The World Grows Old

John Mallon

New World Disorder

By John Mallon

(Originally published in Inside the Vatican magazine, March 1999, under the title “The World Grows Old.” I plan to post a link to the pdf from the magazine shortly.)

ONE EXPECTS CIVILITY AND HIGH-LEVEL DIPLOMACY AT AN INTERNATIONAL UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE. NOT SO AT THE HAGUE CAIRO+5 CONFERENCE ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT, AS OUR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TRAVELLED TO HOLLAND TO DISCOVER

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Since the Garden of Eden there have been attempts by so-called “social reformers” to reconstruct the world (and reality itself) without reference to God. C.S. Lewis brilliantly and concisely explained this scheme in his brief classic The Abolition of Man. He also illustrated the theory in his stunning novel That Hideous Strength. This has been a continuing theme in apocalyptic literature. For example, in Catholic literature, at the beginning of the century, Lord of the World, by Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, and now, at the end of the century, Father Elijah, by Michael D. O’Brien. In the secular realm we also have Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. This brings us to the dilemma faced by a journalist suddenly confronted by these almost surrealistic events in real life. It must be that these authors chose to illustrate this phenomena in the form of fiction, because no one would believe it if they told them outright.

This was the dilemma faced by me and my other pro-life colleagues, hailing from various faiths, at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Conference on Population and Development in the Hague, The Netherlands. The atmosphere was somewhat eerie, ever so slightly off tilt. There was even more than a hint of hostility and intimidation if you weren’t with the program.

After a speech, festooned with repeated slogans and buzzwords, even our secular counterparts were looking at each other saying, “Do you get that? What did she just say? What is going on here?” The scene recalled the tower of Babel and Lewis’s chilling but hilarious chapter in That Hideous Strength, “Banquet at Belbury.”

What did become clear, despite their best efforts was that beneath the “drum-beat” rhetoric an agenda was being rammed through under the cover of “consensus” where indeed no consensus existed. Pro-life journalists and lobbyists soon concluded the whole affair was a put-up job with the deck stacked and the conclusions foregone, and that the confusion and obsfucation was deliberate and with purpose.

Why this methodology should be employed is clear when you consider the agenda: Put as simply as possible, the agenda was to have “sexual and reproductive rights” declared a universal human right by the United Nations, superseding the sovereignty of nations, family, and religious traditions. The elusive but often repeated terminology, “sexual and reproductive rights” turns out to include universal and unlimited access to abortion and contraception, as well as freedom of sexual expression and the right to sexual pleasure for all people from age 10 on, without interference from any source including parents, family, national laws or religion. There are to be no restrictions on sexual orientation or on the sexual freedoms of those of varying preferences, including the right to homosexual “marriage” or the adoption and raising of children. The need for obsfucation to prevent interference from “non-progressive” parties is clear. (It is important to point out that this is the agenda, but it is not a done deal. This conference was a pep rally for a “Prep Com” meeting in New York in March to produce a document which would then be voted on in the UN General Assembly in June. Even at this meeting there was some strong opposition to the “Rights Language” employed.)

In any case it used to be that “rights,” as described in the American Declaration of Independence, came from God, but in this process, God is an interloper as are interpretations of God by long held religious traditions which, in this view, are, of course, subjective, and always subject to reinterpretation. Those who hold to objective truth in religious traditions are considered obstacles.

For example, it was acceptable—and even laudable—to ridicule The Holy See, as if the Church “just doesn’t get it.” Ugly cartoons of bishops attempting to run women’s lives cruelly and arbitrarily were commonplace, and an editorial in one of the daily conference papers, ICPD+5 Watch of February 11 intoned in an editorial, that,

“No meeting on reproductive health is complete without the Holy See. The Hague Forum is no different.

“Monsignor Frank Dewane, Head of the Holy See delegation intervened at the plenary and in his statement said, among other things, that Principle One of the Cairo document states that everyone has the right to life. Actually, Monsignor Dewane forgot to continue. Principle One says that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.

“The Holy See in Cairo and after has rejected the notion that women want and need freedom and security. It further rejects the individuality of women and insists that the family is the most important social unit of society, in which reproductive decisions are made.

“Few would quarrel with the Holy See’s position on the need for women’s education but its analysis about women and fertility won’t win too many friends outside its circle (and even that is not assured).

“Monsignor Dewane says that the ability of a woman to make decisions is not dependent on the reduction of her fertility but on the level of her education. I’m quite curious how an institution dominated by single men would know about how women make decisions about fertility!”

It is tempting to quote the whole editorial, but the drift is clear. Religious prejudice, bigoted stereotypes and an unwillingness to hear out other views in good faith ruled the day at this allegedly “high level” international conference.

There was the usual ideological propaganda of feminism, that if you don’t agree with the Party Line on every point “you don’t care if women die.” The sexual agenda was buried under layers of anecdotal and heart-rending accounts of maternal deaths, and other horrors that you evidently approve of should you favor a different approach to these problems than the agenda allows. As usual, the Vatican was presented as “celibate old men in skirts,” callous and uncaring about the fate of poor women and bent only on dominating them.

In one intervention, Austin Ruse, Director of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, (CAFHRI) a UN watchdog group, boldly got up and said that “There is one organization that has been taking care of poor and sick people and women long before there was a United Nations, a UNFPA and even before there was a ‘Catholics for Free Choice’ and that organization is the Catholic Church.” This met with a lukewarm response. Jeanne Head of the International Right to Life Federation spoke from her 40 years experience as a delivery room nurse on what was good for women from a Catholic perspective and was booed and hissed. It was clear early on that only one view was acceptable: that women needed abortion and contraception or they would die. No mention was made of the reports of Christian missionaries in developing countries who say they can’t find penicillin in a medicine closet for a sick child, but those closets are always filled with contraceptives. (Last summer Inside the Vatican put out an entire Special Supplement with vivid documentation on how fears of overpopulation are unfounded, and how government-run abortion, contraceptive and sterilization campaigns are devastating poor countries, violating their cultures and endangering the lives of women, and how the Catholic solution these problems is one of faith, hope and love, rather than the despair which droned on at this conference.)

While claiming to speak for the good of women, the word “family” was seldom used, nor was “love” nor “husband.” The foregone conclusion was that always and everywhere women are victims of male dominance, abuse and control, and that men cannot be relied upon at all when it comes to what were once called his responsibilities to his wife and family. Men were a lost cause except for those rare cases where it might be possible to “reeducate” him according to the white, Western feminist agenda, without the intervention of which poor women could not survive. Or so the implication goes. The white Western feminist agenda actually patronizes women by projecting on them the notion that since they cannot trust men or survive without contraception, neither can any other women, no matter what their cultural norms.

The almost overwhelming and ubiquitous force present was that of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, (IPPF) the largest and wealthiest provider of abortion and contraceptives in the world. A Muslim professor of reproductive health, OB/GYN, and reproductive endocrinologist from The Sudan, Dr. Tawfik El Deeb told me with genuine vehemence, “Abortion is never safe, never 100% safe, even if it is in the best of hands and conditions, there is still the danger of perforation and complications. I am against abortion, but there is a place where a mother’s life is endangered.” I noticed he was wearing an IPPF button on his lapel, and from his business card that he was an member of the Central Council of IPPF in his country. I had no reason to doubt his sincerity, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Just what is IPPF telling these people in developing countries—if anything—about who and what they are?”

After IPPF, another starring headliner of the week was Frances Kissling and her group, “Catholics for a Free Choice” (CFFC). It became clear that Kissling represented the acceptable “religious voice” of the proceedings. Their professionally made press kits were everywhere to be found, constantly reappearing on delegates’ desks, and containing a generous helping of misinformation and propaganda against the Catholic Church. For example, on the first page in the packet that I glanced at, entitled, “The Holy See and Cairo” my eyes fell on the line, “John Paul met in March [1994] with Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population fund and secretary general of the ICPD. Face to face, he upbraided Sadik and criticized the draft Programme of Action as formulating ‘population issues in terms of individual and ‘sexual and reproductive rights,’ or even in terms of ‘women’s rights’.”

This brought to mind a story I had seen on Catholic News Service around that time where Sadik had commented on what a surprisingly pleasant experience it was meeting with the Pope, that he never mentioned the word abortion, and that the meeting was very agreeable. To clear up this discrepancy I took the opportunity to ask Dr. Sadik about the incident myself. I pointed out the line to her from the CFFC dossier, and asked her if it was true, if the Pope “upbraided” her in any way. She turned to me in surprise and said, “No, why would he?” I pointed out that that was the claim of CFFC and as she hurried along, she said, “No, that’s not correct.” This evidently made an impression because I saw her then point me out to one of her aides and tell them what CFFC had said about her and her meeting with the Pope.

During one workshop, after several women had spoken from the panel about their experiences in their various traditions, Kissling said the problem Catholics face is that “we have a Pope who is a great thinker—for the 5th century!” She continued to get laughs at the expense of the Pope and the Church, until I felt moved to intervene that I had heard several religious traditions discussed here, all with great respect, and at a very high level, except for Roman Catholicism which was held up for derision and ridicule, and that as a Roman Catholic I just wanted to express my hurt. Kissling replied, “Okay, next!” (I argued from my “hurt” which was genuine enough, because I knew rational, objective argumentation had no place in the proceedings and a subjective statement could not be argued with.) Faithful Catholics had a good laugh during a plenary session where Kissling was introduced to speak with the words, “It’s clear why the Pope breaks out in a cold sweat when Kissling gets up on a podium.”

As to the conference itself, Austin Ruse said, “The conference was a put-up job. It was a heavily orchestrated event—a propaganda event, really—put on by the United Nations Population Fund to advance their cause of population control in the developing world.” As to what concerned people could do Ruse said, “There’s always more room for people to come to these meetings and lobby. There were only four or five of us who were directly lobbying all week—and that’s a good number for a conference like this, but if we had four or five more, we would have been even more effective. So there is an immediate opportunity for people to come to the United Nations and lobby. Those in the United States can also talk to their congressmen and explain to their feelings about UN issues because Congress directly affects what happens at the United Nations.”

Ruse also spoke on limitations being placed on the number of pro-life groups allowed to participate. He said, “Going into this conference only one pro-life group was approved to attend, and after several weeks of negotiations I convinced them to accept three more. And then, on the opening day of the conference they accepted another one, and on the first day of the conference we were informed by one of the conference organizers that there was a quota on pro-life groups.” Asked why that was so, Ruse replied, “It was a propaganda show. The member states of the United Nations were little more than props in a very expensive play put on by the UNFPA to convince the world that there is unanimity in opinion regarding population control and reproductive freedom and women’s rights and things like that. They’ve produced documents here that they will say were consensus documents when in fact they were not even consensus documents here, but even more so, they didn’t allow dissident voices in, except for a few of us. So the upshot is that there will be a document produced here and presented to the final preparatory meeting at the UN in New York City on March 22, and the document produced here will just feed into that process and try to effect the document that will be produced at the March 22 Prep Com, which will be approved by the General Assembly in June.” (Ruse’s organization, CAFHRI, puts out a free weekly newsletter, “Friday Fax” via the Internet on UN events of interest to Catholics and other pro-family parties.

Peter Smith, an Evangelical Christian, who works with the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in the United Kingdom, and is the chief administrative officer for the International Right to Life Federation, Inc., when asked what happened in the Hague, and its significance, answered, “We knew the Hague Forum, run by UNFPA, would be less than an ethical meeting. I found this out in early December when we applied for various people to attend, as I apply to attend normal UN conferences. I was told that International Right to Life Federation could only have one representative at The Hague Forum. So then I started to initiate an appeals process, and obtained one other pass. Austin Ruse was also able to obtain two passes for NGOs (non-governmental organizations). There also one person from Australia who got a pass, and one from Russia, so we ended up with six passes out of 800.”

Asked if he encountered any discrimination for being pro-life or on religious grounds, Smith replied, “I had a colleague who works at the UN come with me to the Hague, and Marianne Haslegrave, the organizer for NGO participation did give us one more pass and she said words to the effect that we had already reached their quota. I said, ‘Oh, is there a quota for right to life NGOs?’ How many is the quota?’ and she wouldn’t answer me. So they definitely grouped us all together and made sure we were an absolute minority. The lady from Australia slipped in because they didn’t know about her.”

In terms of religious discrimination he said, “Roman Catholics were treated the worst. But the way all religious groups were portrayed was absolutely horrendous. There was one meeting called “Religion Counts” where every person on that panel was a radical feminist, pro-abortionist person. There was one supposedly Roman Catholic woman, called Frances Kissling, one supposed Muslim, one supposed Evangelical, one supposed Buddhist, one supposed female Rabbi, and one supposed Hindu—and I say ‘supposed’ because I don’t believe the view they were representing represents the mainstream in their own religious faith system.”

“But,” he said, “as an Evangelical Christian, I was appalled at the way the Pope was attacked, the Roman Catholic Church was attacked, and the Holy See delegation was attacked and vilified and mocked and booed and hissed. When you go to UN meetings, they are primarily diplomatic events where people from all around the world come together and they politely discuss things. It is not even considered appropriate if someone raises their voice or speaks aggressively. And if any pro-lifers booed or hissed any speaker at any UN conference, they would be immediately evicted by security. But, when our speakers spoke— for example when I spoke, there was just no applause. But when other pro-lifers spoke there was booing and hissing. If we had done things like that we would have been immediately evicted from the conference. And the whole way that Roman Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church were caricatured made me sick, because if you have what you are claiming to be an international conference, you have to be willing to accept all views genuinely, and politely and the same for everyone. [Pro-abortion feminists] keep talking about discrimination and they’re one of the greatest discriminators, because the one group that they don’t agree with, the Roman Catholic Church—actually there’s more than one group—the Evangelicals don’t believe the feminists agenda, the Muslims don’t believe their agenda, and Roman Catholics certainly don’t believe their agenda—but because the Roman Catholic Church is better organized as a unity, they get the frontal attacks from these people.”

Smith continued, “The whole conference is just a sham. It is billed as an international meeting, but 98% of the NGOs are pro-abortion, pro-contraceptive, radical feminists, pro-homosexual people, and those of us of religious and pro-life views are just the smallest minority. The people running it adhere to all those previous agendas, and the national delegates who came who did not follow this immoral, barbarous agenda were just basically ignored. I think what has come out of this conference is very, very enlightening. The United Nations as a whole, the whole agenda of the UN system and all these last five years of conferences is to make abortion a universal human right—as well as every act of sexual depravity and sexual immorality—these are all to become human rights. And then, certain people within the UN system are attempting to undermine the national sovereignty of every nation of the world so that this depraved and immoral agenda can be imposed on the whole world. We believe there are three types of sovereignty that are being attacked: national sovereignty, the sovereignty of the Church and the sovereignty of the family. All three are under direct attack because those three type of sovereignty, I believe, were instituted by God for the good of mankind, and certain people in the UN system are determined to introduce a new world order where sexual depravity reigns supreme—and there are no children. And what happens then is a very good question. After that generation you’re all gone. I would just like to add one thing: As an Evangelical Christian I would say, going around and preaching in hundreds of churches around the world, in Britain and Australia — where I come from originally— the quickest way for young people to turn away from God is when they start to engage in immoral sexual activity. That is the quickest way they will depart from the Church.”

Asked about language used at the conference which would separate children from their parents, Smith said, “I take this whole thing very personally because I have a sixteen-year-old daughter and a ten-year-old daughter, and according to some definitions at this conference, my ten-year-old daughter is considered an adolescent. What happened at the Youth Forum is that they want to have the right to sexual pleasure and sexual orientation from about age ten. So that would mean a lesbian woman or a fifty-year-old man would be then able to sexually abuse my ten-year-old daughter without me having a word to say about it. And I take that kind of system very personally.”

Some even speculated on what might be a racial motivation for this population panic necessitating massive doses of contraceptives and abortion in the Third World. The plain fact is that Europe is below replacement level, and the US not far behind and that if it continues dark skinned people will dominate. The Post-Christian West has been contracepting itself out of existence and Islam will soon be dominant in those places. Our pro-life Moslem colleagues were as disturbed by the proceedings and attacks on traditional morality as we were as Christians and we made strong common cause forging alliances together.

Further, Steve Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute of Front Royal Virginia, criticized the Hague Forum’s single-minded focus on population control and abortion. In a February 16 press release, Mosher, who has written for Inside the Vatican on this problem, said, “The most pressing demographic problem is not overpopulation, but underpopulation. Fertility rates have fallen below replacement level in much of the Third World. In the First World, the population of many countries is actually falling.” The press release continued, “Hillary Clinton, as well as UNFPA representatives took advantage of the Hague Forum to call for more US funds for global population control efforts. Mrs. Clinton also described as ‘coercive’ efforts to restrict federal funds from providing universal access to abortion, which she described as a ‘basic human right’.”

Mosher said, “ The radical population control agenda of the Hague Forum ignores the most pressing demographic issues of our age. The forum ignored the ‘greying’ of the world’s population, and threatened collapse of pension funds in the US and elsewhere, and the depopulation of the developed world. To promote abortion as a means of population control in countries where it is illegal is a violation of national sovereignty. Coercive family planning is a real problem in many parts of the world like China, where the governments forcibly aborts and sterilizes women who get pregnant without permission.”

So the feverish and defensive attitude of the population agenda is irrational and ignores the facts, but then every effort to build a New World without reference to God always is, and always leads to totalitarianism—and from the most noble sounding language. And the manipulation of language was one of the most frequent games played at this conference — to make the hideous sound laudable. The devil hates God, but he can’t get at God so he does what (to him) is the next best thing. He hurts what God loves: People. The idea of procreation is to populate Heaven with saints, so to foil that plan makes sense. The world’s problem is not people, but sin, like greed which leaves some with too much and others with not enough. Or lust, which, when, as Scripture says, indulged, starves the fool. Which is another way of saying addiction. The Western World is greedy and sex-mad, and will not settle for answers that call for restraint, anymore than a drug addict will give up his needle. So the answer is that other must go—or be prevented from coming into being. Despite wild concerns about over-population, I did not hear anyone volunteer to commit suicide for the cause (which may be next), but the unborn were expendable. Never mind that the technology exists to save both mother and child, no, unbridled sex with no children is the answer to our problems, and it is the council of despair, in stark contrast to the Pope in St. Louis last January telling young people to live chastely to deafening and sustained cheers. No, playing God is a dangerous game. At the end of this bloodiest of centuries now awash in the blood of the abortion genocide you’d think we’d have learned.

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