The Vatican won’t participate in Nairobi summit focusing on “reproductive rights”--Aleteia

Several African bishops had warned that the meeting would be “against life.”

The Holy See will not take part in next week’s Nairobi Summit, sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund because of the agenda’s focus on “sexual and reproductive health rights,” reported CNA News.

“The organizers’ decision … to focus the conference on a few controversial and divisive issues that do not enjoy international consensus and that do not reflect accurately the broader population and development agenda outlined by the ICPD, is regrettable,” the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations said in a statement.

“The ICPD and its encompassing Programme of Action within the international community’s broad development agenda should not be reduced to so-called ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘comprehensive sexuality education,” the Holy See stated.

The statement from the Holy See pointed out the “urgent need to focus on critical aspects of the Programme of Action, such as women and children living in extreme poverty, migration, strategies for development, literacy and education, the promotion of a culture of peace, support for the family as the basic unit of society, ending violence against women, and ensuring access to employment, land, capital and technology, etc.”

Last week several African bishops raised objections to the summitbecause of its promotion of abortion.

“We find such a conference not good for us, (and) destroying the agenda for life,” Bishop Alfred Rotich, Bishop Emeritus of the Military Ordinariate of Kenya and chair of the Kenyan bishops’ family life office, told ACI Africa.

“There will be about 10,000 people here and we know what they are for,” Bishop Rotich said.

“They are not pro-life, but they are 10,000 abortionists. They are practitioners of what is against life,” he said.

Archbishop Martin Kivuva of Mombasa also warned that the summit, which is being sponsored by the governments of Kenya and Denmark has an agenda that is “unacceptable according to our teaching of the Catholic Church,” reported ACI Africa.

“Remember most of this is about population reduction, yet in Europe, there is zero growth and they tell us we are many,” he added.

“They tell us we are poor because we are many. That is a lie! We are poor because they took and still take our resources. Look at DR Congo-with all the minerals it should be the richest country,” he said.