Last updated on February 2nd, 2021 at 06:02 am
The bioethical repercussions of the new Administration that has taken office in the White House transcend national borders. They cross the ocean and make their way to Africa. Within hours of the inauguration in of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Washington, African Catholic Church leaders rose up against the pro-abortion agenda of the new United States.
New administrator at USAID.
The concerns relate to USAID, the U.S. government agency that handles aid to developing countries. On January 13, Biden announced the appointment to the administration of this body of Samantha Power. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and diplomat who, during Barack Obama’s presidency, had a role on the National Security Council where she stood out for her support of the LGBT+ cause, among other activities.
A pro-abortion, pro-LGBT+ president
According to some African Catholic Church leaders, contacted by AciAfrica, Power’s appointment will trigger “a cultural and ideological attack” on the Black Continent “through the promotion of programs contrary to African culture, such as abortion and homosexuality.” Bishop Emmanuel Badejo, of the Diocese of Oyo, Nigeria, believes Power complicates an already unfavorable situation, considering that Biden, despite calling himself Catholic, is poised to be “the most radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT+ president in U.S. history.”
The prelate is therefore convinced that the next four years will be very difficult for the Church: “We need to strengthen the faith in order to survive the conflict” that will inevitably arise with the new U.S. policy says Bishop Badejo. This judgment is almost identical to that expressed some time ago by the president of the US Catholic bishops, Bishop José Gómez.
Poison offered as an aid
What the Nigerian bishop is asking for is a reality check on the battle that awaits Christians at the front of the defense of life and the family. “We need focused education,” thundered Bishop Badejo, “appropriate catechesis, a prophetic denunciation of the poison that will be offered to Africa in the form of aid and development.”
Abortion along with aid
For his part, Father Bonaventure Luchidio, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Kenya, affirms that Africa does need a boost in development support and humanitarian aid, but he considers it “unethical and immoral” to include these needs in a package that also includes a radical agenda on bioethical issues. The same concern is shared by Father Zacharia Samjumi, Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria. “Organizations that promote traditional values,” Samjumi complains, “are denied financial support, while those that focus on aberrant lifestyles, contraception and abortion receive a lot of money.”
Population control
Father Samjumi offers the example of Nigeria’s former president, Goodluck Jonathan, a Catholic, who was reportedly “literally snubbed by the Obama administration for signing a law banning same-sex marriages.” The lack of US support, according to the cleric, would have cost Jonathan defeat against Islamic terrorism and not being re-elected to a second term in 2015.
Father Samjumi notes that the programs of Western agencies in Africa aim to promote “imperialistic anti-life objectives,” even “confusing the impressionable minds of children in schools about their sexuality.” For Father Joseph Tanga-Koti, secretary general of the Catholic bishops of the Central African Republic, Power’s appointment would be part of “a plan to reduce Africa’s population.“
A nun for life
The price to pay would be very high: “Death, sterility, easy sex, prostitution, violation of human dignity,” are the things Father Tanga-Koti lists.
Sister Paule Valérie Mendogo, of the Congregation of the Sisters Servants of Mary in Douala, Cameroon, explains that the desire of the faithful in Africa is for an end to “the manipulation of lobbies and mass-media, which promote and seek means to force Africans to engage in a radical anti-Christian revolution.” The nun recalls that, “in African languages there are no translations for abortion and homosexuality.” But via Orwellian newspeak, these words—and realities—are now set to land in Africa.