For those not familiar with the hierarchy of Catholic Church, Trujillo -- one of the Vatican's highest ranking cardinals and once a viable papabile, a candidate to become pope -- was the Church's principal defender and point person for all issues related to the family. This meant, among other things, fighting a global battle to reject abortion and contraceptives of any kind. Instead, he chose to promote abstinence and "natural family planning," also known as the rhythm method, the latter of which has been proven ineffective at preventing pregnancy.
Trujillo was particularly active in the developing world where he preached against condom use. He argued that condoms were an ineffective prevention method against HIV/AIDS because they actually contributed to its spread by encouraging sexual promiscuity. Trujillo also argued, rather unscientifically that, "The AIDS virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom." No matter that Trujillo's arguments were quickly debunked by the World Health Organization, and criticized by the European Union Commission and UNAIDS, Trujillo went so far as to recommend that condom packets include warnings, similar to those on packs of cigarettes, cautioning that condoms do not prevent but rather encourage the spread of HIV/AIDS. Trujillo wasn't single minded in his opposition to condoms; he disparaged all forms of contraception, which he referred to as "biological colonialism" imposed on poor nations by pharmaceutical companies and rich countries. This was certainly a polemical, if not persuasive, argument in regions dealing with the aftereffects of colonial rule.
Trujillo was no less outspoken about abortion, which more than contraception, emerged as his pet passion. Trujillo traveled extensively, visiting all range of local churches and massive cathedrals, inveighing against abortion. There was seemingly no audience too small for him preach to about the perils of abortion, and he readily lent his name and credibility to a host of marginal organizations, both in the U.S. and internationally, that advocated against abortion. One such group was the Staten Island-based Priests for Life, where he sat on the Episcopal Board of Advisors since the organization's inception, and which has, according to Catholics for Choice, close ties to "specialists of extreme and sometimes illegal protest."
Trujillo also inserted himself in international fora and strongly opposed advances made for reproductive rights, including the United Nations 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, whose Programme of Action represented a radically ambitious blueprint for women's reproductive health and rights. Referring to the ongoing fight for abortion rights Trujillo said, "the battle begins in Cairo," and indeed, the Vatican, led by Trujillo, was a constant roadblock to progress on women's rights and health at the United Nations.
Born in Villahermosa, Colombia in 1935, Trujillo quickly rose through the Vatican ranks and was made a bishop at age 35 and cardinal at 48. He served as archbishop of Medellin from 1979 until 1991, when he was made president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. From 1979 to 1983 Trujillo headed the Latin American Bishops' Council and was a forceful opponent to liberation theology, the Roman Catholic social and political movement, which originated in Latin America, and applied Catholic theology to defending and improving the lives of the poor and the oppressed. Trujillo reportedly attempted to purge the Council of advocates of liberation theology. These actions established his conservative bonafides within the Vatican and made him a close associate of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
At Trujillo's Mass this Wednesday Pope Benedict will likely commemorate the Cardinal's work to prevent women from accessing abortion and laud his efforts to eliminate contraceptives. What will be absent from the memorial is the tally of women who died or suffered grievous injury from unsafe and illegal abortions, and the number of men and women infected with HIV.
It is unlikely that Benedict -- sometimes referred to as "God's bulldog" for his fierce defense of Catholic theology -- will appoint a more moderate president to the Pontifical Council for the Family. Though one never knows, change can happen in the unlikeliest of places; last week Colombia, Trujillo's home country, issued a favorable ruling extending health and pension benefits to same-sex couples.
]]>Post-communism, in the early 1980s, Poland tightened the reigns on many social policies. Today, it has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, sex education in public schools is almost non-existent, and 45% of Polish women use "natural family planning" as their principal method of contraception. Crucifixes can be found in the halls of most public institutions, including the Parliament, state offices and public schools.
No wonder then that the World Congress of Families (WCF), an international network of "pro-family" activists led by the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, will be hosting its fourth conference in Warsaw this week.
Organizing since 1995, the WCF is a coalition of right-wing, primarily Christian groups and individuals who gather every few years with the hope of restoring "the natural family as the fundamental social unit." This means they want individuals to replicate the ideal of the nuclear family: "a man and woman bound in a lifelong covenant of marriage for the purposes of the continuation of the human species." According to the WCF, the natural family is a conceptual framework that prohibits a whole range of social behaviors, including abortion, contraception, and homosexuality.
What makes the WCF of concern to the sexual and reproductive rights community, the gay community, and women in general, is that their conferences bring together some of the most influential leaders of the anti-abortion and anti-feminist movements in the United States and internationally. The gatherings are not merely opportunities for groups to pontificate on the decline of family values and morality—though plenty of shrill griping does take place—the real focus is on actually reversing existing progressive social policies not only at the national level, but also global agreements negotiated at the United Nations.
It's certainly no coincidence that the concept for a World Congress of Families first emerged on the heels of the United Nations 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, whose Programme of Action represented a radically ambitious blueprint for women's reproductive health and rights.
The first two WCF meetings, in Prague and Geneva during the late 1990s, combined a bizarre mix of aristocrats (Dom Duarte, the Duke of Braganza and titular King of Portugal among others), and rightwing extremists, including David Crane, signatory of the Defensive Action Declaration, which promised to take "all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force."
The third WCF meeting, in Mexico City, 2004, signaled a move to the next stage of organizing and advocacy. Then Mexican President Vicente Fox's wife Martha Sahagun de Fox gave the opening address to the conference. She was joined by Ellen Sauerbrey, then U.S. representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Sauerbrey read a letter from her boss, President George W. Bush, in which the U.S. administration explicitly endorsed the WCF for the first time.
The Mexico City WCF was a more serious affair, and the notable roster of who's who from the international right-wing signaled the growing ascendance of the "pro-family" movement, all of which brings us to Poland today.
Since joining the European Union in 2004, the Polish government has raised alarm bells by enacting or supporting discriminatory policies toward women and gays. In March, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Poland in the case of a woman who was denied an abortion and forced to continue a pregnancy that threatened her health. Anti-gay discrimination and violence has been spiking under President Kaczynski, who recently affirmed his support for a proposal by his Minister of Education to criminalize the "promotion of homosexuality in the schools."
In April, after investigating this proposal, the European Parliament (EP) passed a resolution condemning Poland for an "increase in intolerance caused by racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and homophobia." This decision was not only rejected by President Kaczynski's identical twin brother, Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczynski, who declared that "It's not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals—that's obvious," but also by the WCF, which responded by accusing the EP of totalitarianism on par with that of the Nazis and communists.
Concerned that "Europe is almost lost...to a demographic winter and to the secularists," the WCF believes that "on family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point. It makes abundant sense that The World Congress of Families IV meet among the brave people of Poland."
The line up at this year's WCF makes the Mexico meeting look positively provincial. Sauerbrey will participate again and presumably bring Bush's ringing endorsement. She will share the stage with Wade Horn, long considered the Bush Administration's point man on abstinence education and who recently resigned as Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at HHS; Tom Minnery, Senior Vice President of Focus on the Family, and Paige Patterson, the former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, among other defenders of the faith.
And leading the pack with the honorary opening address will be President Lech Kaczynski. As Poland lurches further to right and as Christian conservatives endeavor to "reclaim" Europe, it remains to been seen whether the WCF can help establish the first Christian right beachhead in Europe.
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