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Canada

March for Women concludes
Church groups still caught in controversy

At an October 17 New York rally on the final day of the World March for Women (WMW), thousands of feminists gathered to hand the United Nations their list of 17 demands, even as Canadian Catholic organizations—the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), the Catholic Women’s League (CWL), the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP), and the Canadian Religious Conference (CRC)—continued their support for the march and its goals.

The WMW demands included one for access to abortion (in the language of “reproductive health”) and one in favor of homosexuality. Officially speaking at the WMW rally in Washington and proudly marching in the WMW at the UN was the notorious pro-abortion group Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). From the official US WMW web site, marchers could purchase buttons, signs, and T-shirts to promote the WMW agenda. Slogans on the items included: “God is an abbreviation for Goddess,” “Lesbian Rights NOW,” “Forced Pregnancy Increases Church Membership,” “I Asked God, She’s Pro-choice,” “If Men Became Pregnant Abortion Would Be a Sacrament,” and “Sorry I’ve Missed Church, I’ve Been Busy Practicing Witchcraft and Becoming a Lesbian.”

The 17 demands were handed to Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette with signatures from 300,000 women, allegedly a sampling of a total of 6.7 million that were collected around the world, in a petition campaign that Catholic leaders in Canada encouraged.

The national leadership of the Catholic Women’s League even threatened to revoke the “life member” status of Jakki Jeffs, a Catholic and committed member of the group, for speaking out against the World March of Women 2000. In a letter to Jeffs dated October 10, CWL National President Vivian Bosch expressed her “dismay and disappointment on learning that your opinions, in your capacity as a life member, have been repeatedly and consistently quoted in the press on the World March of Women 2000.” The letter warned that “the national executive will be discussing your role as a life member of the Catholic Women’s League of Canada at the forthcoming national executive meeting.”

Bishop scolds Prime Minister
Pro-abortion remarks at Catholic school

Ottawa Bishop Marcel Gervais criticized the appearance by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien at a Catholic high school in Barrie, where Chretien talked favorably about abortion.

In a statement, Bishop Gervais said, “I was very disappointed in the Prime Minister’s statement. He was in a Catholic school. One would hope that he could have provided a better answer.” He continued, “Given everything we know today about the life of the child in the womb and given the prosperity of our country, it is a scandal that we still have about 100,000 abortions a year and that there is no law to protect the unborn.”

Speaking at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School on October 30, Chretien said, “For me, I’m a Roman Catholic. Personally, I don’t have to, you know, I’m not at the age anymore to have my wife have abortion, but the reality . . . is that it is the choice of not the husband to decide in my judgment, it is the judgment of the woman according to the values that this person has.”

Bishop Gervais said, “We are called to respect life, that of our own and that of others. We are called to a greater dignity and a greater responsibility and this must be addressed by our politicians if our nation is to be truly great.” The archbishop conceded that “our political leaders do not have an easy life. It’s hard.” But he added, “They need to make difficult choices if they really want a country which will be worth living in.” Previously the archbishop has gone on record criticizing the Catholic prime minister for promoting abortion at the Liberal Party Convention.

Christian school faces sanctions
Homosexual behavior at issue

In November the Supreme Court of Canada took up a new case which concerns the refusal by the British Columbia College of Teachers (BCCT) to approve the teacher education program at Trinity Western University because the school’s code of conduct requires students and teachers to refrain from homosexual behavior.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the Seventh Day Adventist Church are intervening on behalf of the university while the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation and a group known as Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere are supporting the BCCT. Devon Frisen of Trinity Western said that a decision on the case is expected in the spring.

The CCCB motion says the BCCT’s decision is a “rejection of moral values based on religious belief; a direct attack on independent religious-based education; and an infringement of constitutionally protected rights of Trinity Western University and its students.” The CCCB argues that since the Catholic Church’s position on sexual conduct is similar to Trinity Western’s community standards agreement, the BCCT’s decision is also an attack on Catholic education. It argues that “the kind of secular intolerance to religious beliefs demonstrated by the College’s decision would inevitably lead to unjustified attacks on the Catholic separate school system, including preferential hiring rights, particularly where the schools are publicly funded.”