Catholic Voice

 A Match Made in Hell?

 

Pope Benedict XVI, as part of his pilgrimage to Fatima, delivered a homily to charity workers on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 May 2010.  The Holy Father urged workers not to forfeit their Catholic identity and not to sell out to secular culture, politics and ideologies according to Zenit news service (www.zenit.org).  The Pontiff said,

The pressure exerted by the prevailing culture, which constantly holds up a lifestyle based on the law of the stronger, on easy and attractive gain, ends up influencing our ways of thinking, our projects and the goals of our service, and risks emptying them of the motivation of faith and Christian hope which had originally inspired them.

He further exhorted the Catholic workers to hold fast to their identity, and ensure

that Christian charitable activity is granted autonomy and independence from politics and ideologies even while cooperating with state agencies in the pursuit of common goals.

I cannot help but recall how an executive from the New York State, Office of Mental Health once described the situation.  She said that sometimes when you mix state funds with faith-based outreaches you end up with a match made in hell—unless, I would add, one side is moved to depart from its core principles as is usually the case.  Unfortunately, government funding usually results in faith-based charities compromising rather than evangelizing.

This has prompted a deeper probing into the problem of Cura as one wonders what the Holy Father might say to Cura were he to address them directly.

Abortion & Contraception:  Just a Click Away from Cura

 

Readers may recall that Catholic Voice published the article ‘Is Cura Really a Positive Option for Catholics’ last month just after Easter.  The article highlights that Cura as part of the HSE’s Positive Options Campaign receives significant funding each year from the HSE.  In doing so, Cura agrees to employ morally relativistic counselling techniques that prohibit counsellors from actually counselling abortion-minded women away from abortion. 

 

The article also cites scandalous comments from Cura spokeswoman Ms Charlotte Keary and an affiliate Mr Fergus Hogan concerning Catholic teaching on marriage, sexual morality, and contraception.  The article has gained international attention through the European Life Network and the Rome-based news service LifeSiteNews (www.LifeSiteNews.com). 

 

Catholic Voice has since discovered further troubling facts illustrating how Cura’s supposed Catholic ethos is compromised, and why this situation can no longer be left unchallenged by Christ’s Faithful.

 

One sad fact is that from the Cura website a person is no more than one click away from links to the list of ‘Positive Options’’ abortion referral agencies.  The same is true for information on contraception.  Regrettably, it gets worse.

 

 

No One Can Serve Two Masters . . .

 

Another troubling fact is that Cura is not only part of the Positive Options Campaign, but is also a member of Treoir.   In fact, Cura’s National Coordinator, Ms Louise Graham, is on the Treoir Council.  Their recent press release offers a self-description of Treoir:

 

Treoir, the national federation of services for unmarried parents and their children, was founded in l976 to promote the welfare of unmarried families. It operates the National Information Centre for parents and professionals. . . .It is involved in research and lobbying as well as producing numerous information publications on rights and entitlements of unmarried parents. In excess of 50% of calls to the Treoir National Information Centre last year concerned parenting issues - custody, access, guardianship, maintenance and establishing paternity.

 

As innocent as it may sound, a quick visit to the Treoir website (www.treoir.ie) reveals a different story.  Again, one can find information about abortion and contraception as well as support for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children and for legal recognition of homosexual and heterosexual civil partnerships.  Treoir—and by extension Cura—is also part of the Equality and Rights Alliance (ERA) who condone gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyle. 

 

It is ironic that Cura, as a functionary of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, is also a member of Treoir which has boldly and publicly spoken against His Eminence, Cardinal Sean Brady on the issue of civil partnership.  Treoir’s press release says that:

 

Unmarried cohabitation is a reality and this trend is reflected throughout Europe.  Brenda Forde, Senior Information Officer of Treoir said “The Civil Partnership Bill in is present state will give heterosexual cohabitants only very limited protection.  It allows for access to a redress scheme (through the courts) when a relationship ends through death or separation.  The limited rights proposed in this Bill do not in any way undermine marriage as suggested by Cardinal Brady.  They give some limited protection to vulnerable adults and children where a cohabitation ends.”

 

In actuality, Treoir’s position is in opposition to all the bishops whose position on marriage and civil partnership is clearly articulated in their recent document, Why Marriage Matters. 

 

Whose side is Cura on, Treoir’s or the bishops’?  It is disconcerting that Cura has yet to publicly support the Cardinal, the bishops, Catholic teaching, or at least to distance itself from Treoir on these major issues.

 

All of this makes one wonder who is Cura’s master anyway?

 

 

Roman Catholic or Roman Mythology

 

Catholic Voice has uncovered one other interesting and ironic bit of information.  I had been curious for a long time what the name ‘Cura’ means.  One would reasonably presume that it either is an Irish word or an acronym.  Neither is true.

 

In actual fact, Cura is the name of the mythical Roman goddess who fashioned the body of humanity out of the earth’s clay.  She then beseeched Jupiter to give spirit to the body she had fashioned.  A dispute then broke out between Cura, Jupiter and the earth about who owned the newly formed creature.  Saturn actually settled the argument by declaring that it belonged to Cura (i.e. Care) during life, and at death its body would return to the earth whilst its spirit would return to Jupiter.  Saturn then named the creature ‘homo’ since it was made of ‘humus’ (i.e. earth).

 

It is odd that a Catholic institution would share the name of a mythical deity rather than the name of one of the heroes or heroines of our Catholic heritage.  Then again, Catholic identity is the question at hand.

 

So what would Pope Benedict XVI say were he to directly address Cura? 

 

At Fatima, the Holy Father urged charity workers to ally with

 

those social and pastoral initiatives aimed at combating the socio-economic mechanisms which lead to abortion, and are openly concerned to defend life and to promote the reconciliation and healing of those harmed by the tragedy of abortion.  Initiatives aimed at protecting the essential and primary values of life, beginning at conception, and the family based on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, help to respond to some of today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good.

 

One can only speculate on the exact words he would choose to address Cura, but no doubt they would boil down to something like this:  Cura, do not reduce your Catholic identity to a mere myth!

This feature is categorised under Life Matters