In the United States of America, women are crying "Keep your laws off my body"
In our wonderful wide world we must loudly cry "Keep your religion off all bodies"
The Vatican City State
-- Religion has prime country status in United Nations
In our greatest team sport tradition
We holler fowl
Special from the World Population News Service - POPLINE, November-December 2000
| Dutch Deputies Challenge U.N. Status of Vatican |
|
Three Dutch deputies of the European Parliament have launched a campaign to end United Nations recognition of the Vatican City as a state with the power to block vital decisions on women's rights and AIDS. The three parliamentarians called on the Netherlands and other European Union member states to break diplomatic relations with the Vatican, contending that the Holy See should not be able to force the UN. into policy concessions on women and youth. "The consequences of these concessions are especially visible in poor countries where hundreds of millions of women die as the result of illegal abortions, and millions are contaminated by the AIDS virus," said Euro-deputies Lousewies van der Laan, Elly Plooij van Goorsel and Joke Swiebel. The deputies belong to three different political parties - centrist, liberal and Social Democrat - serving in the Dutch coalition government, according to Agence France Presse, a French news agency. They point particularly to Vatican attempts to prevent the use of condoms in Africa in direct contradiction to European Union supported programs. About a third of the Dutch population is Roman Catholic. Dutch Catholic bishops only recently reaffirmed their opposition to the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS, causing anger in Dutch Catholic lay circles. The Vatican City State, seat of the Roman Catholic Church, was created in 1929 under the terms of a treaty with the Italian Fascist government of Benito Mussoline. "The Catholic Church is the only religion that is represented as a state in world politics, and this is unjust," the deputies observed in a joint statement. "We wish the Catholic church to have the same role as other religions, but no longer to be at the table where decisions are taken." The Vatican City is a monarchical-sacerdotal state led by the head of the Catholic Church. A college of cardinals elects the pope for life. The pope appoints the head of government, known as the secretary of state, and his cabinet, the pontifical commission. The Holy See maintains permanent observers at the United Nations in New York and Geneva and at UNESCO. |
| Footnote: President Reagan appointed the first USA ambassador to the Holy See. |
Commentary:
Perhaps in the controversy of reproduction in poor countries,
the Roman Catholic Church willingly practices genocide because
to refuse to prevent the spread of AIDS by encouraging safe sex
a major portion of the African population will soon be dead from the disease.
But then --
Muslims and other religions may stamp out Roman Catholicism because
other groups prefer to live with careful reproduction
and thus will multiply and overwhelm an antiquated control-minded doctrine
to heaven.
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