By MAIKE HICKSON
(Editor’s Note: Maike Hickson holds a doctorate in French literature from the University of Hannover. She is a contributor to LifeSiteNews.)
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John-Henry Westen, cofounder and editor-in-chief of the world’s largest pro-life and pro-family website, LifeSiteNews.com, gave a talk in Front Royal, Va., at Human Life International (HLI), on April 22. The topic of the talk was “The Synod on the Family — Is There a Division Brewing?” and Westen, who was in Rome during the last Synod of Bishops in October of 2014, gave a glimpse into the developments at the last synod, as well some reflections about the upcoming synod in October of 2015.
Westen described how he and his colleague John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) in England realized that serious problems had arisen within the Church when they saw how Walter Cardinal Kasper was given the privilege of addressing the Consistory of Cardinals in February of 2014. There, he proposed to discuss the unacceptable idea of allowing “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy Communion. They were also alarmed when they heard that Pope Francis had praised this talk and called it “beautiful.”
Therefore, Smeaton and Westen founded the coalition of 23 pro-life and pro-family organizations (among them Human Life International) from around the world which is called Voice of the Family (see: www.voiceofthefamily.info). Together, these two men of the faith were in Rome, in an office just across the street from the Vatican where (and as) the last Synod of Bishops took place.
It was already on the third day of the synod that Westen and his colleagues became worried because the official press conference of the synod summed up without reservation the privileged presentation of an Australian couple whose friends have a son who is a practicing homosexual. The couple recommended in their presentation that their friends should welcome their son and his partner into their home for a family reunion for Christmas.
As Westen put it, this attitude is contrary to the Church’s continual teaching on the matter, which encourages Catholics to love the sinner but to shun and to discourage sin. That means, practically in this case, that Catholic parents should not welcome such a couple into their home and therewith give their grandchildren and their son the appearance of approving this relationship which is contrary to God’s laws.
Westen also related how Walter Cardinal Kasper himself showed signs of dishonesty when he commented to some journalists that the African bishops — who were among the strongest to resist any proposal to loosen the Church’s moral teaching — “should not tell us too much what we have to do.” Kasper spoke in a somewhat demeaning way of the African prelates, which was close to being even “racist.”
When confronted with this interview, Cardinal Kasper flatly denied having said those demeaning words and only retracted this claim later, when the interviewer, the well-respected and established Rome correspondent Edward Pentin, published the interview word for word on his own website along with the audio recording.
This kind of dishonesty appears to have somewhat weakened the party of the progressivists at the synod, whose members were pushing for a softening of the attitude of the Church toward moral misbehavior such as the recurrent practice of homosexuality and adultery.
Westen spoke of the resistance to this agenda during the synod and how he was able to interview many of the solid and orthodox bishops there who opposed the liberal agenda. These prelates were also able to present a more realistic picture of the actual happenings inside the synod, while most of the other reporters usually received only somewhat filtered reports from the Press Committee of the Synod.
In the case of John-Henry Westen, however, there was an especially good collaboration possible, for the greater good of the Church — as anybody following LifeSiteNews and Voice of the Family at that time would confirm.
In the follow-up to the synod, as Westen pointed out, there are now more and more important voices who oppose the various attempts to water down the Church’s moral teaching. However, he said: “The Pope needs our prayers, more than ever in the history of the Church.” He repeated this several times.
Westen also admitted that comments from Pope Francis, such as “Who am I to judge?” and “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion” were effectively undermining the pro-life movement: “I have heard from many pro-life organizations in the world that, while they had always felt supported in the past by the previous Popes, they now do not feel such a support from Pope Francis.”
He also thinks that Pope Francis has bad advisers. He especially talked about Reinhard Cardinal Marx, member of the Council of Nine Cardinals who counsel the Pope, who had recently, at the end of February, come out with the words, “We are not a subsidiary of Rome,” indicating that the German bishops will go ahead with allowing “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy Communion independently of what the Synod of Bishops decides in October this year. He therewith openly defied the authority of Rome. Pope Francis’ response to this insubordinate declaration is not yet known.
Westen stressed the most problematic side of even allowing the debate about loosening the Church’s moral laws in the first place. “Remember the case of Humanae Vitae. Here the Church discussed for a whole year the possibility — even conveyed an expectation — of allowing contraception, and by the time Pope Paul VI finally spoke his magisterial word against it, the damage was already deeply done, by far. So many Catholics had then already started to use contraception in the belief that the Church soon would allow it, and they never afterward stopped doing it.”
How much more so must be the damage, said Westen, now that we have had the ongoing and ambivalent discussions about new lax accommodations going on for more than two years!
During the question and answer session of the talk, which was moderated by Fr. Peter West of HLI, one question referred to the link between the introduction of contraception into society and the increase of homosexuality, inasmuch as contraception cuts off the marital act from procreation and creates a sterile atmosphere.
While Westen agreed with this statement, he also stressed that it is a myth to say that homosexual couples live in a form of monogamy, in a loyal and enduring relationship. “All the statistics show, the percentage of homosexuals living in an enduring monogamous relationship goes toward zero.”
With that, he made it clear that even the discussions at the Church’s synod should keep in mind that any concept of “positive elements in a homosexual relationship,” are truly misguided as these relationships lead to eternally negative consequences.
John-Henry Westen was also very open about his own personal background. He confessed that he for a while in his life had lived outside the laws of God, and he knows that it does not work. “If you had seen me at that time, with my girlfriends, you might have thought I had fun, but I didn’t. Inside, I felt terrible.”
And it is out of this experience of a sinful past that he fights for the sinners to repent and amend their own lives.
God Will Help Us
In the discussion afterward, Westen added: “Even though many homosexuals accuse me of hating them, I actually love them. I want them to live a good life, and finally also to save their souls.”
At the end of his talk, John-Henry Westen soberly prepared us for a tightening severity in hostile secular society toward practicing and believing Catholics. In a reference to recent events in Indiana, he pointed out: “And that will come also to our homes. It won’t take long anymore.”
In his eyes, we have to prepare ourselves for martyrdom. “Now, we have white martyrdom, but we might soon be called to blood martyrdom. But we do not have to worry. When that moment comes, God will help us to do the right thing.”
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