DUBLIN, May 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Diarmuid Martin, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin has asked for an investigation into allegations that a Catholic social service agency has been providing pregnant women with information on how to seek abortions. CURA, pregnancy information and assistance agency and an official arm of the bishops’ conference, has been asked to provide details about its adherence to Catholic moral theology, particularly regarding cooperation with abortion.
Irish pro-life groups have complained to the Archbishop that CURA, while not directly sending unborn children to their deaths in abortion facilities, has a policy of giving women the contact information for groups that will arrange abortions.
“We will be making a formal complaint to the Irish Bishops’ Conference and to the Vatican, through the apostolic nuncio,” said Sean O’Domhnaill of the Mother and Child Campaign, a pro-life group based in Dublin.
Reiterating the Catholic Church’s teaching that the right to life is absolute and always inviolable, O’Domhnaill said, “A la carte Catholicism has no place in the pro-life movement, as CURA knows. We would urge all Catholics to suspend their financial support for CURA until such time as they amend their position.”
CURA is heavily funded by the government run Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) and distributes a leaflet that refers women to the Irish Family Planning Association, a group associated with Planned Parenthood.
Colm O’Reilly, the bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise and a former president of CURA, said: “In all the times that I was involved with CURA, we were adamant that in all our dealings with the state and grant aid at no time would we compromise on our ethos.” But another pro-life group, Life, had refused CPA funding on the grounds that CPA’s requirement to refer women for abortions, even indirectly, would clash with their adherence to Catholic moral teaching.
Around the world, many Catholic dioceses encounter problems with their own helping organizations, particularly those that claim to represent and emphasize the Church’s teachings on social justice. In the UK, CAFOD, the Catholic bishops’ overseas aid organization, has come under heavy criticism for its promotion of condoms in AIDS prevention, and its support of active homosexuality within its staff.
In Canada, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, (that habitually drops the term “Catholic” from its letterhead and publications,) has for decades stood firmly behind every fashionable leftist cause while pointedly excluding meaningful opposition to abortion, contraception and eugenic population control from its activities. Many Catholics are hoping the new Pope, Benedict XVI, who stated on the weekend that his papacy would be dedicated to upholding Catholic moral opposition to abortion and contraception, will intervene in these groups who, calling themselves Catholic, often undermine or contradict Catholic moral teaching.