TORONTO, January 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Loretto Abbey School is a prestigious Toronto Catholic high school for girls whose website claims that the students come to know the mind of Christ in religion class. However it is unclear how well the lessons of the Catholic religion have been conveyed to some former students who now form the executive of the Loretto Alumnae Association and have invited Jean Augustine, a militantly pro-abortion, “Catholic” Liberal MP to be a speaker at their awards event on January 21st.
The Alumnae Association website announces that the Order of Mary Ward will be given to three Loretto sisters and one lay woman with Augustine giving the keynote address. LifeSiteNews.com attempted to contact the members of the committee of the Alumnae Association but calls were not returned by press time.
Jean Augustine, the Liberal MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and a former Toronto Catholic school principal, is a supporter of abortion, third-world population control, contraception, and homosexual marriage. She was one of the candidates parachuted into her Toronto riding in the 1993 federal election by Jean Chretien in order to defeat a pro-life candidate. Augustine is the Founding Chair of the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population & Development, a group of legislators in support of the population control initiatives at the United Nations including China’s brutally coercive one-child policy.
Although the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has collectively maintained a resolute silence on the issue, the US bishops recently instituted a policy that pro-abortion politicians calling themselves Catholic may not be given a public forum at Catholic institutions.
Julie Grando, the president of the Alumnae Association, can be reached at [email protected]