Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Time to exit World March

Sixteen years ago. Catholic Social Services pulled out of the Edmonton United Way when the United Way accepted Planned Parenthood, an abortion referral agency, as a member.

Archbishop Joseph MacNeil's reason for the decision was straightforward: He praised the United Way for the good work it does and for helping "to develop a growing spirit of sharing, of unity, of community." But he said the United Way's decision to accept Planned Parenthood left the Church with no alternative but to sever its ties with the organization. "The Catholic community should not be linked in the minds of people with an association that is an abortion referral agency," the archbishop wrote in his public statement.

MacNeil's decision was the right one and it has been followed by other Catholic charities in other Canadian centres. Since that time, CSS has found other ways to cooperate with the United Way. That is fine. But no Catholic agency should join the United Way as long as that campaign funds pro-abortion groups and includes them as members.

This logic now needs to be applied to the World March for Women. Catholic groups - including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Canadian Religious Conference and Catholic Women's League - joined this campaign based on careful consideration of the World March's stated goals, especially in light of the Holy See's qualified support for the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. Those aims are in line with Catholic social doctrine and, if they are ever implemented, will help to ameliorate the oppressed condition of women in many countries.

A wrench was thrown into the works by the Canadian organizing committee of the World March that says the march supports same-sex marriages and "quality publicly funded abortion services." These demands are unacceptable to Catholics and the four Catholic groups have said so. Those four groups have provided no funding to the Canadian march, although CCODP has funded the international World March committee.

The question that arises is, Is this good enough? Have the four groups gone far enough in dissociating themselves from the clearly unacceptable demands of the Canadian organizers?

The prudent answer is "no." In Canada, this organization - as much as the average person is aware of it - is identified with a pro-abortion, pro-lesbian agenda.

But it goes further than public perception. Few would describe the United Way as having a pro-abortion agenda. Still, Catholic involvement in it was unacceptable simply because it has a member that does abortion referrals.

The World March for Women is not a march in the streets or some other sort of physical occurrence. But if an actual march were to be held, Catholic groups would be marching in the streets with organizations that openly proclaim they are marching for abortion "rights" and same-sex marriages. The fact that no physical march is being held does not change the fact of the moral association which now exists between four Catholic groups, including the conference of bishops, and those who treat that association as a means to promote goals in clear contradiction not only to Catholic doctrine, but also to basic human dignity.

Some have tried to justify the continuance of this unacceptable association by launching aggressive ad hominem attacks on the pro-life movement and pro-lifers themselves. Well, in this case, the pro-lifers happen to be right and, in any case, undeserving of the slurs cast against them. The four national Catholic groups should acknowledge that while there is much that is positive about the World March for Women, it is now untenable for them to continue supporting that movement.

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