The Vatican To The United Nations, “Say What?”

You have probably seen that some committee at the UN has said that the Catholic Church needs to change her teachings on abortion, contraception, and that she hasn’t done anything to protect children from sexual predators, etc., etc. Here’s what happened next.

NEW YORK, February 5 (C-FAM) The Vatican accused a UN committee of interfering with Church doctrine and violating religious freedom after it was asked to change its teaching on abortion and homosexuality.

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.

Read the rest, courtesy of C-FAM.