This week Tony and Cherie Blair have launched a high profile attack on two fundamental aspects of papal teaching on building a culture of life.In an interview in the Church of England newspaper, Tony Blair, received into the Catholic Church in December 2007, underlines his continued belief in "gay rights".
And Cherie Blair, a fellow Catholic, filmed in the final part of the Channel 4 series "Christianity", said: "I'm a feminist… how could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn't used contraception?" - an attack on Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's encyclical on the regulation of birth, recently praised in the highest terms by Pope Benedict as "guiding us along the path to the future".
According to the Christian Institute: "During Mr Blair’s premiership a raft of gay rights legislation was brought in" ensuring the promotion of homosexuality in schools and elsewhere, legalizing joint adoption by homosexual couples, giving legal recognition to homosexual relationships with the Civil Partnership Act 2004 which "extended all the legal rights and privileges of marriage to homosexual couples".
In Evangelium Vitae paragraph 97, Pope John Paul II taught that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.
And Pope Benedict made a similar point in his address to members of the Roman Curia last Christmas when he said:
"Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian creed, the Church cannot and must not limit herself to passing on to the faithful the message of salvation alone. She has a responsibility towards creation, and must also publicly assert this responsibility. In so doing, she must not only defend earth, water and air as gifts of creation belonging to all. She must also protect man from self-destruction. What is needed is something like a human ecology, correctly understood.
"If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the “language” of creation. To disregard this would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work."
During this speech, Pope Benedict refers to Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae as a guide to the future. He says:
And Pope Benedict’s address on 10th May last year, also underlined the unchanging teaching of the Church on birth control. He writes:"An integral part of the Church proclamation must be a witness to the Creator Spirit present in nature as a whole, and, in a special way, in the human person, created in God’s image.
"From this perspective, we should go back to the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sex as a consumer good, the future against the exclusive claims of the present, and human nature against its manipulation."
“What was true yesterday is true also today. The truth expressed in Humanae Vitae does not change; on the contrary, precisely in the light of the new scientific discoveries, its teaching becomes more timely and elicits reflection on the intrinsic value it possesses.”I have blogged before on how the prophetic teaching in Humanae Vitae has been fulfilled in the culture of death - in British laws and British government policies at home and overseas. The objective data is convincing to people of all faiths and none.
Tony Blair, who has refused to repudiate the anti-life laws and policies he steadfastly pursued throughout his political career, was received into the Catholic Church in December 2007. Cherie Blair, also a Catholic, endorses the work of CEDAW committee (as well as other radical pro-abortion groups) - and specifically its work on "reproductive rights". The CEDAW committee is notorious among pro-lifers for using the CEDAW convention to bully countries into allowing abortion, even though the convention doesn't mention abortion.
I hope and pray, for the sake of the millions of babies and other vulnerable human beings who have been killed, and mothers and families injured, as a result of these laws and policies, and for the sake of countless young people whose health and happiness are being destroyed, as a result of these laws and policies, that there will be a spirited response on the part of leading Catholic and pastors to the Blairs' attack on papal teaching on these fundamental issues. Catholics in public life cannot be allowed continually to undermine the faith to which they belong, especially on matters relating to the sanctity of human life.
