Review By The Universe newspaper 23 may 2010

A FUNDAMENTAL cog in the downfall of the Soviet Union; ‘a fierce critic of unbridled capitalism; -the scourge of wayward interpretations of the Church’s teaching but for all of Pope John Paul II’s, achievements, perhaps the most lastingly pertinent has actually been his identification of a culture of death enshrouding the world, particularly the west.

The evidence is becoming increasing difficult to avoid, with falling, birth rates, rocketing numbers, of abortions, sustained attacks on the institution of marriage and the growing menace of legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Such worrying developments were the focus of a recent conference hosted at Westminster Cathedral Hall. Organised by Family Life, International UK, which works to restore respect for the sanctity: of life, as well as restoring the pre-eminence of the traditional family for the thriving of society, the conference worked under the overarching theme of ‘Restoring the Culture Life’.

Unsurprisingly, it did not take long for echoes of Pope John Paul II to reverberate around the busy hall. Speaking on ‘The Dash to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia’, James Bogle, chairman of the Catholic Union, opened by recalling the late Pope’s witnesses to the very principles he proclaimed

“He gave a testimony, not just to the Church but to the whole world of how, even in the last years of one’s life, even in the seriously debilitating condition he was in, that you can still witness to the truth, and that you can still witness to the usefulness and to the uniqueness of humanity, in your self, as a person."

“I’m sure all of you will remember seeing him on the television when he went to the balcony to try and speak to the crowd. He wasn’t able to but in many ways he did speak, He spoke by his silence; lie spoke by his gesture of the uniqueness of humanity,”

During his talk, Mr Bogle, a barrister, outlined the current moves to legalise assisted dying and pertinently asked: “Once you decide that some lives are not worth living, where do you stop?”

Commenting on the Mental Capacity Act, he pointedly declared that the NHS is in danger of becoming an unfriendly place for the sick, the elderly and those doctors decide who do not have lives worthy Pro-Life, which could be any of us .”

The unnecessary confusion of moral principles has taken us down a path from which we can only turn back with difficulty” we’ve been down this road before in this continent and I suggest it is not a road we want to go down again,” Another past pope also featured prominently in the conference.

Steven W Mosher, president of the Pill US-based Population Research Institute and unacceptable. US-based Population Research Institute and a recognised expert on China's one-child policy, outlined how Pope Paul VI's predictions Humanae Vitae have been proved completely right.

Whereas his opponents predicted that the use of artificial contraception would reduce. teenage pregnancies, births, out of wedlock and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as enhance married life and the environment, the-Pope's warnings that it would lead to and the lowering of morality has proved to be the- reality.

As Mr Mosher commented “The lowering status of women and the devastation of marriage have been proven true. Such [contraceptive] drugs and devices have been proven a weapon in the hands of unscrupulous governments, The fact is that whole populations have been attacked.

"Of course Pope Paul VI did not make his condemnation of contraception on his prediction that the use of contraception would have bad consequences. Rather he argued that contraception is wrong because it is not in accord with the truth of our human person and the truth about marriage.”

Equally pertinently, Mr Mosher espoused a common theme among the ,:conference's speakers: the use of secular methods for positive purposes. Having commented that there is "evidence that hormonal contraception is causing massive, environmental damage", he argued. "We need to piggyback on the huge amount of attention on green and environmental issues and point out that if we want to protect the environment, then some of these compounds [ in contraceptives like the Pill] are unacceptable. "Simply, they are a major pollutant of our waterways,"

This environmental outlook was given a slightly different spin by Jo Tolck, executive director of Human Life Alliance in America, who declared: "The most endangered species right now is the child in the womb."

Ms Tolck also picked up on the use of secular techniques to appeal to protect to youngsters. She explained how her organisation works to get the pro-life message across on college campuses without utilising recognisably pro-life or religious images, thus reaching youngsters who would normally be resistant to such arguments.

The value of this approach was repeated by Brian Clowes, director of research and training for Human Life International, who concurred "It is most effective to put forward our arguments in secular terms.”

Mr Clowes also rubbished two of the predominant secular myths, First, he showed through figures that the number of people With Aids in Africa are lower in Catholic and Muslim countries than in those where condom usage, rather than abstinence, is promoted.

He also nailed the lie that control is necessary to stop the growth of the world's population commenting that "Europe is the most hard-hit by the abortion and contraception” mentality, Shockingly, the population of Europe is declining by two million people a year, even counting migration from outside the continent.

Though unquestionably controversial and hard-hitting, it would appear that the contributors, at least from America, were in agreement about the success of adopting secular presentational qualities.

However, Simon Dames, of the Scottish Catholic media office, perhaps 'rent deeper, underlining the need to be wary of playing too much on secularists' terms;

"The opponents of the Catholic Church have an internally coherent philosophy and ideology, but instead of just saying it's nonsense, it's very important we understand it. I suspect we don't understand it, like political correctness. Political correctness is a tabloid term for a neo-Marxist culture."

"When you don't understand your opponent then you're going to lose, so we have to respect this philosophy, but it has contradictions and does not grasp the totality of reality; it's not as comprehensive as Catholicism."

“For example, there is there use of language. Sadly, over the last four decades, the Catholic Church has arguably made the mistake of (going native', of using the language and the concepts of our opponents.

"Because we got into that mindset, we've not understood Catholicism so, you could say that in some ways the Church has been neutered in its intellectual capacity. We need to reclaim words like 'equality' for Catholicism."

"To give an example: multiculturalism is a Catholic concept. Europe was broken up by Protestantism; the idea of a nation state is a Protestant concept. The issue comes when multiculturalism is perverted in a philosophical Sense into an ideology."

"Thanks to militant atheistic secularism, that is exactly what these notions have become. Removed from t1ieir original context and placed in an overarching world view, they have become distorted, morphing into narrow specialist concerns', elevating minority interests above the common good."

"Yet to return to Pope John Paul II the words of Evangelium Vitae ring more pertinently than ever: 'To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognise that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance; that of an absolute power ever others and against others. This is the death of true freedom’.”