Friday, June 24, 2005 

ANTI-CHRISTIAN TENDENCIES IN UN AND EU
Why Does the EU Keep Silent About Persecution of Christians?

By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service 

ROME/LINZ (ANS) -- Two Italian authors accuse the United Nations and the European Union of spreading anti-Christian tendencies. Eugenia Roccella and Lucetta Scaraffia voice their criticism in their book “Against Christianity: The UN and the EU as a New Ideology” (Piemme Publishers).

The Austrian Internet information service kath.net quotes the new book as stating that the UN has been part of several initiatives for religious dialog and a universal code of ethics. The initiatives were based on the assumption that all religions are equal. 

Attempts had also been made to formulate a universal moral code and to replace the Ten Commandments with an “earth charter” – a mix of religion, ecology and paganism. This amalgam of New Age thinking, ecological visions and an idealistic understanding of tolerance had been met with sharp criticism by the Roman Catholic Church. 

The authors also note differences in the understanding of human rights. In their view the United Nations are focusing on humanist traditions and the ideals of the French and American revolutions. The churches, however, see human rights as an expression of the understanding that every human being is made in God’s image. 

According to the authors the international institutions regard the Roman Catholic Church as well as some other religions as a threat to their efforts. These tendencies had climaxed in the refusal of the EU to acknowledge the Christian heritage in the proposed constitution. 

According to Roccella and Scaraffia the EU is influenced by anti-Christian, especially anti-Catholic, attitudes. The authors accuse the European institutions of largely ignoring the persecution of Christians. 

While the human rights commission of the European Parliament, for instance, has denounced the suppression of the religious Falun Gong movement and of Buddhists in China, it kept silent about the oppression of Christians. The EU was critical of Islamic countries only with regard to the discrimination of women but not of Christian minorities. 

A report issued in 2003 by the EU human rights commission had wrongly described religion as one of the worst enemies of human rights and as a danger for world peace. The EU was also actively engaged in the support of organizations such as the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, which advocates abortion as a right for women.