(Archbishop of Nyeri, Kenya)
My intervention concerns the family in Africa. This institution is called a "domestic church" and a school because of its vital importance. It was the object of reflection for the Second Vatican Council and of an Apostolic Exhortation by His Holiness John Paul II who has declared this year the Year of the Family for the pastoral concern of the Church. I am sorry to say that the family in Africa suffers bitterly because of a situation of poverty enhanced by the never ending foreign debts, because of tribal conflicts inspired by power-hungry politicians and also because of the AIDS epidemic.
The information Project for Africa Inc. circulated news which upon checking against what is going on in Kenya I found convincing. The story goes like this: Population intervention in Africa by people from outside is a threat to the spiritual well-being of our families. World Birth Control meeting since Geneva in 1927, UNO in 1945, Rome in 1954, Belgrade in 1965, Bucharest in 1974, Mexico City in 1984 and later in September this year in Cairo want to use all kinds of means to control the number of inhabitants especially in the region of the earth called the Third World.
This campaign is spearheaded by the International Conference on Population and Development, the UNO agencies, the World Band and United States based foundations. The aims of the campaign are as follows:
a) To direct propaganda operations to Governments, official, private business leaders, influential elite and the general public.
b) To show that population increase in the Third World is a liability to developing economies and social systems. Population control is to be used as a weapon.
c) To intensify a propaganda oriented to build a new set of values that favour small families. To recruit political leaders who accept these new values and can serve as a medium for their diffusion among the general public.
The concrete practical objectives of the Birth Control campaigns also include:
1. A moulding of cultural, economic and political behaviour through propaganda, communication and arts.
2. Carrying out on-going research and precise planning to monitor and ensure the decrease of births.
3. Planning and executing operations to convey selective information and indicators to African audiences in order to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behaviour of government, organisations, groups and individuals.
4. Carrying out propaganda which fosters confusion and ambivalence about family planning.
5. Presenting the birth control message in such a haphazardous way that the audiences are exposed and manipulated by it inadvertedly.
6. Recruiting familiar local sources as agencies of Birth Control programmes because it is believed that the speaker is more credible if he or she has a bond with the member of the target group.
7. Making available colossal sums of money.
Should we Africans allow foreigners to tell us what to do or what not to do at the level of our families, our domestic Church and first school? When the Church's moral authority to teach what is a Divine Law is destroyed, what shall protect us from having that divine mandate totally destroyed? Is it fair to exchange our birth right that is based on the freedom of a well informed conscience, for any amount of money?
Original text: English
