ROME, February 17, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Following the first law of modern journalism – never let the facts get in the way of a good story – the mainstream media is gleefully pouncing on the UN report, issued last week, that has repeated one of their favourite anti-Catholic themes: that the Vatican did nothing but wink while local bishops pushed clerical pedophiles from parish to parish, allowing them to reoffend with impunity.
The solution offered to the Catholic Church by the Committee on the Rights of the Child just happens to be exactly the program the modern secular media has supported since about 1965: to get on board with the general frenzy to promote and normalize homosexuality, cohabitation, abortion, contraception and sexual activity outside marriage by minors… the whole of the Sexual Revolution’s repertoire. Oh, and drop all that “organized religion” stuff, while you’re at it. This, the UN’s Committee said, is what is needed to prevent children and young people from being victims of sexual abuse…somehow.
The Vatican has responded with a dull recitation of the facts: that the UN’s information is obsolete and inaccurate, and that more has been done by the Catholic Church – particularly by Cardinal Ratzinger while he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – than any other organization to protect children. And, more to the point, that the UN has no business telling the Church what to believe and teach about sex and marriage. Naturally this has been roundly ignored.
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LifeSiteNews readers will recognize many of the points brought up in the 16-page document, since we have for years covered the ongoing efforts at the UN to implement and enforce the demands of the Sexual Revolution, and to oust the Holy See, which has been going on for a long, long time. The Vatican’s presence as a “permanent observer” has been a permanent nuisance to the revolutionaries working to cement the new moral paradigm around the world and the population control program that is inextricably entangled in it.
In order to equip our readers to respond to the finger pointing that is undoubtedly headed their way, we have compiled a paragraph-by-paragraph debunking of the claims, accusations and outrageous presumptions in the report. It’s a bit of a daunting task, not because there is a paucity of information refuting this or that point, but because the report overall is so deeply imbued with the dogmas of the gender and abortion ideologies. It is hard to know where to start.
See LifeSiteNews' full paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the UN report here.
What stands out, however, is that in this UN report we have one of the best examples of the formal meaning of the often-misused legal expression “begging the question” anyone could possibly hope for. Formally, to “beg the question” means to assume in an argument the very point which one is required to prove. In this case, the UN’s ideologues, sexual revolutionaries, are starting by assuming that their ideology is correct, good, useful, based on facts and agreed upon by all parties.
The Church has always stood against that assumption and has doggedly challenged them on every point. Now, with this document, the UN is saying, in effect, “Since we all agree that it is ridiculous to oppose the new sexual paradigm, why don’t you just drop all your silly objections…” But that’s the core of the issue, isn’t it? In fact, we don’t all agree, and the Committee’s report is really just another volley in an apparently endless war against those who would stand up for traditional morality.
An informed reading of this document is very revealing, therefore, of the brazen and blind assumptions that make up the substance of its accusations. It demonstrates that the revolutionaries themselves are hampered by their own short-sightedness, their apparent total inability to understand that anyone would still, after decades of triumph since the 1960s, continue to oppose their agenda.
So riddled is it with factual errors, obsolete data – what one Italian commentator called media-generated “folklore,” – as well as the outrageous presumption of universal agreement, that the document almost ridicules itself. One can easily imagine the shock on the faces of the Committee at the suggestion that reasonable people could ever lodge any sane objection to any point of their Hollywood-endorsed ideology.
What follows is not nearly a comprehensive analysis, but more like what politicians call “talking points.” We offer it as a help, a starting point, for those who are faced with having to defend traditional Christian doctrines on sexual morality and the natural family at work, at home, in classes or at church. Readers are invited to follow the links to LifeSiteNews stories and other sources embedded in the text that explain and give more examples, data and facts.
Moreover, since the UN report more or less comprehensively summarizes the entire program of the revolutionaries against the traditional Christian worldview, it can be seen as a useful teaching tool. A good use could be made of it as a starting point to teach young people what, exactly, is being proposed at the international level by those ranged against us in the Culture War, and how to respond. It is rare that the other side comes so forthrightly clean about their goals and aims, an opportunity not to be missed.
See LifeSiteNews' full paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the UN report here.