Vatican observer describes growing tension between UN and Vatican over birth control

Rome, Italy, Jul 7, 2005 / 22:00 pm

In his weekly column for the Italian online magazine L’Espresso, Vatican analyst Sandro Magister explains how the so-called “reproductive rights” have become a source of growing tension between the Vatican and the United Nations, in addition to the European Union.

The Holy See has permanent representation at the UN and the European Union, says Magister, “but the Catholic Church is frequently treated as enemy number one.”

“This is because it is a monotheistic religion, and so is held to be a source of intolerance,” Magister explains, but most especially it is because of the Church’s opposition to “the philosophy of ‘reproductive rights’ that is the unquestionable position of the UN and the EU in matters of family and procreation.”

The fiercely anti-life nature of both organizations, notes Magister, has been proven recently by a book published in Italy entitled, “Against Christianity: The UN and the European Union as a New Ideology,” written by Eugenia Roccella y Lucetta Scaraffia.

Rocella, who is not Catholic, is “a prominent advocate of the feminist movement,” while Scaraffia is professor of modern history at the La Sapienza University in Rome.

In his column, Magister offers an analysis of the book, highlighting among other things that Rocella and Scaraffia “identify the root of the new ideology as the ‘separation between sexuality and procreation.’ They see the outcome of this ‘beyond the boundaries of abortion, in the insidious return of eugenics’.”

The complete article can be found at:
www.chiesa.espressonline.it/index.jsp?eng=y