(co-authored by Steve Jalsevac)
TORUN, Poland, November 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The “destruction of countless children in the womb” and the “corruption” of children already born will be the result of the massive confusion over comments on the use of condoms for AIDS prevention by Pope Benedict XVI, published last month, a prominent pro-life Catholic has said.
John Smeaton, head of the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the oldest pro-life organization in the world said, addressing Pope Benedict directly, “Countless children, perhaps my own grandchildren, will be deliberately corrupted as a result of the exploitation and misrepresentation of your interview about condoms by opponents of Catholic teaching within the Catholic Church.”
Since Benedict’s remarks on condoms to a German journalist in the interview book “Light of the World” were leaked earlier this month, thousands of news stories, editorials and blog posts appeared in the media claiming that Pope Benedict XVI had “changed” the Church’s teaching.
Smeaton, writing last week from Torun, Poland where he addressed the third international Congress of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the International Gilson Society, not only criticized the media for its role in distorting the pope’s remarks, but said that the episode suggests all is not well even among the Roman curia.
“My heart breaks for my children and for my grandchildren; my heart breaks for the children of Britain and for children throughout the world. My heart breaks as I witness leading figures in the Vatican fomenting universal confusion on Catholic teaching on the use of condoms.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput when he said about the condom debacle, “Ironically, the message of this good and brilliant Pope has been hobbled nearly as much by the baffling failures of some of his own aides as by unfriendly coverage from the world’s media.”
Smeaton reflected that, “Countless women will be exploited by selfish or insensitive or brutal husbands and boyfriends, as a result of the confusion generated in the mass media by opponents, within the Church, of Catholic teaching on the use of condoms.”
In recent years, Smeaton has focused much of his work and writing on the separation in western culture between the sexual act and the conception of a child. He maintains that the pro-life movement will not succeed in eradicating the abortion mentality until it addresses that separation.
In his address in Poland, Smeaton said, “The world’s rejection of the inseparability of the unitive and procreative elements of marital acts had led to the imposition, in Britain, on families, of access to induced abortion and birth control drugs and devices to children at school.”
The only thing that will redress the situation, he says, is “a clear understanding of the relationship of the right to life to the truth about the conjugal act and its essentially procreative nature.”
“This understanding is the foundation stone of a pro‐life movement in Europe which is beginning to have a real impact in the European institutions.”
The linking of the defense of human life with the “truth about the transmission of human life through the marriage act” he said, “must become the foundation stone of the pro‐life movement worldwide.”