|
Originally printed in Catholic Insight September 2000 issue.
Fr. Alphonse de Valk c.s.b.
Catholics, all must go out of their way to maintain
unity among themselves. As St. Paul puts it, "make every effort to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4,3). But Christ
also wants the Church to feed the faithful, as He fed the crowds when
they were hungry. This spiritual feeding must centre on the truth which
is indispensable to unity itself. Yet truth is not always easy to discover.
In Part II, my first observation was that the obvious
disagreement among us about the World March of Women is not a matter of
faith and morals, therefore, not a question of heresy or excommunication.
This sets us free to disagree without excommunicating one another and
provides us with the freedom to look into the matter more deeply.
Nevertheless, the disagreement is very important.
This is clear 1) from the almost spontaneous revolt and anger among grassroots
CWL members and pro-lifers; 2) from the snide and distasteful remarks
about the pro-life movement, together with the hard-nosed resistance to
acknowledge the validity of the criticisms by the CCCB, CWL, CCODP executives;
3) and from the strength of the arguments put forward by the "dissenting"
bishops (Anthony Tonnos, Aloysius Ambrozic, Adam Exner, James Windle and
Nicola De Angelis). Bishop De Angelis (Auxiliary in Toronto) made the
important observation that the statement of Bishop Wiesner, president
of the CCCB, of February 17, and again the clarification of May 16, "was
a personal statement which was not meant to, and could not speak on behalf
of all the bishops of Canada." This deflates the argument for the omnipotence
of CCCB authority.
The attacks on pro-life and the language used reveal
the uneasy relations with pro-life on the part of some, which have ramifications
of their own, but which must be left to a separate article. Here we must
deal, as briefly as we can, with the central question: Is cooperation
with the March of Women desirable, useful and this case, even legitimate
from a Catholic point of view? Indeed, the question of "legitimacy" puts
it across the border, back into the field of Catholic morality.
Research As we saw in Part II, for Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary
the matter was clear-cut. He said, that with respect to society there
is a choice of withdrawal, revolution, or involvement. Pro-lifers, he
charged, choose withdrawal, while he himself opted to get involved. That
too, was more or less, the message of Bishop John Sherlock of London and
Archbishop Marcel Gervais of Ottawa.
Bishop Henry's observation was clearly not too well
thought out, because it immediately led him into a position of having
to denounce his own Calgary predecessor as well as the bishops of three
other large dioceses as isolationists, for withdrawing from the United
Way when that body opted to found Planned Parenthood in their respective
cities. The logic of the argument could lead to the ludicrous conclusion
that we must give up our "separate schools; or remove restrictions on
non-Catholics for receiving Holy Communion, etc."
A more proper approach to the question is to be found
in Pope John Paul's 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae, the Gospel
of Life, section 74. Here he discusses the issue of cooperation for legislators
facing unjust legislation and so he recalls some general principles concerning
cooperation in evil actions.
The question is, of course, whether WMW (World March
of Women), is good or bad. Bishop Wiesner, et al, readily assumed
that WMW was a good thing. When WMW's support for abortion and lesbian
equality was brought up, they hurriedly distanced themselves from those
two issues while reiterating their support for the two main issues,
violence and poverty. These, they thought are noble issues and Catholic
women surely should be seen to support them, while at the same time witnessing
to the pro-life cause.
The practicality of the second point, that of witnessing
to the pro-life cause among WMW organizers, is highly unrealistic. The
CWL's entry into the March, for example, is itself hidden under the entry
of WICC, the (Canadian) Women Inter Church Council, a Council dominated
by anti-Catholic sentiments. One of the very first items on its website
is an attack against the Vatican by you-know-who, Joanna Manning. As far
back as 1990 Mrs Sheila Howard objected to WICC and thereby lost her position
on the CWL's National Council. The Council was determined to be with it,
to be ecumenical, no matter what the nature of WICC. Ironically, today
one can be thankful that CWL's name does not appear separately among WMW's
list of what are mainly pro-abortion, anti-Catholic feminist organizations.
Violence and poverty There is a parallel here with the days of the Cold
War when the Soviet Union would surreptitiously organize various peace
forums, or peace congresses in Western countries, where they would denounce
the West and praise the Soviet Union. They practically acquired a monopoly
over the word "peace", so that whenever you heard it, you knew the leftists
were at it again. Something similar has happened to the words 'violence'
and 'poverty' and we had better know what people mean by these words before
we join them.
One may find the answer in a detailed letter ofJune
15, by Women for Life, Faith and Family (WLFF) to Bishop Wiesner. Under
the heading "Violence has many faces," they note that the World March
demand to end violence is very selective. "While feminists march to eradicate
violence against women, they champion violence against their unborn children
as a prerequisite for what they call liberation and equality with men.
If the marches were serious about ending domestic violence they would
promote marriage." However, the word "marriage" is never to be found in
feminist influenced documents unless it is linked with "violence".
So there it is. WLFF points out that March organizers
do not just support abortion in itself, but see it as a keystone to their
interpretation of "rights". Christians see abortion as an act of violence.
Feminists see it as a noble act of emancipation. They demand, says WLFF,
quoting their words, "that custom, tradition, or religious considerations
should be subordinated to human rights and fundamental freedoms". They
ask that "our governments dissociate themselves from any authority–political
or religious–that aims to control women and girls and denounce any
regime that violates our rights." Like the early marxist socialists, they
see religion as the opium of the people and the Catholic Church as an
instrument of oppression.
The same selectivity is true for their understanding
of poverty. They march against poverty to "bring down the patriarchy".
Men are the enemies of women; traditional families are oppressive and
thwart female autonomy and economic self-sufficiency and therefore, must
be destroyed. This leftist undermining of family and marriage has now
been adopted throughout the world, through atheistic secularism in China
and elsewhere, through agnostic, hedonistic secularism in the West. Contrary
to what Bishop Henry wrote in the Calgary Sun (July 30), the leading
issues of the March do not harmonize with Catholic social teaching.
Is this what the CWL aims to achieve by supporting
WMW's two main demands? One presumes not. And yet, when the organizers
deliver their message to Ottawa and to the United Nations, they can point
out that they carry the approval of the Catholic Women of Canada and of
WUCWO, the World Unions of Catholic Women's Organizations.
Is this a case of cooperation in evil action? St.
Alphonsus, patron of moral theologians, teaches that "cooperation is formal
which concurs in the bad will of the other, and it cannot be without sin;
that cooperation is material which concurs only in the bad action
of the other, apart from the cooperator's intention. Material cooperation
is only licit when the goods to be obtained outweigh the evils to be avoided.
The proponents of cooperation do not intend formal
cooperation; they have already rejected the bad will of the WMW. Their
call to join the March however, is a form of material cooperation. As
they have misjudged both the evil character of the organization and the
ability of Catholic women to counter-witness on behalf of truth within
the context of this March–which is for all practical purposes nil–this
material cooperation is clearly illicit.
Originally printed in Catholic Insight July/August 2000 issue.
Fr. Alphonse de Valk c.s.b.
The March of Women controversy has shaken and angered many people, especially members of the Catholic Women's League (CWL) (see previous article, June 2000, pp. 8-9). Holy Redeemer CWL in Pickering, ON, for example, not only resolved that the National Executive must disengage itself from the March, but also adopted a resolution that if they did not, they would consider cutting off financial support to the CWL's upper levels. In this article I would like to reflect on the heart of the controversy.
Basic facts Then the pro-life news agency of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), Lifsite, and the pro-life monthly The Interim recalled that the March of Women organizers were essentially anti-Catholic, committed to radical feminism. They discovered that D&P, which gets its funding from the collection plates in Catholic churches, had given it a substantial amount of money ($135,000 over five years it turned out to be.)
Thereupon, charges flew back and forth, with CWL members across the country gradually beginning to hear about it and then refusing to follow their National Executive. This executive, backed by those of the CCCB and the D&P, dug in, refusing to acknowledge that anything at all could possibly be wrong, only to find that those disagreeing were growing in number and now included bishops from Hamilton, Toronto, Vancouver and Yarmouth. The "Executives" in turn, received support from bishops in Calgary and London, and with that backing blamed pro life organizations for disturbing peace and good order out of sheer, nasty, narrow-mindedness. This is the situation at the time of writing in mid-June.
Not faith and morals No consultation The first to do so was CWL President Sheilah Pellerin with a derogatory evaluation of Campaign Life in April, ("they are a one issue organization:), followed by CCCB Secretary-General Msgr. Peter Schonenbach's accusation in early May that "pro-life people take everything out of context." The rhetoric increased dramatically with Calgary bishop Fred Henry's public attack on the pro-life movement on May 6. "I'll know we have a genuine pro-life movement, someday," he said, "when a {pro-life} convention like this one includes sessions on occupational safety." He concluded by calling pro-lifers, "the rudest people he has had to deal with." This in turn was quickly followed by derogatory descriptions of Campaign Life Coalition in unsigned editorials in the Catholic Register ("Some fringe religious organizations, May 22,) and in the Catholic New Times (which put 'pro choice and pro-life...on the same level of incompetence,' May 14). Finally, Bishop Henry's former superior, Bishop John Sherlock of London, ON, in defending cooperation with the Women's March, let it be known that "if the pro-life people had their way, we would all be living in a ghetto, and crying about how unclean the rest of the world is".
Catholic Women's League Still, the procedures seem to be to load up the agenda with speakers, minutes, records and resolutions; then restrict discussion time to the absolute minimum, and, violà, your annual meeting perhaps will never even hear that there was a debate, let alone hear about resolutions passed by diocesan councils such as Hamilton which called for the resignation of the entire National Executive for bypassing the rank and file. As a Toronto diocesan convenor put it in early May, "by September no one will even recall that there was an issue to be debated.
It appears now that her prophecy may not come true though much will depend on whether the "rebels" can influence the agenda of the national meeting to be held in P.E.I. In August. A typical example of upper-level control was perhaps the BC Yukon Provincial CWL convention in Surrey, BC, on June 8. First, National President Sheilah Pellerin was allowed to take her time in reading the May 16 joint statement of the four groups (reiterating their commitment to the March), exhausting the discussion time. However, at a late moment an opportunity presented itself unexpectedly when a member was voted time to read the new statement by Vancouver Archbishop Adam Exner, opposing support for the March. Past president Claire Heron spoke against the motion to withdraw, concerned principally with what "the media" might say. The result: 53 votes against the March; 13 in favour; one abstention.
At about the same time, in another part of the country, Canada's largest diocesan CWL, that of the Archdiocese of Toronto, also voted to withdraw from the March (68% to 32%). The moral of the story: debate the question openly and freely. The opposite will prove disastrous.
Cooperation or not This then puts everything in an even broader context: when do we cooperate and when do we not? Are Catholics allowed to have their own identity or not? And if we "cooperate," are we perhaps compromising out integrity or-as it was called during wartime-collaborating with the enemy?
Bishop O"Byrne's creation of the Annual Bishop's Appeal (and therefore, withdrawal from the United Way in Calgary) had been preceded by similar actions by Archbishop Joseph MacNeil of Edmonton, the late Archbishop James Carney of Vancouver and, especially, the initial withdrawal in 1976 by Archbishop Philip Pocock of Toronto and the subsequent creation of Share Life to raise funds for the Catholic Charities there. All four dioceses have come out "on top" financially, that is they have collected more money independently than they would have received from the United Way. The point here, however, is that Bishop Henry now calls this a form of isolationism, with the attached aura of contempt which this term carries.
The perceptive reader will see at once that this argument can be pursued further. Should we surrender our Catholic schools because these are "separate" and, as opponents say, 'divisive?" As we know, the Quebec bishops went along with their government and now have nothing left, after the last vestiges of "religion" were removed recently. Do not for one moment think that the vacuum left behind in those schools will not be filled. Do we in English Canada want to follow the example of Quebec? I would say not.
CCCB One trusts that the CWL too will benefit from this controversy. Like the CCCB, its higher levels of government seemed to have fallen into the trap of mistaking paper declarations from on high with actual work to be done in the local councils. If the dignity of women is to be defended against the assaults of poverty and violence, surely this is to be done locally. One can imagine all sorts of work done by Christian women in the cities and towns across this country, among natives, immigrants, farmers, families, etc.
CCODP It is not surprising, therefore, that D&P personnel in their April and May letters of defence (for having given $135,000 to the March), deny all allegations about anti-life elements among the participants. Theirs is a secular aid program, the more so that the Canadian government often matches their grants, insisting that moneys may not go to primarily religious projects. This is not to diminish in any way the good D&P does. But D&P must not be thought of as an organization that is familiar with issues outside its economic-political scope.
And, yet, perhaps it is but not in a way we like. In a mid-May document ("D&P and the March of Women"), D&P rejects all charges, including that there is anything wrong with feminism or "radical feminism". It calls this "name-calling" and "labelling." Really? And this at the very time when news agencies were reporting an all-out battle at the united Nations' Beijing +5 preparatory meetings in late May and early June between the "feminists" and the pro-life people, the latter including the Holy See. So what ideology does D&P represent?
In 1991 the late Bishop James Mahoney of Saskatoon was scandalized when he discovered the D&P was spending 25% of its funding on education. He called for an end to D&P, first because he thought 25% far too high, but also because he objected to the kind of education D&P provided. Throughout the seventies and eighties the educational literature spread about in Canadian parishes was often antagonistically socialist and frequently anti-American. When D&P therefore, argues that its $135,000 went not to the organizers but to individual women's groups in the Philippines, Peru, Mexico, etc., standing for the dignity of women, one is relieved; yet at the same time one wonders about this "education." Was it about teaching the "clenched fist" or about something else?
Conclusion Originally printed in Catholic Insight June 2000 issue.
Fr. Alphonse de Valk c.s.b.
The controversy about Catholic
participation in the World March for Women (WMW), purportedly against
violence and poverty, has exploded. Some regard this disagreement as
disastrous, though it is better to see it as an opportunity for more
dialogue and democratic accountability. Alas, at the time of writing
there are few indications of this.
The issue stands as follows.
On February 17, the current President of the Canadian Bishops' Conference
(CCCB) Bishop Gerald Wiesner, of Prince George,B.C., penned an invitation
to Catholics to join the WMW 2000, apparently never thinking that some
might object. The Catholic Womens' League (CWL), without consulting
its members, agreed at once. The Canadian Organization for Development
and Peace (CCODP, hereafter D& P), the Catholic Conference of Religious
(CCR),and the Catholic teachers' union of Ontario (OECTA) had been in
support already. A small CCCB committee of four bishops (two French,
two English - Wiesner of Prince George, O'Brien of Pembroke) bestowed
its approval, as did CCCB staff. The invitation was called Marching
together.
Violence against women is
widespread. Generous-minded people should feel obliged to join the struggle
against poverty and violence as indeed, the Church is doing around the
world. The lot of women is very much a concern of the Catholic community.
Should we not show solidarity
with all those who suffer and help them organize to gain their rightful
place in society? Who could possibly object?
Well, objections, at first
few, soon became a torrent. Needless to say, there were not directed
at the purpose of helping women, but at the company the Bishops
were keeping. It started with the opening day of WMW 2000, March 8,
International Women's Day, a Marxist founded traditional day of showing
women's solidarity and power. In Montreal one of the participating groups,
"Collectif Autonome Féministe," decided to trash Montreal's Catholic
cathedral as an expression of their contempt for the Catholic Church.
Next, pro-lifers, long acquainted
with the verbal violence of feminists, whether in or outside Canada,
discovered first that the Canadian organizers were the usual proponents
of abortion, lesbianism, and other feminist demands and, second, that
the International March headquartered in Montreal listed D&P, together
with the governments of Canada and Quebec, as financial partners who
had contributed over $100,000 each. A quick survey of various web-sites
confirmed that the difference between the national and the international
organization was appeared minimal.
Later on, in early May, the
Secretary General of the CCCB, Msgr. Peter Schonenbach, would angrily
denounce pro-lifers. "The trouble with the pro-life people is," he said,
that "they take everything out of context" (Catholic Register,
May 15). In actual fact, it was the other way around. The Interim
and its on-line service Lifesite were putting Bishop Wiesner's
letter in context, namely that of their partners.
Once the above news got out
in early April, the fat was in the fire. CWL grassroots members revolted.
On April 4, the spiritual convenor of Toronto's St. Monica's parish,
as soon as she heard the news of the involvement of the CWL and the
Ottawa Conference of Bishops with the Women's March, and the money donated
by Development and Peace, wrote CWL President, Sheilah Pellerin, and
her own sister-members expressing her astonishment and dismay. In Cambridge
ON, April 24, the CWL executive of St. Ambrose Council sent a letter
to the National Executive saying they had "overstepped the boundaries"
of their authority and that the 200-member council felt "betrayed and
insulted." A resolution that "the National level disengage us from any
agreement of support or cooperation" was passed overwhelmingly. One
week later they approved a resolution calling for the resignation of
the National Executive.
Of the 200 women present
at the Peterborough Catholic Women's League diocesan convention held
from April 29 to May 1, 195 voted to disssociate themselves from WMW
2000. On May 2, St. Benedict's Council in Toronto expressed similar
sentiments. At the Durham (Oshawa, ON) CWL regional executive meeting
of the same day, it was pointed out that the National Executive's decision
to join the March had never been discussed on the lower levels and that
individual CWL'ers were simply being bypassed.
On April 25, Mrs. Barbara
Gobbi of Prince George, B.C., wrote all Canadian Bishops announcing
that her diocesan CWL had passed a motion "with a wide margin" to disclaim
not just the abortion plank in the WMW but to disclaim every demand
not in keeping with the faith. "There is ," she stated, "something irresponsible
about the whole thing." It is not only the tone of " us against them",
she wrote, but the various web sites and documents prove that the organization's
ideology is saturated with anti-Christian sentiments. Meanwhile in Saskatoon,
SK, Mrs. Jacqueline Owen was trying to get details in order to present
it to the diocesan CWL meeting there. And people across Canada, angry
at D&P, were cancelling their monthly payments or withholding their
donations to the collections of Share Lent or Share Life, as it is called
in Toronto.
Two bishops wanted out Three weeks later, on May
9, Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic of Toronto informed all his priests and
all Canadian bishops that Share Life would withhold $15,000 from its
D&P 2000 collection, that being the Archdiocesan share of the $110,000
given by D&P to the March and allocate it instead to its own Mission
Fund to help women. The association of D&P with WMW "is indeed unfortunate",
the Cardinal stated, "and we need to make a clear and definite statement
to disassociate our Archdiocese with this movement."
No acknowledgement of
criticisms That defence was undermined
by Vancouver nurse Cecily von Dehn, a CWL member, who had written the
International Group in Montreal on December 29, 1999. On March 29, she
received her answer. World March Executive Coordinator, Diane Matte,
wrote to tell her that, after full consultation of the Coordinating
Committee :
"It was unanimously
decided that the demand to have a "pro-life" contingent at the World
March is unacceptable to us since the anti-choice position defended
by your organization is in clear contradiction with the objectives
pursued by the March...."
This official reply has had
no impact on D&P. A May 8 letter sent from the Toronto D&P office
to Sturgeon Falls, ON, denied that the international group was pro-abortion.
Similarly, in an interview, D&P spokeswoman Mary Corkery indicated
that she was not impressed by the reaction of Cardinal Ambrozic. "It's
$15,000. It's a small amount. We can't do much other than
say we disagree," she stated. She too insisted that D&P does not
accept that the Women 2000's policy on a "woman's right to
control her body and reproductive functions" refers to abortion. Rather,
she said, it "deals with forced marrriage, sterilization and genital
mutilation" (National Post, May 15).
Having made up their minds
to stay locked in denial, D&P felt free to accuse Campaign Life
Coalition and the Interim of propagating falsehoods; the reaction
of the CCCB's General Secretary has been described already; and
the CWL leaders appeared determined to put the local members in their
place and enforce obedience.
In its May document, Development
and Peace and the World March of Women 2000 , D&P scoffs at
the idea that the March is under the influence of "radical feminists".
It debunks this as "name-calling". In fact, it rejects the idea that
there is anything wrong with feminism at all.
Finally May 16, in a Joint
statement of clarification on the March of Women 2000, the CCCB,
D&P, CWL, and the Conference of Religious reaffirmed their "support
of the objectives" of this year's World March of Women. "These
objectives" are to end violence against women and poverty". "The March
of Women 2000" they stated, is a powerful bridge of solidarity to our
sisters." It has nothing to do with abortion. As for the Canadian
WMW demands, they had declined to endorse them.
In closing, a final point.
For the CWL, the current uproar should be seen as a positive move, not
as a "lot of negativity" as someone characterized the controversy. The
temptation will be to stifle this debate. Instead, don't be afraid
to air conflicting views on important social issues. Everyone should
be informed about the issue, and participate in the debates on the provincial
levels and at the national convention in Prince Edward Island this coming
August.
To be continued |