face is friendlier.  But its underlying impulse hasn’t changed – i.e., the dream of building a society apart from God; a world where men and women might live wholly sufficient unto themselves, satisfying their needs and desires through their own ingenuity.

‘This vision presumes a frankly “post-Christian” world ruled by rationality, technology and good social engineering.  Religion has a place in this worldview, but only as an individual lifestyle accessory.  People are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they keep their beliefs to themselves and do not presume to intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on the workings of government, the economy, or culture. …

‘In the United States, … government agencies now increasingly seek to dictate how Church ministries should operate, and to force them into practices that would destroy their Catholic identity.  Efforts have been made to discourage or criminalize the expression of certain Catholic beliefs as “hate speech.”  Our courts and legislatures now routinely take actions that undermine marriage and family life, and seek to scrub our public life of Christian symbolism and signs of influence.

‘In Europe, we see similar trends, although marked by a more open contempt for Christianity.  Church leaders have been reviled in the media and even in the courts for simply expressing Catholic teaching.  Some years ago … one of the leading Catholic politicians of our generation, Rocco Buttiglione, was denied a leadership post in the European Union because of his Catholic beliefs. […]

‘Downplaying the West’s Christian past is sometimes done with the best intentions, from a desire to promote peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society.  But more frequently it’s done to marginalize Christians and to neutralize the Church’s public witness….

‘In practice, … we see that without a belief in fixed moral principles and transcendent truths, our political institutions and language become instruments in the service of a new barbarism.  In the name of tolerance we come to tolerate the cruellest intolerance; respect for other cultures comes to dictate disparagement of our own; the teaching of “live and let” justifies the strong living at the expense of the weak.

‘This diagnosis helps us understand one of the foundational injustices in the West today – the crime of abortion.

‘I realize that the abortion license is a matter of current law in almost every nation in the West.  In some cases, this license reflects the will of the majority and is enforced through legal and democratic means.  And I’m aware that many people, even in the Church, find it strange that we Catholics in America still make the sanctity of unborn life so central to our public witness.

‘Let me tell you why I believe abortion is the crucial issue of our age.

‘First, because abortion … is about living within the truth.  The right to life is the foundation of every other human right.  If that right is not inviolate, then no right can be guaranteed. […]

‘From the earliest days of the Church, to be Catholic has meant refusing in any way to participate in the crime of abortion – either by seeking an abortion, performing one, or making this crime possible through actions or inactions in the political or judicial realm.  […]

‘In our day – when the sanctity of life is threatened not only by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, but also by embryonic research and eugenic temptations to eliminate the weak, the disabled and the infirm elderly – this aspect of Catholic identity becomes even more vital to our discipleship.

‘My point in mentioning abortion is this: Its widespread acceptance in the West shows us that without a grounding in God or a higher truth, our democratic institutions can very easily become weapons against our own human dignity. […]

‘The Catholic beliefs that most deeply irritate the orthodoxies of the West are those concerning abortion, sexuality and the marriage of man and woman.  This is no accident.  These Christian beliefs express the truth about human fertility, meaning and destiny. …

‘But we can never render unto Caesar what belongs to God.  We need to obey God first; the obligations of political authority always come second.  We cannot collaborate with evil without gradually becoming evil ourselves. […]

‘We need to fight the evils we see.  And most importantly, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that by going along with the voices of secularism and de-Christianization we can somehow mitigate or change things.   Only the Truth can set men free. […]

‘And let us support each other – whatever the cost – so that when we make our accounting to the Lord, we will be numbered among the faithful and courageous, and not the cowardly or the evasive, or those who compromised until there was nothing left of their convictions, or those who were silent when they should have spoken the right word at the right time. […]’

Although this is a fairly lengthy extract from the Archbishop’s address I hope that I have not taken any of it out of the context of the whole.  However, I consider that what is quoted above makes for very relevant reading in these times.

Victory in ECJ patenting case: Human embryos or cells derived from human embryos must not be patented

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice has today, October 18, 2011, released its judgment in a landmark case about the patenting of human embryos

The Court decided that human embryos and cells generated from them must not be patented and defined the embryo as follows “any human ovum after fertilisation, any non-fertilised human ovum into which the cell nucleus from a mature human cell has been transplanted, and any non-fertilised human ovum whose division and further development have been stimulated by parthenogenesis constitute a ‘human embryo’”

The ruling has the effect of setting clearly defined ethical boundaries for research and development in biotechnology in Europe. From now on it will not be possible to get a European patent on any research, which involves embryos and embryonic stem cells and it is likely that future research will focus on adult stem cells, as opposed to embryonic research

The European Center for Law and Justice (ELCJ) has issued the following statement on the implications of the judgment.

Strasbourg, 18 October 2011 

In an important and closely-monitored judgment, the Court of Luxembourg has decided, in the case C-34/10 “Oliver Brüstle v Greenpeace e.V.”, that an invention is excluded from being patented where the process requires either the prior destruction of human embryos or their use as a base material. This is applicable even if, in the patent application, the description of that process as in the present case does not refer to the use of human embryos. In other words, a process which involves the removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented.

The case originally concerns a patent held by Mr Oliver Brüstle since 1997[1], in relation to a process using embryonic stem cells in order to treat neurological diseases. The German Federal Court of Justice, (Bundesgerichtshof), hearing the case introduced by Greenpeace against Mr Oliver Brüstle’s patent, referred the question to the Court of Justice concerning the interpretation of the “human embryo” mentioned in Article 6(2)(c) of the EU Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions[1].

According to this article, an invention is excluded from patentability "where the technical teaching which is the subject matter of the patent application requires the prior destruction of human embryos or their use as base material, whatever the stage at which that takes place and even if the description of the technical teaching claimed does not refer to the use of human embryos. (...) Any human ovum after fertilisation constitutes a 'human embryo'".

The question in the Brüstle case was whether the exclusion from patentability of the human embryo expressed in the Directive covers all stages of life from fertilisation of the ovum or whether other conditions must be met, for example that a certain stage of development must be reached.

In response to this question, the Court has decided that the Directive covers all stages of life. It provides an appropriate definition for the human embryo, as an organism “capable of commencing the process of development of a human being” whether they are the result of fecundation, or the product of cloning. Therefore, for the Court, “a non-fertilised human ovum into which the cell nucleus from a mature human cell has been transplanted and a non-fertilised human ovum whose division and further development have been stimulated by parthenogenesis must also be classified as a ‘human embryo’.[2]

The ECLJ welcomes this decision; the proper protection of the human embryo requires that the human embryo is given a broad definition. This decision protects life and the human dignity in its early development. But still, the ECJ ruled that it is for the national court to ascertain, in the light of scientific developments, whether a stem cell obtained from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage constitutes a ‘human embryo’ within the meaning of the Directive.

 

One of its consequences will be to promote the more ethical fields of researches, mainly the research on adult stem cells. Financially, the research on embryos and embryonic stem cells will be less attractive without the ability to get patents in Europe.

 

Here is the central ruling of the Grand Chamber of the Court :

« 1.      Article 6(2)(c) of Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions must be interpreted as meaning that:

–        any human ovum after fertilisation, any non-fertilised human ovum into which the cell nucleus from a mature human cell has been transplanted, and any non-fertilised human ovum whose division and further development have been stimulated by parthenogenesis constitute a ‘human embryo’;

–        it is for the referring court to ascertain, in the light of scientific developments, whether a stem cell obtained from a human embryo at the blastocyst stage constitutes a ‘human embryo’ within the meaning of Article 6(2)(c) of Directive 98/44.

2.      The exclusion from patentability concerning the use of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes set out in Article 6(2)(c) of Directive 98/44 also covers the use of human embryos for purposes of scientific research, only use for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it being patentable.

3.      Article 6(2)(c) of Directive 98/44 excludes an invention from patentability where the technical teaching which is the subject-matter of the patent application requires the prior destruction of human embryos or their use as base material, whatever the stage at which that takes place and even if the description of the technical teaching claimed does not refer to the use of human embryos. »

"The practice of abortion is a mortal wound in Europe's heart": British Royal

The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI) reports on an article in the December issue of First Things which quotes Lord Nicholas Windsor, first male blood member of the British royal family to be received into the Catholic Church since King Charles II on his deathbed in 1685 as saying that abortion of unborn children is "the single most grievous moral deficit in contemporary life".

The great-grandson of King George V penned the essay "Caesar's Thumb: Europeans should not forget their most pressing moral issue: abortion" in the December edition of First Things and reflects on modern European society's acceptance of abortion.  Lord Nicholas recognizes the toll abortion takes on women and other individuals: "This is a historically unprecedented cascade of destruction wrought on individuals: on sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, future spouses and friends, mothers and fathers - destroyed in the form of those to whom we owe, quite simply and certainly, the greatest solidarity and duty of care because they are the weakest and most dependent of our fellow humans."

He rightfully recognizes the role of elected leaders in enabling the destruction of abortion and challenges the political establishment to recognize that abortion is "one of the gravest and most egregious abuses of human rights that human society has ever tolerated". He confronts the embedding of abortion in modern culture, which has rendered abortion to be "normalized" and "invisible to politics in Europe" and continues to state that "it has become the first taboo of the culture."

The gravity of the abortion decision on the lives of millions of children around the world is recognized by Lord Nicholas: "The sophistry is overwhelming: If I choose and desire my child, then ipso facto I have granted it the right to live, and it will live. But the inverse is equally the case, by means of nothing more or less than my choice: Caesar's thumb is up, or Caesar's thumb is down. And when it comes to exporting this idea, we do it with zeal and determination through such institutions as the United Nations and the European Union."

Lord Nicholas addresses the impact of abortion on Europe: "The granting to ourselves of the right wantonly to kill, each year, millions of our offspring at the beginning of their lives: This is the question of questions for Europe.

The practice of abortion is a mortal wound in Europe's heart, in the center of Hellenic and Judeo-Christian culture."

In conclusion, the royal addresses the present need to"creatively envisage new and compelling answers to the problems that give rise to this practice, when the easiest solutions may be destructive or distorting ones." He equates abortion to the great moral and social evil of slavery and calls for a new effort dedicated to ending abortion stating, "Having so recklessly carried this poison out of the twentieth-the ugliest of all centuries-let us, for the sake of all that has been good and beautiful and true about the culture of the West, be clear that there is an urgent moral priority here. Call it a "New Abolitionism for Europe..."

PNCI commends Lord Nicholas Windsor for his coverage in boldly speaking out for the culture of life and for calling on political leaders of our day to work to ensure a "thumb's up" for the lives of children in the womb. PNCI looks forward to working with Lord and Lady Windsor on the New Abolitionism in Europe.

Historical perspective 

Lord Nicholas Windsor forfeited his line of succession when he converted to Catholicism and put his faith first in his life despite the high prize he would have to pay. The Act of Settlement of 1700 bars past or present Roman Catholics, and those who marry Roman Catholics, from succession.

His marriage to Paola Doimi de Frankopan in St. Peter's was the first British royal wedding to take place at the Vatican since the 16^th century break with the Vatican. A number of British MPs welcomed the marriage in 2006 with an Early Day Motion as "the first legal and public marriage within the rites of the Roman Catholic Church of a member of the Royal Family since 1554 and the marriage of Queen Mary I to Philip II of Spain."

 The baptisms of sons Albert and Leopold at St. Peter's were the first British royal baptisms since the Reformation. By their Catholic baptisms, Albert and Leopold also lose their place in the royal succession. Upon Albert's Baptism, an Early Day Motion welcomed his Baptism noting "that he was the first member of the Royal Family to be Baptised a Catholic since 1688 and the so-called Glorious Revolution when James II was chased away from his Crown and country on account of the Baptism of his son, the Old Pretender."

European Victory for the Right to Conscientious objection

We have pleasure in reporting that an attack on the right of conscientious objection to abortion by medical personnel was roundly defeated this evening in the Council of Europe.



The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted on a report, the original text of which recommended a crack-down on medical personnel who refuse to be complicit in the provision of abortion and other unethical procedures.



Senator Ronan Mullen from Ireland and Luca Volonte of Italy, led the counter attack in the assembly by proposing amendments which totally reversed the effects of the report, from a pro-abortion attack on conscientious objection to a defence of conscientious objection.
The pro-life amendments were duly accepted and Christine McCafferty, the report's British author together with her fellow pro-abortion assembly-members were therefore forced to vote against their own report.



Anthony Ozimic, communications manager of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), commented: "This evening witnessed an incredible victory for the right of staff in medical institutions to refuse to be complicit in the killing of unborn children and other unethical practices.

"SPUC is immensely grateful to the large number of our supporters who lobbied the assembly in recent months, as well as to Senator Mullen, Mr Volonte and the assembly-members who supported them", concluded Mr Ozimic.


We at European Life Network echo Anthony Ozimic's comments and add that this was a real example of all european pro-life groups co-operating successfully to defeat the anti life agenda

In the debate Senator Mullen pointed out that:
the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the rights of unborn child;
there is no human right to abortion, whereas conscientious objection is a basic principle of human rights;

German Court decision was a fundamental rejection of the Lisbon Treaty

The German Constitutional Court in what has become known as the Karlsruhe judgement issued a remarkable verdict on 30 June and while the international media presented it as approval of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, careful reading of the judgement shows that it is a fundamental rejection of the core constitutional content of the Treaty. So writes former MEP Jens Peter Bonde in a hard hitting article in euobserver.com

The Karlsruhe Court according to Bonde;

“effectively finds that the Lisbon Treaty would increase the EU's widely acknowledged democratic deficit if its ratification is not linked to the adoption of internal procedures at Member State level such as to safeguard the involvement of the National Parliaments and voters in each Member State. The verdict applies only to Germany, of course. But it has significant implications for all Member States, including those which have already approved and ratified the Lisbon Treaty”.

“If Germany's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is found to be illegal and in contravention of basic democratic principles, in the absence of such parliamentary controls, should not the same principle apply in all other Member States that claim to be democracies”?

According to Bonde, "The Karlsruhe judgement should inspire people to call for similar constitutional and parliamentary challenges in other EU countries. This may establish strengthened procedures for national parliamentary control and safeguard areas where national parliamentary democracies can decide things on their own without interference from, for example, the EU Court of Justice."

ELN Comment
The Irish Government, in opposition to the decision of the Irish people who rejected Lisbon precisely for some of the reasons presented in the Karlsruhe judgement, is forging ahead with a new Referendum. The new Referendum has been arranged despite the fact that not one comma of the Treaty has been changed.

The Karlsruhe decision has established an important legal principle maybe it will take a similar legal challenge in the Irish Courts to bring the Irish Government to its senses.

EU seeking increase in fertility Rates?

The Czech Republic which currently holds the Presidency of the European Union (EU)sponsored a side event on behalf of the EU during the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)held at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The meeting was titled "Reconciling Family and Professional Life: The EU Approach." There were three presenters one from France, one from Sweden and the third from the European Commission in Brussels. A report on the meeting by Vincenzina Santoro says:

"The representative from Brussels, the Director for Gender Equality at the European Commission, focused on EU efforts to find family friendly policies as these would encourage family formation and help increase the EU's low fertility rate. She mentioned a recent ministerial meeting that was organized and held in Iceland, which is not a member of the EU, but the EU ministers wanted to go to there to learn what the country was doing to achieve a replacement level fertility rate. The Director noted that Iceland's fertility rate was 2.1, then she actually said: "...and that's where we would like to be.""

A number of facts emerge from this report, first that the EU ministers care about the family and about Europe's low fertility rates, second they want to do something about it and thirdly they would like the fertility rate to be at replacement level.

The solution is plainly obvious to anyone who is willing to look. Europe must move away from ideologically driven policies with regard to life and family, and abortion should immediately be made illegal in all EU countries. There are other issues at stake but this would be an excellent start in helping to reverse Europe's disastrously low fertility rates.

Thoughts of an EU reformist

A detailed and disturbing account at Orwell's Picnic of Kathy Sinnot's recent lecture given at the MaterCare conference. She describes the essentially anti-democratic nature of the European Union and the promotion of the culture of death with devastating clarity.

Describing the way the European Court of Justice works, she stated:

Judges slip very easily into law-making and judicial activism and this is particularly true in the European Court of Justice for a particularly interesting reason. Most of our High Courts or Supreme Courts or whatever you call them in your own countries – the job of most of those courts is to uphold your constitutions. But the actual stated job of the European Court of Justice – the EU’s court is to promote the European project. So, it takes whatever document or whatever treatise, and it decides what interpretation at this point in time will best promote the European project; not what do those words truly mean and what do case law tell us about them. And this is a particularly worrying thing in terms, again, of the Lisbon Treaty because for the first time, we had a Charter of Rights included – called the Fundamental Charter of Rights and those rights had very interesting things like ‘Everyone has a right to life.’ But, of course, the only country fighting that statement was Ireland because we wanted to retain our Right to Life – and we knew that a statement like “Everyone has a right to life” – actually did not apply to such things as abortion and euthanasia. It actually meant the opposite and it would mean the opposite because it was the European Court in Luxemburg that would decide what it meant and that was why countries that are very invested in things like abortion – even countries that are invested in policies of euthanasia – had no problem ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and even welcoming this fundamental charter because, in fact, it would reinforce their policy not counter-act it.

Reading this post made me all too aware of the vital work MEPs like Kathy are doing in the European Parliament, against appalling odds. It should be noted that Kathy describes herself as an EU-reformist, not a Eurosceptic. This is, I think, an important clarification to make, as it is quite common for people to assume that anyone who dares question the functioning of the EU is against it per se. Just as a true patriot should regard it as a duty to stand up to unjust laws in his own country, a good European should regard it as a duty to stand up to the injustices currently being carried out in the name of the European project.

Ireland’s day for life: Cork Conference celebrating 25th anniversary of the pro-life amendment

Held at Frankfield/Grange parish centre in Douglas Cork, the conference was organised as a series of four panels dealing with different aspects of the pro-life amendment of the Constitution and its implications for Ireland . The event included campaigners from the 1983 referendum as well as medical, economic, legal and ethics experts from all over Europe.

Speaking on this historic anniversary, Kathy Sinnott, who is Vice President of the Bioethics Intergroup and the Intergroup on Family and Protection of Childhood in the European Parliament, said,

The laws protecting life are fragile and need ongoing commitment from our lawmakers, especially in a Europe where many consider such protection obsolete.

The first panel looked at the historical perspective and was presented by a panel of pro-life activists from the Munster region, who looked at the issues involved in first establishing the pro-life protection and then maintaining it despite the myriad attacks which have wounded but not overturned it

The second panel looked at the medical social and economic benefits of the pro-life amendment over the 25 year period. Dr John Monaghan pointed out that that the level maternal care in Ireland is excellent and as a result Ireland’s maternal mortality rate is the lowest in the world. Patrick Fagan of the Family Research Council produced US Federal statistics which clearly show that the safest and most beneficial place for children is to grow up in an intact home having a married mother and father who are regular church attendants. From the social science perspective the more an individual practices religious beliefs the more he/she thrives in education, health and mental health, marriage and family and the less likely is he/she is to be involved in crime, addiction, abuse or a host of other ills.

The third panel looked at the legal and legislative challenges to its pro-life ethos, faced by Ireland from the EU, the UN, the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the World Health Organisation and international NGO’s. Roger Kiska from the European Centre for Law and Justice outlined the current challenge to the Irish Constitution, the ABC case currently before the European Court of Human Rights The fourth panel, which looked at the constitutional protection, consisted Of Kathy Sinnott Bernadette Goulding of Rachael’s Vineyard and Fr Brian Mc kevitt, editor of the Alive newspaper

Cardinal Sean Brady intervenes in Lisbon debate

In an important intervention in the debate on the Lisbon Treaty Cardinal Sean Brady Speaking at the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo on Sunday (24 August), told the gathering, the EU's prevailing culture and social agenda seems to be driven by the secular tradition "rather than by the Christian memory and heritage of the vast majority of member states,".
Cardinal Brady continued by pointing out that there is "a fairly widespread culture in European affairs which relegates manifestations of one's own religious convictions to the private and subjective sphere."
The Cardinal warned that "Successive decisions which have undermined the family based on marriage, the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death, the sacredness of the Sabbath, the right of Christian institutions to maintain and promote their ethos, including schools - these and other decisions have made it more difficult for committed Christians to maintain their instinctive commitment to the European project."
The Cardinal stressed that in his view the difficulties would most likely continue, "Without respect for its Christian memory and soul, I believe it is possible to anticipate continuing difficulties for the European project," and also warned that "dangerous individualism that does not care about God or about what the future might have in store" would most likely continue to cause unease and difficulty in the EU's economic and social policies.

Why Europe Needs a New Vision

The Irish Government is wondering what happened and why so many Irish people from all walks of life decided to reject the Lisbon Treaty, despite the fact that the vast majority of the political establishment not only supported the measure but actively lobbied for a yes vote. European governments are even more confused and are asking, did we not prioritise Ireland, why are they rejecting this treaty? They are even contemplating anti-democratic measures to force Ireland to rethink and come up with the “right answer” or threatening to create a two-tier Europe. Either of these actions would actually confirm the wisdom of the emphatic NO expressed by the people of Ireland. There are clearly many reasons why the Irish as a nation decided to reject this treaty. Many people are deeply concerned about the direction Europe is taking. We have seen more and more dark clouds on the European horizon as traditional values are being struck down one by one and Europe embraces what Pope John Paul II called the culture of death.

Freedom of religion is under grave attack, such as happened when Italian Rocco Buttiglione was denied a Commissionership simply because he is Catholic. Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion were and still are under attack, as we saw when the European Commission set up a panel of experts to evaluate a Concordat Slovakia planned to sign with the Holy See and the resulting report found that a woman’s right to have an abortion trumped the right of a doctor to conscientious objection. Freedom of conscience and freedom of speech are under attack when laws on sexual orientation and same sex marriage are forced on nation states and anyone who dares object is guilty of a hate crime. The right to life is under attack when Europe decides that sexual and reproductive health is a right and this includes abortion or when on myriad occasions the human embryo has not been respected from the moment of conception. Democracy itself is under attack when governments deny the right of their peoples to have a real say in the future of Europe.

We hunger and thirst for real justice in all of these and many other areas and are conscious of the message of John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa when he wrote;

Raise your voices in the face of the violation of human rights of individuals, minorities and peoples, beginning with the right to religious freedom; pay utmost attention to everything that concerns human life from the moment of its conception to natural death and to the family based on marriage: these are the foundations on which our common European home rests; ... respond, with justice and equity and with a great sense of solidarity, to the growing phenomenon of migration, and see in it a new resource for the future of Europe; make every effort to guarantee young people a truly humane future with work, culture, and education in moral and spiritual values. (182)

This is the Europe we want, Pope John Paul II has highlighted the way forward and Europe needs to listen. The political elite of Europe must cease to involve itself in empire building and in social engineering. They must turn their backs on the culture of death and begin to understand the deep-rooted needs of the people. They must embrace real justice and peace and begin to value life at all stages from conception to natural death. They must decide to embrace real democracy. When we see these root and branch changes in the development of the new Europe most people will be willing to accept it.