Good, healthy families by Mgr. George Frendo OP

Towards the end of the month of July 2009, the Prime Minister of Albania, Sali Berisha, announced he intended to propose a motion in Parliament to approve ‘same-sex marriage’.

The following day, some journalists decided to gauge the opinion on this topic among the religious groups represented in Albania.

The Catholic Church was the first to be approached, despite the fact that it only represents 15 per cent of the population. It ranks third after Islam and the Orthodox Church, yet, it enjoys high credibility and esteem for various reasons. Due to my position, I was the person who was approached first.

Within a week, the Catholic bishops of Albania made a declaration, which was published in all newspapers, in which we explained the position of the Catholic Church. Very soon after, the Moslems, the Orthodox and the Bektashi Order (a Sufi Moslem sect) also reacted.

So, together we published a joint declaration as the Inter-Religious Council of Albania. There was widespread reaction in the Albanian media, the vast majority sharing our stand against the introduction of the so-called ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.

Although Albania is secular, the religious groups are always consulted and listened to whenever a law will impact on religious issues, directly or indirectly such as education in private schools. It bears emphasising that this takes place in a secular, non-confessional country.

Therefore, I had good reason to be very surprised when, recently, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, a friend of mine and a person I know has the good of the family at heart, stated he is in favour of ‘gay marriage’ and that the time is ripe to discuss this possibility.

I was equally surprised when Simon Busuttil, the leader of the Opposition and leader of a party whose banner once carried the words Religio et Patria, also stated that he agrees with legislation to introduce such a ‘marriage’.

Berisha took heed of the position taken by the mainstream religions in this country and he soon withdrew from his previous statement. Was this a sign of weakness or was he a good listener? I feel it is a huge mistake when legislators ignore the religious sentiments of their people.

In an interview I gave to local television regarding ‘marriage’ between homosexuals, the interviewer asked: “Countries that are more emancipated than ours are today approving this type of ‘marriage’; is it possible they are all wrong?”

Surprisingly, there and then, the words of the Desert Fathers came to my mind: a time will come when all people will go crazy and when they see one who is normal, they will laugh at him and say “look at that madman’”.

Unfortunately, the state that approves of this type of bond, wrongly called ‘marriage’, is today considered an emancipated country.

We later got to know that an ambassador of one of the first countries to introduce ‘marriage’ between homosexuals was applying pressure on the Albanian government to introduce this type of ‘marriage’ to show Europe it is no less backward than other emancipated countries.

In the statement we released as the bishops of Albania, we first mentioned that both the Church and the State have a sacred duty to defend the dignity and integrity of marriage and the family.

Aware of this responsibility, we feel we have to raise our voice against the proposal of the Prime Minister regarding the legislation of ‘same-sex marriage’.

Then, as Christians, we presented the teachings of the Bible regarding marriage as a bond between heterosexuals.

In the first pages of Genesis, we read that God created us in His image as male and female. After creating man, God said: “It is not good for the man to live alone; I will make a suitable companion.” In metaphorical terms the creation of woman was formed from his rib. When the man saw the woman, he exclaimed: “At last, here is one of my own kind – bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. Woman is her name because she was taken out of man.”

We then have the definition of marriage, with the following statement: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife and they become one flesh.”

These statements are enough for us to understand what meaning marriage had and still has in God’s plan. Human beings are created in the image of God, male and female. The woman has the same dignity of the man. Both, as two individuals, having the same dignity, join together in marriage and become “one body”.

Therefore, the diversity of sex is willed by God, who intended this for marriage which includes the possibility of procreation of children, something that is obviously excluded in the case of ‘marriage’ between homosexuals.

One has every right, if one does not want to live as a Christian, to reject this but a Christian cannot play around with the Word of God, which is crystal clear.

We continued by stating that, in every era, every culture and religion, marriage was always defined as the full bonding between a man and a woman. No Parliament has the competence to change this definition. For the sake of truth, let us not consider calling ‘marriage’ a bond between two people of the same sex or say that this is a right.

One says this without any lack of respect towards homosexuals. What is stated by the catechism of the Catholic Church must be accepted with respect and every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

Finally, the cells that form society are not individuals but families. Not every change inevitably means progress. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that approving such a law places us in the league of the more emancipated nations. Let us, therefore, defend the ethical values that really guarantee authentic and healthy families.

This statement was very well received by the press and public opinion. Naturally, not everyone agreed with us but no one insulted us saying we were narrow minded or medieval.

 Mgr George Frendo is Auxiliary Bishop of Tiranë-Durrës in Albania.

Let’s celebrate life by Dr. Klaus Vella Bardon

It is rather disconcerting and depressing to witness the manner in which the so-called liberal agenda is being forced through in Malta. The latest attempt to undermine the value of the fullness of life is the judicial protest by a group of women clamouring for the ‘right’ to have the ‘morning after pill’ available in Malta.

Labour whip Dr Godfrey Farrugia dismissed their arguments that the ‘morning-after pill’ is a reproductive right, adding that: “Freedom of thought, opinion, liberty and to assemble are human rights, but interfering with the very origins of life do not fulfil those rights.”

Malta always seems to be in a hurry to adopt lifestyles and cultures that have proved so damaging to the social framework elsewhere. The facts speak for themselves.

Pope Paul VI cautioned about the consequences of the contraception culture that was ushered in with the widespread use of the ‘pill’ in the 1960s. He prophetically warned that contraception would lead to promiscuity, loss of respect for life, marriage and the family, and breakdown of essential social structures.

Statistics clearly show the close link between divorce rates and abortion with the use of contraceptives. Besides undermining the family, their use has resulted in a demographic catastrophe in Western countries where the birth rate is so low that there are not enough young people to run the economy and sustain an increasingly ageing population.

Yet the powerful financial interests of the pharmaceutical giants downplay the side-effects of contraceptives, some of which are very serious indeed, such as the higher predisposition to breast, cervical and uterine cancer and vascular disorders.

The West has succumbed to forces lined up against human life, marriage, the family and religion.

This is obvious in the aggressive inclusion of contraceptive and abortion programmes linked to so-called aid to poorer countries. The cheap way to help the under­privileged is to deny them having children rather empowering them to escape the cycle of poverty.

Yet those who challenge the contraceptive culture are branded as suppressing liberty of women. Nothing could be further from the truth. Behind the fine talk of ‘the woman’s body’ and ‘woman’s choice’ lie the egoistic interests of men who are only too ready to leave reproductive responsibility in the lap of women. Women are saddled with taking powerful hormonal drugs, with inserting devices in their womb and then being scolded if they get pregnant – as if this was an unforeseeable result of sexual intercourse. They are then often faced between choosing abortion or being abandoned.

It is therefore essential that we educate young people to treasure life in its fullness and realise the importance of appreciating their human dignity. Young women in particular should cherish their bodies as they carry the sanctuary where life begins, is nurtured and grows.

Young people have to realise that their happiness depends on the loyalty and security that only love in all its totality can bring. People are being sold the false idea that respect, responsibility and sacrifice diminish the joy of life.

Women sell themselves cheaply when they willingly reduce themselves to commodities readily available with no strings attached to any transient romance that comes their way.

The callous disregard of some people at the possibility of destroying life with contraceptive drugs is a sad reflection of the sorry state of our society and the depths to which we have allowed ourselves to sink.

Contrary to what many think, such negative trends are not inevitable. Countries like the US are increasingly aware of the negative consequences of a contraceptive culture and the tide is turning as the younger generations become more aware of the consequences of irresponsible life choices that result in broken relationships and abortion.

Let us celebrate life by educating our youth to cherish their sexuality and find the discipline to cultivate relationships that are life-giving in all their dimensions and are underpinned by passionate love that does not wane in spite of the challenges that life inevitably brings.

Ref: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20160626/religion/Let-s-celebrate-life.616779

Press Release in response to the judicial protest to call for the legalisation of the morning-after pill in Malta

Press Release in response to the judicial protest to call for the legalisation of the morning-after pill in Malta.

Human embryonic life starts from conception. The egg released from the woman is fertilised by the sperm and the embryo created continues to grow as the new human life travels down to implant in the mother’s womb.

One of the effects of the morning after pill or emergency contraception is the  alteration of the lining of the womb such that the embryo will not be able to implant and is thus intentionally lost.  This is called the anti nidation (anti nesting) effect and is abortifacient.

The sale or use of abortifacients is prohibited by law.

In Malta, human life has always been protected from conception by successive governments.

Let us continue to keep the unborn protected from conception.

Co Signed by

Dr Miriam Sciberras

Life Network Foundation Malta,

Mr  Paul Vincenti

Gift of Life Foundation

Mr Anthony Mifsud

Malta Unborn Child Movement

The spectre of eugenics by Adrian Porter

Today, the mention of the word ‘eugenics’ hardly attracts any interest. It is a word that seems to have vanished from our vocabulary, but eugenics is a reality of which most of us are largely unaware.

The word “eugenics” was coined in 1910 by an Englishman named Francis Galton, who termed it the ‘new religion’. He advocated “the betterment of mankind” as he wanted to improve the physical and mental make-up of human beings by increasing the proportion of those people with “superior genetic endowment”.

This ideology was enthusiastically greeted by the intelligentsia in Great Britain and the US. In Britain, these included figures such as H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Marie Stopes, John Maynard Keynes, J.B.S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Sidney Webb and Winston Churchill. Intentional killing, sterilisation and birth control were, in Wells’ view, a sound way of eliminating what he regarded as inferior peoples. He, along with his fellow eugenicists, believed that evolution, operating on its own, was not sufficiently effective.

Eugenics was not merely a utopian idea: it formed the basis of concrete policies; it led to the immigration-restriction statutes of the 1920s in the USA. But there were more direct and telling effects. Thirty-three American states passed laws that allowed the forced sterilisation of those deemed “unfit”. The Supreme Court’s upholding by eight votes to one of a Virginia law signalled their general acceptability and led to thousands of enforced sterilisations in the US.

Apart from G.K. Chesterton, no one spoke out against it. Almost singlehandedly, with his scathing wit and sense of humour, he succeeded in swaying public opinion in his country. Chesterton brushed off the derision and the insults he received. He was not fooled by labels and slogans and he fought for what he believed in, despite the odds. He challenged eugenics, strongly declaring that it ought “to be destroyed” as “a thing no more to be bargained about than poisoning”. He passionately believed in the right and duty of a free man to stand in a public place and say what he thought to be true.

Unfortunately, the ideology of eugenics was wholeheartedly embraced by Hitler and by 1939, within six years of his coming to power, a quarter of a million Germans were sterilised. This paved the way for euthanasia and the wholesale murder of the so-called ‘sub-humans’ and the ‘Final Solution’ of Jews in Europe.

The horrors of Hitler’s Germany revealed after WWII helped to discredit eugenics. As a result, the victorious Allies, from the Nuremberg Trials to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sought to vindicate the inviolable dignity of individuals.

Yet the notorious founder of the Planned Parenthood Foundation (PPF), the American, Margaret Sanger, who also pioneered eugenics, was quick to distance herself from eugenics and re-invented herself as a promoter of women’s ‘rights’ to contraception and abortion.

Her organisation remains an upholder of modern population control and eugenics. It uses its considerable finances to promote and facilitate internationally, sterilisation, abortion, contraception and also infanticide (particularly in China). It is funded to the tune of billions of dollars by the US, the UK and other Western governments. The ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ is also a key contributor.

Sadly, eugenics is also making a powerful comeback with the advances in genetic medicine. John Harris, a bioethicist at Manchester University, told the BBC in 2003 that eugenics was a laudable aim as: “It is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that’s everyone’s ambition.” Test-tube baby pioneer and expert on pre-implantation diagnosis, Robert Edwards, says: “Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.”

Once again, the inherent dignity of man is being sacrificed for the value of expediency. Expectant women are now submitting themselves to screening technologies designed to identify a “worthless life” and replace it with a “worthwhile life”.

The disgraceful emotional pressure applied to women to terminate a pregnancy is conveniently ignored as state policies in Europe’s aim to eliminate ‘defective’ babies. Coupled with the legislation of euthanasia to eliminate the terminally ill, it is all part of a pattern. It is eugenics all over again. The weak, the ill and the impaired are now at risk.

Chesterton saw that truth in eugenics long before the Nazis made it clear to the world. We should heed his warnings.

To be ‘well meaning’ is not enough. As the saying goes: ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. A failure to remember and absorb the lessons of history carries dire consequences. When fundamental principles are forfeited, humanity is at risk.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-06-12/newspaper-letters/The-spectre-of-eugenics-6736159206

Press Release – No Right to Same-Sex “Marriage” in the Human Rights Convention

The European Court of Human Rights confirms by unanimity: there is no Right to Same-Sex “Marriage” in the Human Rights Convention

Thursday 9 June 2016

Press release

The organizer’s committee of the ECI “Mum Dad & Kids” hails today’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Chapin and Charpentier v. France (Appl. Nr. 40183/07), in which it is clarified that under the European Human Rights Convention the term “marriage” has no other meaning than that of a union between a man and a woman.

The case concerned so-called same-sex “marriages” that were registered by the mayor of a French municipality in 2004 despite the fact that at that time (i.e., prior to the controversial Loi Taubira, which was adopted in 2013) the French legal order provided no legal basis for such “marriages”. As a matter of consequence, the false “marriage” had been declared void by the Tribunal of Bordeaux at the request of the public prosecutor’s office.

By their application to the ECtHR the two applicants claimed that the Tribunal’s decision to declare their “marriage” void violated their right to marry and found a family under Article 12, and their right to respect for their family life under Article 8, of the European Human Rights Convention. But with today’s judgment the ECtHR has confirmed that the term “marriage” in Article 12 has a clear and unambiguous meaning: a union between a man and a woman. This was so when the Convention was adopted in 1950, and it remains so today.

The President of the citizens’ committee “Mum Dad & Kids”, Edit Frivaldszky, said: “It is a great satisfaction to see that the Court confirms and corroborates the position that our ECI is promoting: marriage is something unique and special. One of the purposes of marriage is to provide a place where children can grow up happily, and it is in the child’s best interest to grow up in the love aund unity of his mother and father. The Human Rights Convention provides absolutely no legal base to pressure national legislators to re-define marriage. If in some quarters claims are made that same-sex ‘marriage’ is a human right, these claims are false, without foundation, and contrary to good faith”.

The Secretary General of the committee, Maria Hildingsson, added: “Article 12 of the Convention places the family into a direct context with marriage. It is therefore clear that today’s judgment has implications for the way in which the term ‘family’ is to be understood: it is based on the marriage between a man and a woman, and on descent.”

Please visit www.mumdadandkids.eu and sign for marriage and family!

Chesterton and Eugenics

Recently in the TV programme Insiders, screened on Euronews, Malta was portrayed in a negative light as abortion is not legalised. Sadly, Malta is the only EU country that stands tall over this most fundamental of issues, the right to life.

Unfortunately, Europe has undergone a profound revolution in its value systems that has resulted in the legislation of abortion, euthanasia and the adoption of reproductive technologies that disregard the sanctity of life from its early stages, resulting in treating the human embryo as a commodity.

Despite the advances in medical science that aim at eliminating suffering and disabilities, there have also been negative developments. Medical techniques and procedures, instead of being used to treat illness, disease and genetic defects, are increasingly being used to eliminate the unwanted, unfit and imperfect individuals.

These developments are not as progressive as we think. The term “eugenics” was coined about one hundred years ago, in the 19th century, by an Englishman named Francis Galton, influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin.

This new concept of eugenics, the breeding of the perfect being and the weeding out of the unfit was greeted with remarkable enthusiasm by the majority of the wealthy and intelligentsia in UK. This infectious ideology spread to US and set root in Germany with frightful consequences.

One of the leading proponents of eugenics was the American woman, Margaret Sanger, who founded the Planned Parenthood. She aggressively promoted birth control and the widespread use of contraceptives. She said she wanted to use birth control to remove the unfit from the gene pool. Under the term “unfit”, she meant not only the physically handicapped and the mentally retarded, but also, specifically, “Hebrews, Slavs, Catholics, and Negroes”.

Sanger was also a member of the American Eugenics Society, which successfully lobbied for sterilization laws that targeted society’s undesirables and unwanted. The US was to carry out campaigns that ended up sterilising thousands of individuals right up to the 1970s.

When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little
 

Eugenic ideology also led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which created quotas for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe that remained in effect until 1965, justifying such racist policies on the grounds of preventing the ‘contamination of American stock’.

Almost alone, G. K Chesterton stood up against this despicable philosophy and with his proverbial scathing wit and rock-solid logic mocked and poured scorn on such ideas.

Meanwhile the likes of Sanger and other supporters of eugenics had nothing but praise for the progressive methods being adopted by Hitler in purifying German stock. With the fall of Nazi Germany, the world was shocked with horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust.

When man loses his moral bearing, wrong-headed ideas have evil consequences. Sadly, we seem to have learnt very little.

Unfortunately, eugenics is back with a vengeance. The original arguments in favour of eugenics have become the same arguments in favour of birth control, abortion, and euthanasia.

The Western world is adopting new technologies in­cluding genetic engineering, selective abortion, re­productive technologies that involve the donation of sperm from men with high IQs, ‘eugenically superior’ eggs, and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, to achieve the aims of quality-controlled chil­dren.

Women are being subjected to screening and pressure is being applied to force them to abort foetuses which are considered inferior. The recent development of ‘safe’ methods to diagnose children with Down’s syndrome is already having a powerful impact in UK. Countries now congratulate themselves that they do not have children with birth defects, even defects that are eminently treatable such as hare lip.

Instead of being used for its noble purpose, treating people and alleviating suffering, modern medicine is being used more and more to eliminate and sacrifice the patient.

One could say that Chesterton was prophetic. He could foresee where decisions based on narrow self interest in the absence of a moral framework would lead us and he used his formidable intellect to expose this in his book Eugenics and Other Evils that was published in 1922.

Almost a hundred years later, the issue has not gone away, nor have any of Chesterton’s arguments gone out of date.

We are fortunate that once again, two outstanding Chestertonians, Ian Boyd and Dermot Quinn will be holding a conference on Friday in Malta where they will address this vital issue of eugenics and the impact such ideas would have on our society.

They will also refresh our memory by presenting the exceptional ability of GKC to demolish the myth that good ideals can be achieved by shoddy means.

Malta still prides itself in regarding the life of persons as sacred and inviolable. Science can be an important tool for effective public policy, but if it is not tempered by an unfailing respect for individual rights, then it will lead to deplorable policies.

Klaus Vella Bardon is vice-chairman of the Life Network Foundation Malta.

Global Day of Parents – 1st June

The Global Day of Parents is observed on the 1st of June every year. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2012 with resolutionA/RES/66/292 and honours parents throughout the world. The Global Day provides an opportunity to appreciate all parents in all parts of the world for their selfless commitment to children and their lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship.

In its resolution, the General Assembly also noted that the family has the primary responsibility for the nurturing and protection of children and that children, for the full and harmonious development of their personality, should grow up in a family environment and in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.

The resolution recognizes the role of parents in the rearing of children and invites Member States to celebrate the Day in full partnership with civil society, particularly involving young people and children.

http://www.un.org/en/events/parentsday/index.shtml