Prominent pro-life law professor Mary Ann Glendon has been appointed by Pope John Paul II to head the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences which guides the Catholic Church's social policies. Many Catholics have applauded the appointment, for a five-year term, of the Harvard University, Learned Hand law professor. Glendon was appointed to the Pontifical position after many years of advocacy of the Catholic teachings on a number of social issues, including abortion and same-sex unions.
“The challenge of the Church is to keep abreast of changes, but not dumb down its doctrine to the spirit of the age,” Glendon told the Associated Press yesterday. “Contrary to popular stereotype, John Paul II has done a great deal to put women in many responsible positions,” she said.
In a long online biographical article for the Boston Globe, Scott S. Greenberger, wrote of Glendon's “blending” of her “conservatism” on social issues with more liberal views. Glendon has written criticizing both the lack of protection for the unborn and against measures cutting benefits to the needy.
This may seem like a contradiction to the mainstream media that views most issues through a “left/right” lens. However, Natalie Hudson, of the Right to Life Association of Toronto and Area, says this viewpoint is too narrow to encompass the Catholic viewpoint on social issues which Glendon has been chosen to represent. “It confuses most secular media people who can only see that 'anti-abortion' equals 'conservative' and being on the side of the poor and downtrodden, equals 'liberal.' For Catholics, these positions, far from being in opposition, are one and the same.”
The official teaching of the Catholic Church encompasses protection for the weak or vulnerable, which includes the unborn as well as the poor. “This inability to see outside the simplistic liberal/conservative box has confused media reporting on social justice since the sixties,” says Hudson.
Most recently Glendon has been the leader in the Catholic opposition to same-sex “marriage.” She has met with Governor Mitt Romney on how to draft a bill that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. She has warned that the institution of “gay marriage” will usher in a period of unprecedented religious persecution of orthodox believers in all faiths.
Rev. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theologian who is considered by many Catholics to represent the “liberal” Catholic constituency, criticized the appointment, saying that Glendon does not represent Catholic women's views. McBrien said that Catholic women would “not see her as evidence of the Vatican's commitment to place women in high positions of visibility.”
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