By Hilary White
KITCHENER, August 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic diocese of Hamilton, Ontario is telling parishioners not to support the appearance of Bill Clinton at a November fundraising luncheon for the Kitchener Catholic Family Counselling Centre. LifeSiteNews has learned that the centre is also used for regular meetings of a gay activist organization. As well, the centre seems unclear on its “Catholic” identity and is unable to answer why it invited Clinton to speak.
Quoted in the Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton diocese’s auxiliary bishop, Gerard Bergie, said the diocese is receiving phone calls and emails from across the country expressing dismay that a helping agency with the name Catholic would have Clinton speak.
“We felt it wasn’t appropriate to have Mr. Clinton as a speaker, based on the fact that they were a Catholic counselling centre,” said Bergie.
Bergie said the people who have contacted him “find it difficult to reconcile the fact that an organization that calls itself Catholic has extended an invitation to an individual whose views, in particular regards to life, go against the Catholic Church.”
Bishop Bergie told the Spectator that the diocese is telling its priests to inform parishioners that the Church does not support Mr. Clinton’s appearance.
The question of the centre’s Catholic identity seems to be a matter of confusion however. While retaining the name Catholic, the front page of the centre’s website announces, in large block capitals, that the agency is “non-denominational”.
The centre’s director, Cathy Brothers, told reporters that having Bill Clinton as a speaker has nothing to do with what the centre’s directors believe, saying, “It’s not about our Catholicism,”
Brothers was unable to clarify to LifeSiteNews.com in exactly what way the centre is “Catholic” or what was meant by the term “non-denominational”.
She said that most of her staff are not Catholic but that the centre is “founded on the Catholic Church’s social teachings around the importance of helping people with social problems.” When asked to specify what specifically those social teachings were, she said that the centre sees itself “as being the caring arm,” of the Church.
“We have never had a mandate to evangelize or proselytise or teach the Catholic Church’s teachings,” Brothers added.
Brothers used the example of Mother Theresa, saying that no one ever said the beatified nun should restrict herself to helping only Catholics. Mother Theresa, however, thought by many around the world to be a saint, was for decades one of the leading voices against the horrors and violence of abortion and did not spare her criticism of Mr. Clinton himself for his militant abortion advocacy.
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A Kitchener/Guelph area homosexual activist organization, Tri-Pride, regularly uses the centre, which receives financial support from two women’s and one men’s Catholic religious orders, for its meetings. Tri-Pride is the leading homosexual activist organization in the area and its policies are in direct opposition to Catholic understanding of sexual morality, marriage, and chastity.
The Catholic Family Counselling Centre told LifeSiteNews.com that Tri-Pride was still meeting at the Centre up to their most recent meeting in May 2006. The group does not meet in the summer and has not yet made arrangements to continue renting their meeting space from the centre. The director, Cathy Brothers, is responsible for deciding which groups rent space from the agency.Â
Mrs. Brothers was also unable to clarify her remark, reported in the Hamilton Spectator, that Mr. Clinton would “especially” raise awareness of domestic violence. The Spectator said that the centre plans on using the funds raised by the luncheon to build an expansion to house the victims of domestic abuse.
When asked what Mr. Clinton has to do with that topic that might make him an “especially” appropriate speaker, Brothers declined to respond saying it was a policy decision of the agency.
Bill Clinton, was nearly thrown out of Presidential office for lying about his sexual relations with White House interns and who has a long and well-documented history of sexual manipulation of the women he works with. He twice vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortion, which is more a horrific form of infanticide of late term children.
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When LifeSiteNews.com asked if there was any public position or private action of Mr. Clinton’s that might have dissuaded the centre from inviting him, Brothers responded, “That’s so hypothetical I can’t answer.”
Tickets to the fundraiser cost are being sold, starting September 7th, for about $500.
The Centre is mostly publicly funded but major donors also include the Sisters of St. Joseph of Hamilton; the Waterloo Region Catholic Community Foundation; the Knights of Columbus; Blessed Sacrament Parish; the School Sisters of Notre Dame and another Catholic religious order for men, the Congregation of the Resurrection.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Hamilton Bishop says No to Clinton Appearance at Catholic Counselling Centre
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081802.html
Why Bill Clinton Must Not Be Invited To Dinner
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/feb/010215a.html
To express concerns:
Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Bergie
Chancellor
Diocese of Hamilton
700 King Street W. Hamilton, ON., L8P 1C7
[905] 528-7988 FAX [905] 528-1088
[email protected]
Catholic Family Counselling Centre
400 Queen Street South
Kitchener, ON N2G 1W7
(519)743-6333
[email protected]