UNFPA DRAWS CHURCH INTO KENYA FUNDING DISPUTE

NAIROBI, July 12, 2002 (C-FAM/LSN.ca) – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its allies in the U.S. Congress are trying to bolster their support for U.S. funding by implicating the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nakuru, Kenya in its work—a strategy that drew an outraged response from the local bishop.  According to UNFPA, the “U.N. Population Fund has been working with the Catholic Church in Nakuru to provide peer counseling for adolescents, parents and priests to prevent teenage pregnancies and STIs [Sexually transmitted infections], including HIV/AIDS…” UNFPA contends that this “unique and successful” program “would have to be abandoned or cut back” if UNFPA lost U.S. funding. Liberal Congressmen Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), James Greenwood (R-PA), Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Connie Morella (D-MD), seized upon the claim to bolster their support for UNFPA dollars.  But Peter Kairo, Bishop of Nakuru, wrote a blistering response, care of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) in New York, which states: “It is with regret and disappointment to learn that our name has been dragged into a political controversy for funding UNFPA activities … At no time shall we be engaged in acts that violate the God-given rights through practices geared towards population control, abortion, condoms and other artificial methods of birth control,” he wrote. “The aim of the program,” he says, “is to use the Church moral teaching to influence behavior change among the young people … [ans] promotion of ABSTINENCE as the most certain way to safeguard the young people against sexually transmitted infections and diseases including AIDS…”  To read the Bishop’s full response (once C-FAM updates its Friday Fax) see:  https://www.c-fam.org/index_1.html