By John-Henry Westen
TORONTO, August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Biennial Conference of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) taking place August 23-25 in Toronto features a leading Canadian radical feminist and advocate of abortion as a keynote speaker. Beyond that, one of the conference sessions promotes building “inclusive communities in Catholic schools” for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-spirited and Transgendered students.”
On Saturday August 25 at 10:45am former Toronto Star columnist Michele Landsberg will deliver a keynote address to the Catholic teachers. While Landsberg is identified in the conference brochure as a “Social Justice Advocate,” she is well known as one of the nation’s most vocal critics of pro-life beliefs and a severe critic of traditional Christian moral teaching.
For 25 years Landsberg wrote a column in Canada’s largest paper The Toronto Star, which regularly trashed orthodox Christianity, the pro-life movement and anything else which confronted her radical feminist ideology.
Landsberg slandered the world’s largest Catholic pro-life group Human Life International, as “purveyors of hate and violence” and “true fascists.” She blamed the pro-life movement for the murder of abortionists falsely claiming that the murders were the result of the “disgusting rhetoric” and “fake ‘documentaries’ about screaming fetuses” of the pro-life movement. In her columns she also attacked the Catholic Church’s teaching against condoms applauding the work of the pro-abortion group “Catholics for a Free Choice.”
For her slanderous remarks against Evangelical Christians Landsberg was censured by the Ontario Press Council. The council upheld a complaint by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada which concerned an article in which Landsberg blasted Evangelical Christianity for creating “the kind of parents who teach their children to hate and taunt their schoolmates who are children of lesbians or gay men.”
OECTA’s promotion of acceptance of homosexuality in the classroom will come as no surprise to LifeSiteNews.com readers. In previous years the organization has proposed a resolution backing homosexual ‘marriage’ (https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04021904.html ), and even proposed to intervene on behalf of a male high school student who was suing his Catholic school to be permitted to bring his homosexual ‘boyfriend’ to the school prom (https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/may/02050606.html ).
Bishop James Wingle, President of the Ontario Bishops Conference commented on the OECTA situation telling LifeSiteNews.com that “The ongoing struggle is to see that the integrity of our Catholic educational system really depends on having people who are fully committed to Catholic faith in the system.” It is a question “of integrity” he said.
“The mission of Catholic education depends entirely on being committed to it. The issue within the Catholic system is assuring that all the partners within the system, the teachers, administrators, parents, the families, be in harmony with the Church and the Church’s teaching.”
While he said that OECTA is not directly under the supervisory control of the Bishops, Bishop Wingle did say that the term “Catholic” is reserved to those groups which adhere to Catholic teaching. “For any association or group to call itself Catholic it does indeed have to meet certain criteria,” he said. “Any group that wishes to describe itself as Catholic has to have a mission that is consistent and coherent with what is Catholic. If it adamantly and flagrantly violates that then there is an issue.”
“We can see that for instance in a hospital which calls itself Catholic and then would systematically and publicly violate something that is intrinsic to the nature of the Catholic faith. It would be entirely inconsistent to continue to describe itself as a Catholic institution.”
OECTA has certainly been consistent in its anti-Catholic approach at its conferences. Last year the OECTA conference was keynoted by teacher Joanna Manning, a prominent member of “Catholics for a Free Choice” and self-acknowledged lesbian activist. (see coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06031409.html )
To see the brochure with details of the OECTA conference click here:
https://www.oecta.on.ca/pdfs/pedagogy07.pdf
To respectfully express concerns:
Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops
10 St. Mary St., Suite 800
Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1P9
Phone: (416) 923-1423 Fax: (416) 923-1509
General Secretary
Alphonse Ainsworth
Email: [email protected]
Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association
P.O. Box 2064,
Suite 1804, 20 Eglinton Avenue West,
Toronto, ON
M4R 1K8
Tel: 416-932-9460
Fax: 416-932-9459
Email: [email protected]
OECTA President Donna Marie Kennedy:
email: [email protected]