Wolves in Sheep"s Clothing

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Wolves in Sheep"s Clothing

[2009-10-24]

[Engleză]

The Synod on Africa ended today. In their final message, the African bishops urged their fellow Africans to 'rise up' against the evils that are harming Africa, especially corrupt politicians at home, and foreign governments and corporations that exploit Africans

By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome

====================================

'Where Is the Shame?'

About 200 African bishops have been meeting in Rome since the beginning of October. Today, they released their final message. What were the main points?

I attended the Vatican press conference this morning which presented the final message.

Two paragraphs in the document stand out.

They are paragraphs 30 and 33.

Only in these two places do the bishops express the type of righteous wrath Christ displayed when he overturned the tables of the money-changers in the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem, saying that the money-changers had made the house of God into a 'den of thieves.' (And note: it was just a few days later that Christ was condemned to death and nailed to a cross on the hill of Golgotha, just outside the city limits.)

The first paragraph, Paragraph 30, deals with the way the international community has carried out its humanitarian work in Africa.

'On the whole,' the paragraph begins, 'the UN agencies are doing good work in Africa for development, peace keeping, defence of the just rights of women and the child, and combating poverty and diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and other issues. The Synod commends the good work that they are doing.

'However,' the paragraph continues, 'we call on them to be more consistent and transparent in implementing their programmes. We urge the countries of Africa to carefully scrutinise the services being offered to our people, to ensure that they are good for us. In particular, the Synod denounces all surreptitious attempts to destroy and undermine the precious African values of family and human life (e.g. the obnoxious art. 14 of the Maputo Protocol and other similar proposals).'

The words that struck me here were 'denounces' and 'obnoxious.'

These are strong words, unequivocal.

The bishops are not being diplomatic.

They are saying that the international agencies, even when saying they are there to help Africa, sometimes in fact 'destroy and undermine the precious African values of family and human life.'

This is remarkable.

The African bishops are saying that the very people who are in Africa supposedly to help them in fact sometimes 'destroy' their traditional African family values.

People who should be friends and benefactors turn out to be enemies and destroyers.

Wolves in sheep's clothing.

And the bishops in particular denounce 'the obnoxious art. 14 of the Maputo Protocol and other similar proposals.'

I nogte that he Italian text handed out to journalists this morning used the word 'detestable' for 'obnoxious.'

'Detestable' is a strong word.

It is something to be scorned, detested... hated.

Why do the bishops 'detest' Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol?

To answer that questions, we need to understand first what the Maputo Protocol is. (In the following sentences, I am drawing from a document on the subject from human Life International, which I cite at the end.)

Maputo is the capital city of Mozambique, located in southeastern Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest.

The Maputo Protocol, a type of international treaty binding on all countries that ratify it, was originally adopted by the “Assembly of the African Union” in Maputo on July 11, 2003.

The official document is titled “Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.”

The Maputo Protocol went into effect in November 2005, after the minimum 15 of the 53 African Union member countries ratified it.

As of mid-2007, 43 nations had signed it, and 21 had formally ratified it: (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Libya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Seychelles, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia).

Those who ratify the treaty are called “States Parties.”

Proponents of the Maputo Protocol generally present it as a method of combating female genital mutilation in Africa.

It is estimated that this practice is performed on approximately two million women a year worldwide, many in Africa.

Pro-Protocol forces often try to portray opponents of the Protocol as callous toward women’s rights, even though the Maputo Protocol is not principally aimed at eradicating female genital mutilation.

Rather, the Maputo Protocol is one part of a well thought-out, decades-long campaign by Western elites to change traditional social patterns of African family life.

The ultimate goal, many pro-life Catholic activists contend, is... continent-wide population control, first to limit the increase of the number of black Africans, then to slowly decrease that number.

The Maputo Protocol has been presented to Africa and the world as a method to combat female genital mutilation (FGM), but out of 23 pages, it mentions female gential mutilation in only one sentence.

Large sections of the Protocol are devoted to the radical feminist transformation of African society and the destruction of traditional African cultures.

Essential to the implementation of this 'new society' is the elimination of all differences in social roles between men and women, insofar as that is possible.

To achieve this goal, abortion-on-demand is necessary, and the Maputo Protocol aims to legalize abortion-on-demand on the entire continent.

The Protocol calls for abortion for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, and wants abortion allowed for the physical and mental health of the mother. The mental health exception is interpreted in the United States and other Western countries as allowing abortion-on- demand because an abortionist can always claim a woman would have suffered distress if he had not performed the abortion.

Catholic leaders, including the Pope, African cardinals, and African bishops, have repeatedly denounced the pro-abortion provisions of the Maputo Protocol, which are primarily present in Article 14, “Health and Reproductive Rights,” which calls for the legalization of what would be in effect abortion-on-demand in Africa.

As typically interpreted by international jurists and Western courts, the language of the Maputo Protocol would legalize any abortion for any woman at any point in pregnancy, even in the ninth month.

All effective restrictions on abortion would be abolished by the Protocol.

It also demands that African governments promote other policies that Catholics and others believe to be immoral.

Here is Article 14 in its entirety:

1. States Parties shall ensure that the right to health of women, including sexual and reproductive health, is respected and promoted.

This includes:

a) the right to control their fertility;
b) the right to decide whether to have children, the num-
ber of children and the spacing of children;
c) the right to choose any method of contraception;
d) the right to self-protection and to be protected against
sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS;
e) the right to be informed on one’s health status and on the
health status of one’s partner, particularly if affected with
sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, in
accordance with internationally recognized standards and
best practices;
f) the right to have family planning education.

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to:

a) provide adequate, affordable and accessible health ser-
vices, including information, education and communica-
tion programmes to women especially those in rural ar-
eas;
b) establish and strengthen existing pre-natal, delivery and
post-natal health and nutritional services for women dur-
ing pregnancy and while they are breast-feeding;
c) protect the reproductive rights of women by authoriz-
ing medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, in-
cest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the
mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the
mother or the foetus.

This article 14 is what the final message of the African Synod explicitly, by name, denounced.

(Here is a link to the text of the Maputo Protocol: http://www.maputoprotocol.org/mp_english.pdf)

The second passage in the Synod message which is striking for its righteous anger is Paragraph 33.

Here is that paragraph in its entirety:

'33. Humanity has a lot to gain, if it listens to the wise counsel of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in veritate. A new and just world order is not only possible but necessary for the good of all humanity. A change is called for with regard to the debts burden against poor nations, which literally kills children. Multinationals have to stop their criminal devastation of the environment in their greedy exploitation of natural resources. It is short-sighted policy to foment wars in order to make fast gains from chaos, at the cost of human lives and blood. Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?'

Here, in the last line, the African bishops speak of 'crimes against humanity.'

This is strong language.

It usually refers to horrible acts, like genocide, like ethnic cleansing, like wholesale murder of innocent people.

Who is committing such terrible crimes in Africa?

The text says 'multinationals' are at least remotely responsible.

Here is the sentence again: 'Multinationals have to stop their criminal devastation of the environment in their greedy exploitation of natural resources.'

And it is followed by: 'It is short-sighted policy to foment wars in order to make fast gains from chaos, at the cost of human lives and blood.'

The implication is clear: the African bishops are saying, in their final message, that they believe the multinational corporations are fomenting wars in Africa to 'make fast gains from chaos.'

In short, they are saying that Africa's tribal wars are not just 'Africa's savage tribes' fighting between each other, but Africans goaded and prodded into war by wealthy companies which need to break down all state order in order to function in an area where disorder prevails, allowing natural resources to be obtained without any accounting to local governments, which augments profits enormously.

And here is the anguished cry of the bishops, once again: 'Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?'

Doesn't this sentence seem rather odd?

To whom are the bishops directing this cry?

Are they addressing the cry to Africa's leaders?

Are they addressing the cry to the people of the world?

Are they addressing the cry to the International Court at the Hague in the Netherlands?

To whom are they speaking?

Are they crying out, perhaps, like King David, from the depths of their souls, to God Himself?

All the text says is: 'Is there no one out there able and willing to stop all these crimes against humanity?'

But this much seems clear: the Africans are supporting a more just 'world order,' something which the Pope also called for in his recent encyclical, not because they want a 'one world government' which might be a prelude to a type of 'anti-Christian' rule (the rule of anti-Christ), but precisely because there is already a 'world mis-government' which allows enormous injustices to be perpetrated with impunity.

This leads to another thought: those who would encourage simple, good Catholics, and others, to fear that the Pope is calling for a dangerous, anti-Christian 'new world order' are being duped.

The Pope knows that there already is a dangerous 'world government' (or 'mis-government') which is busily implementing things like the Maputo Protocol, and allowing the rape of Africa, and even encouraging it.

So, those who are fanning the passions of the simple against any calls for a government which could restrain these excesses, are playing the devil's game.

The type of 'world governance' the Pope was calling for is the same type these bishops are calling for: a reasonable government, with reasonable laws, able and willing to impede and prosecute these crimes against humanity.

Until such a governement is formed, to reign in the excesses already occurring, 'anti-Christian' forces will continue to have their day, and simple people will continue to suffer.

======================================

There was much else in this final message.

There was a spiritual core to the text.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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