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Let
what is happening in Britain (also England
or UK) open the eyes of people in the
Philippines, who are now looking to promote
reproductive health and sex education.
These inevitably lead to abortion and
same-sex marriage.
Some naive Catholics in the Philippines
say that cannot happen, because abortion
is illegal in the nation and sex education
will be handled prudently. Well, Britain
started out that way too. England was
known as one of the most devout nations
in Christendom, even nicknamed the "Dowry
of Mary." Such is the same situation
in all the Christian nations of the West.
So we already know how things will turn
out. The evil one just starts seemingly
innocent enough, wanting the health of
women or the proper education of children
or the decrease in AIDS and STDs (none
of those of course will happen). But the
anti-family and anti-life homosexualist
agenda cannot stop there. What they are
about is overturning Judeo-Christian values
and programming society according to their
diabolical worldview. Thus, as in Britain,
sex education programs will teach that
homosexual acts are normal and harmless.
So wake up, Philippines. Resist the culture
of death.
The
“Geopolitical Epicentre of the Culture
of Death”
By
Hilary White
LONDON,
September 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– In the last 50 years, Britain
has become a “selfish, hedonistic
wasteland” and the “geopolitical
epicenter of the culture of death,”
a member of the staff of the Westminster
Catholic Archdiocese told Zenit news this
weekend.
Edmund
Adamus, director of Pastoral Affairs for
the Archdiocese of Westminster, said,
“whether we like it or not as British
citizens and residents of this country
– and whether we are even prepared
as Catholics to accept this reality and
all it implies – the fact is that
historically, and continuing right now,
Britain, and in particular London, has
been and is the geopolitical epicenter
of the culture of death.”
In
the lead-up to Pope Benedict’s September
16th state visit, Adamus warned that Britain
is in “a time of shadows especially
threatening to the fundamental cell of
society – the family – and
the rights of parents.”
The
reference is likely to the former Labour
government’s sex
education programs that would have required
schools, including religious schools,
to teach children that homosexual acts
are “normal and harmless,”
and how to obtain abortions and contraception
without parents’ knowledge or consent.
The Catholic Education Service, a body
of the Catholic bishops’ conference
of England and Wales, has been heavily
criticized for its approval of and cooperation
with the plans.
Britain
leads Europe in abortion and unplanned
pregnancy among young women and has recently
weakened its legal protections against
euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.
Under the Tony Blair Labour government,
Britain became the world leader in the
use of living human embryos in experimentation.
Recently,
Britain’s abortion statistics, nearly
200,000 per year, earned the country the
nickname “abortion
capital of Europe” from MP
Anne Widdecombe.
A
poll taken in anticipation of the pope’s
visit found that a larger number of British
people than expected are Catholic, about
800,000 in Scotland and 5.2 million in
England and Wales – a total of about
8 percent of the British population. But
the same poll found that only one in five
attends Mass regularly.
Adamus
continued, “Our laws and lawmakers
for over 50 years or more have been the
most permissively anti-life and progressively
anti-family and marriage, in essence one
of the most anti-Catholic landscapes
culturally speaking than even those places
where Catholics suffer open persecution.”
He
said that his hopes for the papal visit
include “a fresh sense of purpose
and clarity about what we as Catholics
understand in terms of mission, for the
authentic dignity of the person.”
He
pointed to the medieval past when England
was known as one of the most devout nations
of Christendom, nicknamed the “Dowry
of Mary.” But those days are long
gone, he said, and
today’s Britain is in the clutches
of a national debauch, indulging in the
“objectification of women for sexual
gratification” and an “ever-increasing
commercialization of sex, not to mention
its permissive laws advancing the gay
agenda.”
But
the members of the Catholic hierarchy
have a rosier view of British life. A
spokesman for Archbishop Vincent Nichols,
Adamus’s boss, released a terse
message saying that the comments “did
not reflect the archbishop’s opinions.”
Archbishop
Nichols, regarded as the “conservative”
choice among the English episcopate to
replace Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor,
has come under heavy fire from some Catholics
and pro-family groups for his enthusiastic
endorsement of the former Labour government’s
sex education programs and for his continuation
of the infamous Soho
Masses at a London Catholic
parish, organized by and for active homosexuals.
In
a recent BBC interview, when asked if
the Catholic Church was likely to change
its mind on homosexuality, Nichols replied,
“I don’t know. Who knows what’s
down the road?”
But
even more glowing comments came from the
bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran
Conry, who told the Guardian recently
that there is really nothing for the pope
to worry about in Britain.
“I
am often told by those Catholics who dislike
the way our church operates in this country
that they are the ‘silent majority,’
denied a voice by people like me in the
hierarchy,” he said. “The
reality is that they are a very small
minority. Pope Benedict is coming to a
country where Catholicism is unusually
stable, cohesive and vibrant enough in
the current overall context of decline
of interest in the church in western Europe.”
Pope
Benedict, he said, “may well be
relieved to be coming to a place where,
unlike some of his other recent trips,
there are no big problems for him to sort
out.”
"For
to me to live is Christ, and to die is
gain." (Phil 1:21)
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