Agency linked to Swiss bishops’ conference sends LGBT activists to undermine African bishops
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Reporting today that a Catholic agency in Switzerland, with
close links to the Bishops’ Conference of Switzerland, are funding LGBT
activists who wish to undermine the work of African Catholic bishops.
Voice of
the Family has
also drawn attention recently to the concerted attempts by
western agencies and governments to impose contraception, abortion and the
homosexual agenda on African nations. We
have similarly reported on the disturbing collaboration
between Vatican departments and the leading architects of the population
control movement.
CNA reports that the “Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and a major
U.S. foundation have helped fund an LGBT activist project intended to counter
West African bishops at the Catholic Church’s Synod on the Family.”
The organisation in question, the Netherlands-based European
Forum of LGBT Christian Groups, said:
“Reacting to the extremely negative influence from bishops from
Western Africa on the final document of the Family Synod 14, we found it
important to bring the voices of LGBT Catholics from this region to broader
attention.”
The organisation has interviewed “self-identified LGBT
Catholics” from across west Africa. Romana Buchel of the Swiss Catholic
Lenten Fund (Fastenopfer) said that the interviews “will be used for written
works of sensibilization (sic) regarding the second Synod of the Family.”
The European Forum’s activities report states that the
project was funded by the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and the Arcus Foundation,
an American organisation, which says the CNA, “has given hundreds of thousands
of dollars to LGBT activist groups to target the synod.”
The CNA report reveals the links between the Swiss Catholic
Lenten Fund and the Bishops Conference of Switzerland:
“Bishop Felix Gmur of Basel, Switzerland is president of the
Lenten fund’s foundation council, which oversees the NGO’s directors group. Two
of the nine members of the foundation council are named by the Conference of
Swiss Bishops, with the rest being named by a separate body.
“Michael Brinkschroeder, who until this year was co-president of
the European Forum of LGBT Catholic Groups, said that Fastenopfer’s support was
in the form of a small project grant. He told CNA Aug. 10 that the grant was
under 15,000 Swiss Francs (about $15,300) and was approved by the fund’s
executive director. The grant did not have to be approved by the foundation
council or its president, Bishop Gmur.”
Bishop Gmur was one of the three Swiss bishops who reportedly
attended a “Shadow Council” held at the Jesuit’s Gregorian University and
organised by the French, German and Swiss bishops. The meeting brought
together dissenting theologians from across Europe who seek undermine
Catholic doctrine on marriage, the family and human sexuality.
The hostility of many “progressives” towards the African
Church was brought dramatically to the public’s attention by the dismissive
remarks made by Cardinal Kasper in an interviewwith journalists during the
Extraordinary Synod. Kasper said that the African bishops were
not listened to by other bishops and “they should not tell us too
much what we have to do.”
The African bishops have shown themselves to be determined
defenders of Catholic moral teaching. At a meeting of the Symposium of
Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar the cardinals and bishops
present resolved that at the synod the African Church would give “a
clear affirmation of family and marriage values according to the Word of God and the doctrine of the Church.”
Ten African cardinals and bishops will soon be launching a book
entitled Christ’s New Homeland – Africa, which is intended to be a
contribution towards the synodal debates. His Eminence John Cardinal Onaiyekan,
Archbishop of Abuja, is one of eleven cardinals who have contributed
to Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family: Essays from a
Pastoral Viewpoint, which will explore the pastoral problems associated
with the proposal to admit the “divorced and remarried” to Holy Communion
without amendment of life. Developments such as these suggest that
“progressive” prelates, such as Cardinal Kasper, will find it increasingly
difficult to silence the voices of the African bishops at the Ordinary
Synod.
