Father Rutler: The President's Bold Defense of Life

Father George W. Rutler

At the start of October, life in Manhattan recovers from those late September weeks when the opening of the United Nations General Assembly ties up traffic, even blocking many streets, and takes over many hotels and clubs for expensive receptions—some of the costliest, it seems, being those of some of the poorest countries. With so many heads of state in town, battalions of Secret Service agents and bodyguards eye everyone with suspicion.

This year there was one bright spot, although largely ignored by much of the media. Representing the United States, our President gave what was perhaps the most forceful address that any of our Chief Executives have spoken there. Denouncing the United Nations’ scheme to promote abortion, first drafted in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the President said that “Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life. We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.”

Such boldness must have shocked many diplomats present, like those in the 1942 film “I Married an Angel” who were aghast when Jeanette MacDonald, as a blessed angel, tells them the truth, upsetting their cocktail party. Our nation has never had an angel for president, and its Constitution in fact prevents that. But Abraham Lincoln invoked “the better angels of our nature” and confounded those who had dismissed him as an untutored vulgarian with ambiguous views on abolition. The first Christians in Jerusalem were suspicious of Paul’s conversion, and theologians like Tertullian and Justin, some years before Constantine, thought it impossible that any emperor would ever defend Christianity.

Ironically, there are highly placed prelates who have shied away from mentioning these matters in secular forums, hoping that subtlety might be more persuasive. Such naiveté, as in the instance of the Holy See’s diplomats cajoling Communist China by compromise, accomplishes little. In his United Nations speech, the President said: “The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty, made with the British and registered with the United Nations, in which China commits to protect Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system, and democratic ways of life.” The Holy See has not commented on the popular demonstrations in Hong Kong, which may explain why the youths there struggling for freedom, and inspired by the heroic Cardinal Zen, are waving the Stars and Stripes and not the Vatican flag. 

“For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26).

UN Jerusalem Resolution: How Each Country Voted

It's payback time and America, under strong and great new leadership, will be  putting herself first.  And we don't see any reason to award special consideration to those countries who merely "abstained".

We look forward to seeing how the UN vote to declare US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "null and void" will be enforced.  What should be as "null and void" as the League of Nations, is the UN itself.

Look out world, America is back!

Member states voting in favor of the resolution

A: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan
B: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi
C: Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica
E: Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia
F: Finland, France
G: Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana
I: Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy
J: Japan, Jordan
K: Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan
L: Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg
M:Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique
N: Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway
O: Oman
P: Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal
Q: Qatar
R: Republic of Korea (South Korea), Russia
S: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria
T: Tajikistan, Thailand, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia, Turkey
U: United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Uzbekistan
V: Venezuela, Vietnam
Y: Yemen
Z: Zimbabwe

Member states voting against the resolution

G: Guatemala
H: Honduras
I: Israel
M: Marshall Islands, Micronesia
N: Nauru
P: Palau
T: Togo
U: United States

Member states that abstained

A: Antigua-Barbuda, Argentina, Australia
B: Bahamas, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia-Herzegovina
C: Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic
D: Dominican Republic
E: Equatorial Guinea
F: Fiji
H: Haiti, Hungary
J: Jamaica
K: Kiribati
L: Latvia, Lesotho
M:  Malawi, Mexico
P: Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland
R: Romania, Rwanda
S: Solomon Islands, South Sudan
T: Trinidad-Tobago, Tuvalu
U: Uganda
V: Vanuatu

Britain Just Betrayed America at the United Nations

Theresa May has betrayed the British people in their quest to be free of the European Union, so it is not surprising that she has betrayed America too. The good news is that this failed swamp dweller will be gone soon, we now have a President who fights back, and a special relationship that has endured for more than 80 years will survive her.

European allies, most notably Britain, helped isolate America at the United Nations Monday, demonstrating how even the most special of relationships stops at the water’s edge of Israel’s Mediterranean shores.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley vetoed an Arab-proposed Security Council resolution Monday that rebuked President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and start the process of moving the US embassy there. All other 14 Security Council members supported the anti-American resolution.

Read more at New York Post >>

An Unholy Alliance: the UN, Soros, and the Francis Papacy - Elizabeth Yore

REMEMBER in NOVEMBER! Here Are the 46 Senators Who Voted to Turn Your Gun Rights Over to the UN. Now NOVEMBER it will be OUR Turn to VOTE!

From Tea Party Crusaders
 

United States Senators who were willing to sign over your 2nd amendment rights to the United Nations
The anti-gun senators are all Democrats or so-called Independents. Meet all 46! Write Down their names, and Share them with everyone you know.

Senate Bill 139 passed 53-46. 46 US Senators voted against this: “To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”

Wizbang reported:

Fortunately, the odious, anti-American treaty was again voted down by the full Senate, but 46 Senators voted in favor of handing over our Constitutional rights to the UN.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) offered Amendment 139 that was passed with a 53 to 46 vote. His Amendment contained language to affirm that foreign treaties would not trump the U.S. Constitution.

“Mr. President,” Inhofe said on the floor of the Senate, “I want to make sure that everyone understands what the United Nations trade treaty is. The trade treaty is a treaty that cedes our authority to have trade agreements with our allies in terms of trading arms.”

He went on to say, “I want to very briefly read this so nobody over there or over here misunderstands what this amendment does. This is right out of the amendment. Uphold the Second Amendment rights, that is one thing. And secondly, prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations arms trade treaties.”

But many Democrats simply didn’t agree with Inhofe’s insistence that the U.S. Constitution trump the UN.

Forty-six Democrats-Independents favored ceding your Constitutional rights over to the United Nations.

Unreal.

Peggy Noonan: A Small President on the World Stage

At the U.N., leaders hope for a return of American greatness.

The world misses the old America, the one before the crash—the crashes—of the past dozen years.

That is the takeaway from conversations the past week in New York, where world leaders gathered for the annual U.N. General Assembly session. Our friends, and we have many, speak almost poignantly of the dynamism, excellence, exuberance and leadership of the nation they had, for so many years, judged themselves against, been inspired by, attempted to emulate, resented. 

Chad Crowe

As for those who are not America's friends, some seem still confused, even concussed, by the new power shift. What is their exact place in it? Will it last? Will America come roaring back? Can she? Does she have the political will, the human capital, the old capability? 

It is a world in a new kind of flux, one that doesn't know what to make of America anymore. In part because of our president.

"We want American leadership," said a member of a diplomatic delegation of a major U.S. ally. He said it softly, as if confiding he missed an old friend. 

Read more at The Wall Street Journal >>

UN Judge Says Pope Should be Prosecuted at International Criminal Court

Obama's teleprompter addresses the United Nations

"... They will manhandle and persecute you, summoning you to synagogues and prisons, bringing you to trial before kings and govenors, all because of my name." - Luke 21:12

Just a forewarning of the worldwide tyranny and persecution Christians should expect were the United Nations ever given the powers that Obama and other one-world socialists would happily cede to them. And make no mistake, this campaign against Pope Benedict, who has done more than anyone to cleanse the Church of homosexual rot, was planned and coordinated precisely because of his insistence that homosexuals may not be ordained, and his pro family, pro-life agenda.

From C-FAM
By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

In London last Friday, a high ranking United Nations (UN) jurist called on the British government to detain Pope Benedict XVI during his upcoming visit to Britain, and send him to trial in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “crimes against humanity.”

Geoffrey Robertson touted his status as a UN judge in an article he published last week claiming that jurists should invoke the same procedures that have been used to indict war criminals such as Slobodan Milosevic. To try the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church who is ultimately responsible for sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

Robertson is one of five select jurists in the UN’s internal justice system responsible for holding UN officials accountable for corruption and mismanagement. His article was published in both the United States and Britain and reported on by the Associated Press.

Professor Hurst Hannum of the Fletcher School at Tufts University told the Friday Fax that it would be a “real stretch” to use the ICC since that court’s jurisdiction is mainly reserved for crimes during war. More likely, Hannum said, is that Robertson and likeminded experts would invoke the principle of “universal jurisdiction” so that national courts all over the world could detain the pope whenever he stepped foot on their soil. Critics say the principle, already used in practice, is a violation of sovereignty as it is enshrined in the UN Charter.

Yet Robertson insisted that the ICC could be used as long as the Pope’s sovereign immunity was waived and as long as jurists can show that the sex abuse scandal was carried out on a “widespread or systematic scale,” the way that child soldiers were used in the wars in Sierra Leone and the way that sex slaves are traded internationally.

Robertson, a tort lawyer, argued that prosecution at a higher level of the Church is necessary to get more money for victims of clergy sexual abuse in cases where dioceses have gone into bankruptcy. He specifically pointed out the fact that the diocese of Los Angeles has already paid $660M in damages and Boston has paid $100M.

One prominent law professor told the Friday Fax, “Without in any way minimizing the seriousness of the alleged offenses of Catholic priests, it would be a grave mistake to the laws of human rights to permit a trivializing of the responsibility to protect, and to play into the hands of American contingency-fee lawyers.”

Another human rights lawyer told the Friday Fax that the article could be part of a broader campaign. Robertson has long campaigned to strip the Holy See of its permanent observer status at the UN, and has publicly referred to the Holy See “the world’s largest NGO.”

When a campaign was launched to oust the Holy See from its status in 1999, UN Member States rallied around the Vatican, and in 2004 the General Assembly voted unanimously to expand that status. It is unclear whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon knew about Robertson’s leanings before appointing him to his current position.

Your Girl Scout Cookies Purchase at Work

Girl Scouts Distribute Planned Parenthood Sex Guide at UN Meeting

From the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

The World Association of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides hosted a no-adults-welcome panel at the United Nations this week where Planned Parenthood was allowed to distribute a brochure entitled “Healthy, Happy and Hot.” The event was part of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which concludes this week.

The brochure, aimed at young people living with HIV, contains explicit and graphic details on sex, as well as the promotion of casual sex in many forms. The brochure claims, “Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse… But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself!” The brochure goes on to encourage young people to “Improve your sex life by getting to know your own body. Play with yourself! Masturbation is a great way to find out more about your body and what you find sexually stimulating. Mix things up by using different kinds of touch from very soft to hard. Talk about or act out your fantasies. Talk dirty to them.”

The brochure also tells students that national laws requiring HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their partner(s) “violate the rights of people living with HIV” and calls for advocacy to “change laws that violate your rights.” It explains, “There are many reasons that people do not share their HIV status. … They may worry that people will find out something else they have kept secret, like they are using injecting drugs, having sex outside of a marriage or having sex with people of the same gender.”

The Girl Scouts, along with the YMCA have been co-moderating a young women’s caucus that included an “Intergenerational Conversation” side event on “universal access” and “reproductive health.” One recent Girl Scout project “aims at securing the right of women, men and adolescents aged between ten and twenty-five, to better reproductive and sexual health.”



Also at CSW last week, the heads of various powerful UN agencies including the UN Population Fund, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UN Children's Fund and the World Health Organization released a “UN Joint Statement” under the name of the “UN Adolescent Girls Task Force,” which calls for their agencies to promote and support programs “that empower … adolescent girls, particularly those aged 10 to 14 years.” One of the chief priorities for empowerment is ensuring access to “life-skills based sexuality education, HIV prevention, and sexual and reproductive health.”

The New York Times recently reported that UN Population Fund had co-sponsored a very controversial curriculum with UNESCO, that included teaching children as young as five to be sexually active and training adolescents to advocate for abortion.

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women of America told the Friday Fax, “Governments and NGOs should be aware of Planned Parenthood’s insidious plan to work with UN agencies and girls’ organizations in order to profit from encouraging kids to be sexually active.”

Obama to Seal US-UN Relationship

From the Financial Times
By Harvey Morris

Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.

The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level.

“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.

Read the rest of this entry >>

UN Wants New Global Currency to Replace Dollar

The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War.

A number of countries, including China and Russia, have suggested replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

From The Telegraph
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor

In a radical report, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has said the system of currencies and capital rules which binds the world economy is not working properly, and was largely responsible for the financial and economic crises.

It added that the present system, under which the dollar acts as the world's reserve currency , should be subject to a wholesale reconsideration.

Although a number of countries, including China and Russia, have suggested replacing the dollar as the world's reserve currency, the UNCTAD report is the first time a major multinational institution has posited such a suggestion.

In essence, the report calls for a new Bretton Woods-style system of managed international exchange rates, meaning central banks would be forced to intervene and either support or push down their currencies depending on how the rest of the world economy is behaving.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Radical Homosexual Group Targets CEDAW to Push "Gender Identity" Agenda

From LifeSiteNews
By Samantha Singson

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) recently released a handbook for activists on how to use the United Nations committee, responsible for overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to introduce "fluid" concepts of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" into the established human rights arena. The IGLHRC handbook's "key terms" glossary deems gender and sexuality not to be rooted in biology, but based on "social constructs."

IGLHRC acknowledges that the original drafters of CEDAW would have found today's advocacy to promote "sexual orientation and gender identity simply unimaginable" but argues CEDAW is an "evolving document" that could "accommodate change over time." IGLHRC emphasizes that the CEDAW convention's prohibition on discrimination based on biologically-determined "sex" does not encompass the "rainbow" of orientations and expressions, but nevertheless urges activists to use terms such as "gender identity" and "gender expression" which "may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth."

When states ratify the CEDAW convention, they commit to presenting a report every four years about their country's progress toward implementing its provisions. The CEDAW Committee is comprised of 23 private citizens who meet periodically to review these reports. Non-governmental organizations may submit "shadow reports" offering their own evaluation of their country's compliance with the CEDAW Convention. Shadow reports from radical groups generally receive a very favorable reception from their radical counterparts on the CEDAW committee.

Claiming that states' official submissions to the CEDAW Committee "almost never address discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity," the handbook teaches activists to craft shadow reports for submission to the CEDAW committee that do. IGLHRC boasts that such shadow reports have caused "the CEDAW Committee to ask governments pointed questions about discrimination against [Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered] and other same-sex practicing women in their countries" and the inclusion of "sexual orientation" in the committee's non-binding recommendations to the state for further action.

Over the last few years, the CEDAW committee has included "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" in almost a dozen of its concluding recommendations. IGLHRC hopes that its continued efforts will not only lead to more questioning of countries by the CEDAW committee but also lead to the creation and adoption of a new "General Recommendation" on discrimination based on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." They also hope that national courts will begin to refer to such committee comments and recommendations.

In the C-FAM paper "Rights By Stealth," authors Susan Yoshihara and Douglas Sylva explain that General Recommendations "are the treaty body members' own interpretations of the articles of the conventions" and that "once created, they serve as the committees' official interpretations." Even though states never agreed to any provisions in the CEDAW treaty on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," a new general recommendation on the subject signals that the committee will seek to expand the treaty beyond the boundaries set by those who carefully negotiated its language.

Critics point out that "sexual orientation," "gender identity" and "gender expression" have never been included in any negotiated, binding UN document. Attempts to include "sexual orientation" as a protected non-discrimination category akin to race, sex or religion have met with staunch resistance by member states who fear that making sexual orientation a non-discrimination category could lead to judicial imposition of special legal rights such as same-sex "marriage."

Obama Administration Calls for Universal Access to Abortion at UN Meeting

From C-FAM
By Samantha Singson

At United Nations (UN) headquarters this week, the Obama administration continued its push for ever increasing access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for “universal access” to “sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning.” The document under consideration will culminate in the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review, which convenes next week in Geneva.

The sticking point for many delegations and what has driven apart the usual solid European bloc is the use of the word “services” in the context of “reproductive health.” Way back in 2001 during negotiations related to the ten year review of the Child Convention, a Canadian delegate blurted out “of course everyone knows ‘services’ means abortion.” Ever since, the word “services” has been a topic of hot debate.

So controversial is the topic of “services” in the context of “reproductive health” that the usually impenetrable negotiating bloc of the 27 member European Union has imploded with Malta, Poland and Ireland splitting from their allies and joining the Holy See in opposing the measure.

Read the rest of this entry >>

UN Says No to Brazilian Homosexual Group; U.S. Says Yes

From OneNewsNow
By Jim Brown

A conservative activist who monitors the United Nations warns that the U.S. State Department is attempting to enable homosexual activists who are "flooding" the international body.

The U.N.'s Economic and Social Council voted 8-6 last week to deny official non-governmental (NGO) status to Brazil's Association of Gays, Lesbians and Transgenders. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) says the Brazilian group supports sex with children and notes the U.S. was one of the six member nations that voted to approve the pedophiles.

Perkins says the State Department's vote in favor of the Brazilian homosexuals is not surprising, given that the same White House has nominated "liberal extremist" David Ogden to the second-highest post in the Justice Department. Ogden's nomination has been opposed by conservative groups like FRC because of his past representation of hard-core porn distributors.

Austin Ruse, president of Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, says homosexual activists are consistently pressing the U.N. to accept their agenda. "This instance is new, but this kind of story has been going on for years," he contends. "The gay groups, including those who overtly support pedophilia, have been flooding the U.N. with applications for official accreditation."

Ruse says the State Department's support for the Brazilian homosexual group is reflective of a policy begun under former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "There was a very well-organized group of homosexuals within the State Department who directly petitioned Condoleezza Rice, and the Bush administration toward the end of his second term began voting for these groups," he points out. "And this policy is carried over to the Obama administration."

The effort by homosexual groups to obtain NGO status, according to Ruse, is part of a broader strategy by homosexual activists to "suborn the United Nations and its treaty monitoring system to their will."

Poland and Malta Stand Up to European Union, United Nations on Abortion

by Samantha Singson

The governments of Poland and Malta broke rank with the European Union on the question of abortion this week. The dissension occurred at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which convened it’s annual two-week meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Monday. The reaction of Poland and Malta happened after the EU tried to shift the meeting’s agenda to include the right to abortion.

On Tuesday Radoslaw Mleczko, the Polish Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, told the gathering of UN Member States that Poland generally aligned itself with the EU but that any EU reference to sexual and reproductive health could not include abortion.

On Thursday afternoon, the head of Malta’s mission to the UN, Ambassador Saviour F. Borg said, “Malta would like to clarify its position with respect to the language relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights in the [EU] statement. Malta firmly continues to maintain that any position taken or recommendations made regarding women’s empowerment and gender equality should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights, services or commodities.”

The split in the European Union is significant because the EU hardly ever splits on questions of social policy at the UN. Even countries that are generally anti-abortion go along with the more radical approach taken by the United Kingdom, France and Germany. They do this as an agreement that the EU will always work out their differences behind closed doors and present a united front at UN negotiations.

This works to the advantage of the pro-abortion states since they outnumber the anti-abortion states.

Moreover, an EU that is divided is one that can be defeated on social policy questions. In fact, the last time the EU split in any significant way was in the UN cloning debate which resulted in the UN calling for the ban of all forms of human cloning, an effort opposed by the UK, France, Germany and other left-wing European governments. It is unclear how meaningful this current split will be in the negotiations which will begin in earnest tomorrow.

Pro-life and pro-family issues were also woven into UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks to the commission on Monday when he criticized the now widespread practice of choosing abortions based on the sex of the baby, an issue that was all but taken off the agenda at last year’s CSW despite solid support from both civil society and numerous governmental delegations.

In his speech to launch the new UN multi-year campaign to end violence against women, the Secretary-General stressed, “Through the practice of prenatal sex selection, countless others are denied the right even to exist. No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge.”

The Secretary-General also highlighted the importance of families and children stating, “We know that violence against women compounds the enormous social and economic toll on families, communities, even whole nations. And we know that when we work to eradicate violence against women, we empower our greatest resource for development: mothers raising children.”

Among the many pro-life and pro-family lobbyists attending the CSW is a large contingent of high school girls from Overbrook Academy in Rhode Island. Fourteen year old Elsa Corripio told the Friday Fax, “We want these delegates to know that there are many young people who believe in respecting life.”

Ana Paola Rangel, 15, added, “Maybe we can't change the world, but we know we can make a difference.”

The CSW meeting continues through next week.


Samantha Singson writes for the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. This article originally appeared in the pro-life group's Friday Fax publication.