'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to
promote abortion

Subject: 'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l'

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' -

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

8/27/2007
Catholic Online

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

8/27/2007
Catholic Online

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - The recent decision of Amnesty International
to promote worldwide access to abortion services undermines the rights
organization's moral credibility and divides the global work to protect
human life and human dignity, said officials of the U.S. Catholic bishops'
conference.

In an Aug. 23 statement, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.,
president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the change in
the organization's longstanding abortion-neutral position as divisive and an
affront to "people in many nations, cultures and religions who share a
consistent commitment to all human rights."

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161

'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l'

- U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

8/27/2007
Catholic Online

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - The recent decision of Amnesty International
to promote worldwide access to abortion services undermines the rights
organization's moral credibility and divides the global work to protect
human life and human dignity, said officials of the U.S. Catholic bishops'
conference.

In an Aug. 23 statement, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.,
president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the change in
the organization's longstanding abortion-neutral position as divisive and an
affront to "people in many nations, cultures and religions who share a
consistent commitment to all human rights."

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=25161





'God is bigger than Amnesty Int'l' - U.S. bishops decry decision to promote
abortion

8/27/2007
Catholic Online

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - The recent decision of Amnesty International
to promote worldwide access to abortion services undermines the rights
organization's moral credibility and divides the global work to protect
human life and human dignity, said officials of the U.S. Catholic bishops'
conference.

In an Aug. 23 statement, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.,
president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the change in
the organization's longstanding abortion-neutral position as divisive and an
affront to "people in many nations, cultures and religions who share a
consistent commitment to all human rights."

"The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly protests the
recent action of AI's International Council to promote worldwide access to
abortion," Bishop Skylstad said. "This basic policy change undermines
Amnesty's longstanding moral credibility and unnecessarily diverts its
mission."

The organization's International Council approved the change in its abortion
stance at a meeting in Cocoyoc, Mexico, Aug. 11-17 as part of its Stop
Violence Against Women campaign.

The council passed the measure to "support the decriminalization of
abortion, to ensure women have access to health care when complications
arise from abortion, and to defend women's access to abortion, within
reasonable gestational limits, when their health or human rights are in
danger."

The bishop stressed that the belief that the human-rights organization's
policy change is "a compassionate response to women in difficult situations
of pregnancy . is a false compassion."

"True commitment to women's rights puts us in solidarity with women and
their unborn children. It does not pit one against the other but calls us to
advocate on behalf of both," he said.

The work of standing against the death penalty and "the crushing effects of
dehumanizing poverty and standing with "prisoners of conscience, refugees
and migrants and other oppressed peoples" must continue, Bishop Skylstad
said.

"The essential work of protecting human life and promoting human dignity
must carry on," he said. "But we will seek to do so in authentic ways,
working most closely with organizations who do not oppose the fundamental
right to life from conception to natural death."

"We call upon Amnesty International once again to act in accord with its
noblest principles, reconsider its error, and reverse its policy on
abortion," he said, noting that the bishops had held almost a year of
dialogue with leaders of the rights organization.

The director of planning and information for the USCCB Pro-Life Activities
Secretariat, Deirdre A. McQuade, said in an Aug. 24 statement, "Amnesty
International Sells Out," that the rights group's action "offers false hope
to women" proposing "violence to solve violence and discriminate against a
whole class of voiceless human beings: the unborn."

"Abortion provides no relief from the realities they face. It does nothing
to alleviate injustice," said McQuade, noting that "a strong pro-woman
stance would refuse to choose between mothers and their vulnerable
children."

She called on members of the rights organization to "prayerfully consider"
divorcing themselves from it and joining with an alternative group. Wrestle
with how God is "calling you to be authentically pro-justice and pro-life,"
she urged.

"God is 'bigger than Amnesty International and his plan for justice will not
be thwarted," she said.

A Catholic college in Australia and an English bishop have resigned from
Amnesty International within days after the human-rights organization
approved a policy to support efforts to decriminalize abortion throughout
the world.

Bishop Michael Evans of East Anglia, England, announced in an Aug. 18
statement that he was leaving Amnesty after 31 years of active membership,
while in an Aug. 20 statement, the Jesuit headmaster of St. Aloysius College
here confirmed that the school will sever its ties with Amnesty
International, noting the rights group new policy "explicitly excludes some
of the most vulnerable members of society - the 'unborn human.'"

While "many people will argue that we should remain inside Amnesty because
of the overwhelming good that it does," Jesuit Father Chris Middleton said
the college leadership believes that "we have no choice but to leave
Amnesty."

"This policy explicitly excludes some of the most vulnerable members of
society - the 'unborn human' - from its campaigns for human rights. To my
mind this goes right to the core of Amnesty as a human-rights organization
and as a body that gives primacy to conscience," he said. "It strikes
against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child which
states that every child "needs special safeguards and care, including legal
protection, before as well as after birth."

Father Middleton pointed to the 1961 religious foundations of Amnesty
International and its Catholic founder Peter Benenson being "influenced by
his religious experience."

"It is striking how many of the key early figures of Amnesty had strong
religious connections - Quaker, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic. Far from
being a secular project one could argue that Amnesty itself has its origins
in the religious commitment to justice," the Jesuit priest said. "It seems
that increasingly our society is developing collective amnesia about the
influence people of faith have had in shaping much of our modern world."

Amnesty International "had an almost unique position in the depth of its
membership in being able to attract conservative and liberal, religious and
secular support, for issues around freedom of conscience and political
rights," Father Middleton said, noting that its policy decision "means that
for many people of faith, membership will no longer be possible."

"The big tent that is Amnesty has become smaller and it runs the risk of
becoming just another secular left voice," he added.

Bishop Evans said that Amnesty International's "regrettable decision" will
likely divide its membership and "thereby undermine its vital work."

"Among all human rights, the right to life is fundamental," the bishop said,
adding that he "very regretfully . will be ending my 31-year-membership" in
the group. He noted his participation in the rights organization's British
Section Council and its Religious Bodies Liaison Panel.

He said he remains "deeply committed to Amnesty's original mandate: to work
for freedom for prisoners of conscience, an end to torture and the death
penalty, and fair trials for all."

But, he added, "commitment to work to protect the human can only be deeply
compromised by any support for access to abortion."

While the "Catholic Church has no desire for women who have been through the
trauma of abortion to be punished," he stressed that "our proper indignation
regarding pervasive violence against women should not cloud our judgment
about our duty to protect the most vulnerable and defenseless form of human
life."

"The Catholic Church shares Amnesty's strong commitment to oppose violence
against women (for example, rape, sexual assault and incest), but such
appalling violence must not be answered by violence against the most
vulnerable and defenseless form of human life in a woman's womb," he said.
"But there is no human right to access to abortion, and Amnesty should not
involve itself even in such extreme cases."

"Amnesty opposes torture and the death penalty under all circumstances,
however dire the situation; the same should be true for Amnesty's mandate to
'protect the human' - before as well as after birth," the bishop said. "To
allow for the use of torture in just one extreme situation (e.g. a terrorist
threat) would compromise Amnesty's absolute rejection of torture. To support
access to abortion even in dire situations compromises Amnesty's mandate to
'protect the human.'"