UN Panel Tells Church To Change Its Teachings

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has issued a statement directing the Roman Catholic Church to change its teachings on abortion and sexuality. The document, which you can read here, begins by addressing the pedophile scandal–which certainly needs to be addressed–but then it calls for canon law to be changed to allow for abortion, to accept homosexuality, to promote “gender equality,” and to stop teaching that adolescents shouldn’t have sex.

That last point is in glaring opposition to the first part of the report–I would think the Church should come down even harder on underaged sex! And what supporting abortion has to do with the rights of the child is beyond me. Still, we may be seeing more governmental and quasi-governmental groups telling Christians what they must believe.

From Vatican Blasts UN Panel Demanding it Change It’s Position Against Abortion | LifeNews.com:

The Church should change its teaching on abortion, according to a UN committee that monitors the rights of children. The Church should no longer automatically excommunicate those who perform or assist in the performance of an abortion, the UN experts said in observations published Wednesday following a year-long review of the Vatican’s child protection practices.

Church teaching on marriage and sexuality should also change according to the observations, because it prevents adolescents from accessing contraception. In addition the experts said Church teaching on homosexuality contributes to “social stigmatization and violence” against homosexual adolescents and children raised by same-sex couples.

The Vatican immediately issued a press release saying that UN experts cannot interfere with Catholic doctrine on human dignity or the Church’s exercise of religious freedom.

Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, who represents the Vatican at the United Nations in Geneva, told Vatican Radio his first reaction to the observations was surprise.

The committee took a negative approach and was “very wrong”, he said with consternation, “the Church cannot simply give up its beliefs” because all Church teaching on human dignity is ultimately geared towards preserving the common good.