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Apologies for the break in blogging due to travel and the nasty cyber attack!
We'll give an update on our recent news soon. In the meantime Fr. John Boyle has an interesting - and disturbing - story over at http://caritasveritas.blogspot.com/
Fr. Boyle asks 'Day for Life - Where Does the Money Go?'
He says - Zenit reports that City Pregnancy Counseling Psychotherapy has received £10,000 from previous Day for Life collections. A search on the Internet reveals that City Pregnancy Counselling and Psychotherapy is a non-values based organisation that puts the woman first, so that she can get to the place she'd like to be. Mmm. I think I can guess what that means, but I am prepared to be corrected. On its 'Women' page it lists various organisations that can be approached for further assistance, including the very praiseworthy charity LIFE. (!PLEASE SEE OUR COMMENTS ON LIFE BELOW!)However, there are the following very dubious organisations:
- NHS Choice The NHS is a leading abortion provider that subcontracts its abortion work to Marie Stopes International.
- British Infertility Counselling Association. The BICA, based in Harley Street, clearly points people in the direction of infertility treatment and is involved with the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority). It seems to me that it is fully involved in licensed fertility treatment centres and is therefore part of the pro-IVF establishment.
- Sure Start. (The link of BICA's website doesn't work.) Sure Start is very much involved in promoting contraception and early sex education through its Speakeasy programme which is run by FPA, another leading pro-abortion and contraception agency.
Some of the comments on the thread for Fr. Boyle's blog-post take up the issue of LIFE being a 'very praiseworthy' charity. One comment even suggests that the City Pregnancy Counseling Psychotherapy mentioned above is an initiative of LIFE...
There are some things we must say. It is true that LIFE has done a lot of good over the years. Nevertheless it is difficult to recommend it as a charity which Catholics should support.
From 2001 - 2003 Alan worked as LIFE's North West PR/Education Officer. This role included giving talks in schools, universities and parishes as well as interviews to local media outlets.
Alan at the 2002 LIFE Conference
in Northampton
All was going well until Alan and Angeline both attended the LIFE Counselling training. We then learned that LIFE's much-praised, counselling service was actually based on the atheistic ideology of Carl Rogers.
This Rogerian model of Counselling allows no space for the Catholic understandings of Original Sin, Redemption, Grace or the Thomistic notion of giving good guidance and counsel. As such it is amoral and seeks only to impart 'information' to enable clients to come to an 'informed choice' through so-called 'self-actualization'. But of course such an approach could actually facilitate a woman on the road to an abortion!
Alan then did a lot of research into Carl Rogers and his influence on the New-Age style Esalen Centre and the destruction of Western Catholic institutions caused by his Rogerian encounter groups. For example; the IHM Sisters in Southern California had 615 nuns when Rogers and his team came on the scene. Within one year 300 of these were petitioning Rome to be released from their vows. The IHM Sisters began with 60 schools and ended with just 1. Having studied at Ushaw Seminary Alan can confirm that similar techniques were still having their corrosive effect on the Catholic Church in England in the late 1990's...
It must be said that there were good women counsellors in the LIFE system - and some babies and their mothers were saved. However many others were taught to leave their Catholicism at the door when counselling. They would thus cease to think and operate as Catholics in that most important and momentous of contexts in order to act as secularist, non-directive counsellors. And all this was done in order to be 'professional.' Alan submitted the findings of his research to his Catholic superiors. No action was ever taken.
Alan also expressed concern to a superior when a school nurse wished to join a local counselling group because she would be required to give out the abortifacient Morning-After-Pill to students in the daytime and then be giving LIFE counselling in the evening. He was asked 'What do you expect this lady to do? Give up her job? I suggest that you focus instead on your (then) forthcoming wedding plans.'
Another 'Catholic' LIFE counsellor horrified Alan by explaining to him that she took an 'if you can't be good be careful approach' with teenaged girls in LIFE counselling sessions. This approach included 'recommending abstinence but if necessary telling them to use a condom.'
Alan's ongoing research then led to the realisation that the very same Carl Rogers had even contributed to the relativistic 'values-clarification' style of non-directive, secular education which we were battling against when giving pro-life talks in schools!
The Non-Directive approach was further evidenced by a Catholic LIFE counsellor who phoned up after a school talk and said that Alan was, 'Too Catholic and too pro-life' in his approach because he had 'sought to influence the opinions of the young people'. She contended that, 'Education is about giving information to make informed choices'. This all sounded a little too much like Charles Dickens' dictatorial character Mr. Gradgrind who demanded; 'Now what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts!'
Alan therefore countered that 'As Catholic educators we are called to form consciences to make moral judgements between good and evil.' It is somewhat ironic that this lady - and many others at LIFE - could not see that they were being extremely directive in their non-direction... This is just another example of the dictatorship of relativism that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI spoke of in his pre-conclave homily in 2005.
The LIFE Non-Directive approach continued with a debacle over a new Morning-After-Pill leaflet which had a sub-section entitled 'Who should not take this Pill?' prior to listing a few examples of those who should not; rather than a blanket warning against ANYONE taking it! It also explained where it could be obtained and how it was to be taken... Thankfully after a battle this was eventually withdrawn.
The final straw was the deconstruction of the LIFE Education Team. Our team - including several committed young Catholics - had been working to promote chastity and the wonder of marriage to young people. Suddenly LIFE's Education website added quotes worthy of Brook Advisory Service including, 'Condoms can help cut diseases but are not 100% effective' and also 'To reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases reduce your number of sexual partners.'
When Alan complained about this new approach he was told that he was no longer allowed to talk about God in talks - even in Catholic schools - because LIFE is 'non-denominational and non-directive.' He was told to restrict his talks to 'medical truth.' When Alan responded that medical truth and truth cannot be separated he met stern resistance and was told that only medical truth was allowed in talks from now on. Any mention of God was described as 'exclusive language.'
Sadly the Catholic leadership of LIFE were not concerned by any of this and several young and committed Catholic speakers found ourselves in the position of having to resign rather than go against our consciences. We could not teach moral relativism or promote condoms to kids. If we had wanted to do that we would have already been working for IPPF or the Brook Advisory Service!!!
We could not ask the working Catholics in parishes to part with their hard earned £££'s under false pretenses.
No - we had joined up to defend and build the Christian, Culture of Life as called for by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae.
It was painful to witness so many older Catholics embracing a secular-humanistic model in order to fight abortion. This was at best Pelagian and at worse straightforward apostasy.
In the weeks that Alan worked his one month notice period LIFE issued a press release which condemned the practice of praying outside abortion mills as 'counter-productive'. This confirmed to us that we had certainly done the right thing in leaving.
A couple of years ago the glossy LIFE magazine even ran a weakly-reasoned article addressed to Christian members which tried to brainwash them into accepting that Non-Directive Counselling was more Christian because it encouraged practitioners not to judge others. This is the kind of fuzzy argument which one would expect from the radically anti-life Obama administration - not from an organisation which continues to take the Catholic £££ in this country.
Anyone still in doubt should compare the content of the LIFE Education web-pages to the guidelines of the 1995 Pontifical Council for the Family document The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality. In short; Catholics cannot advocate the teaching of human sexuality to young people outside of the moral framework of the Natural and Divine Law.
What then can be done? Our immediate advice is to give your money to the excellent Good Counsel Network, SPUC, Precious Life and Family and Life organisations instead.
