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CATHOLIC WOMEN'S LEAGUE OF CANADA ENDORSES LEGAL SAME-SEX CIVIL UNIONS

Catholic Group Demands of Government What Pope Has Specifically Denounced

OTTAWA, April 11, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a shocking official statement, the Catholic Women's League of Canada (CWL) has demanded that the federal government approve of legal homosexual civil unions. The statement flies in the face of repeated directions from Pope John Paul II which have condemned legal recognition of such sexual unions which are considered by the church to be unnatural and harmful.

The statements came in a presentation to the House of Commons Justice Committee, which is conducting hearings on same-sex 'marriage'. The CWL statement, signed by Marie Cameron, National President; Agnes Bedard, National President-elect; Lucille Partington, National Legislation Chairperson, claims to speak "on behalf of all League members across Canada" which represents more than 102,000 Catholic women.

While the CWL asks for the term 'marriage' to be reserved to the union of a man and a woman, the document says: "The Catholic Women's League of Canada urges the federal government to establish a separate legal process for recognizing same-sex unions that outlines their entitlements, benefits and responsibilities." Moreover, the statement says "Parliament can best act to support marriage by enacting a statute that allows for civil unions to be registered between heterosexual couples and same-sex couples, with all legal
implications and responsibilities including separation, divorce, maintenance, etc."

The requests from the Catholic group are directly contradictory to Catholic teaching on the matter. In his famous November 4, 2000 address to the world's politicians, the Pope counseled them, "with regard to all laws which would do harm to the family, striking at its unity and its indissolubility, or which would give legal validity to a union between persons, including those of the same sex, who demand the same rights as the family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman." He warned "Christian legislators may neither contribute to the formulation of such a law nor approve it in parliamentary assembly."

In fact, the Pope warned that such measures would be presented and warned against them. In June 1999 he addressed the Pontifical Council for the Family saying: "For some time now the family institution has been under repeated attack. These attacks are all the more dangerous and insidious since they ignore the irreplaceable value of the family based on marriage. They have reached the point of proposing false alternatives to the family and of calling for legislative recognition of them. But when laws, which should be at the service of the family, a fundamental good for society, turn against it, they acquire alarming destructive power. Thus, in some countries there is a desire to impose on society so-called "de facto unions", reinforced by a series of legal effects which erode the very meaning of the family institution."

CWL member Cecilia von Dehn from Vancouver BC lamented the fact that the CWL statement "was never made public for discussion amongst the CWL members across Canada." In a letter sent the Justice Committee von Dehn "fully dissacociate(d)" herself from the statement. She also urged other CWL members to do the same.

See the CWL statement (PDF file) from their website at:
http://www.cwl.ca/RecentCorrespondence/same%20sex%20press%20release.pdf

See the Pope's Nov 2000 and June 1999 statements in full at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2000/oct-dec/documents/h...

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2FATH.HTM

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