20-September-2000 -- Catholic World News Brief

ROME, Sep. 19, 00 (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - Writing in the Italian newspaper Avvenire, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

slammed the UN's proposals for a "New World Order" targeting for special criticism the UN's goal of depopulation.

The cardinal, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted that the philosophy coming from recent UN conferences and the Millennium Summit "proposes strategies to reduce the number of guests at the table of humanity, so that the presumed happiness [we] have attained will not be affected." He criticized this philosophy for "not being concerned with the care of those who are no longer productive or who can no longer hope for a determined quality of life."

Cardinal Ratzinger noted that "at the base of this New World Order" is the ideology of "women's empowerment," which erroneously sees "the principal obstacles to [a woman's] fulfillment [as] the family and maternity." The cardinal advised that "at this stage of the development of the new image of the new world, Christians-- and not just them but in any case they even more than others-- have the duty to protest."