From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgFri Sep 1 10:03:51 1995 Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:08:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing95-l@netcom.com, beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: The Vatican's Delegation [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## author : Bebecee@aol.com ## date : 25.08.95 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [This article has been excerpted.] By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY, Aug 25 (Reuter) - Pope John Paul, in an unprecedented move, has chosen a delegation composed mainly of women to represent the Vatican at next month's U.N. women's conference in Beijing, the Holy See announced...Friday. But Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said...while the delegation to the September 4-15 conference, to be led by Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, would support full rights for women it would make no concessions on abortion. Navarro, briefing reporters on the Vatican's position, also asserted...the United States was sending a "pro-abortion, anti-family delegation" to the conference which he said did not represent the views of most Americans. He said the Holy See feared...the conference could be "a step backwards for human rights" if some positions in a draft document were adopted. The Vatican would oppose "arrogant" attempts to impose Western role models for women on the world. "The Holy See wants to commit its efforts towards the liberation of women from the heavy load of certain cultural and socially negative conditioning, which in many places has kept women from being conscious of their own dignity," he said. The 22-strong Vatican delegation to Beijing includes 14 women headed by Glendon, whose conservative views against abortion closely reflect those of the Pontiff. Glendon, 56, has written extensively on laws relating to abortion, divorce and the family. Navarro-Valls said it was the first time a Vatican delegation to an international conference was headed by a woman and included so many women. Glendon would be more senior...than Archbishop Renato Martino, the Vatican's U.N. envoy. He said the Vatican wanted the conference to "assume a perspective decidedly in favour of women" but he said the Holy See would continue to insist "...there exists no human right to abortion because this contradicts the human right to life." "The Holy See is not going there to defend motherhood. It is going there to defend womanhood and part of that is motherhood," Navarro-Valls said. The United States and the Vatican were at loggerheads over abortion at the U.N. conference on population and development in Cairo last September. The battle bogged down the conference. "It won't be a bed of roses," Navarro said, when asked if he expected a similar conflict with the United States in Beijing. [...] "It is not only abortion. There is a premise here of trying to impose one model of woman on the rest of the world and this is a bit arrogant," he said. He said the Vatican also contested the fact...the right of freedom of conscience for health workers opposed to abortion had been bracketed in the draft document, meaning no consensus was reached in preparatory meetings. "If freedom of conscience is not guaranteed in such cases that would be a violation of human rights," he said. "There are many cases like this (in the draft document). We hope...good sense will prevail." Navarro-Valls said the Vatican feared the gathering was a "high-risk" conference because no agreement had been reached on some 50 percent of the draft document. The Vatican's women delegates come from the United States, Norway, Poland, Chile, Malaysia, Nigeria, Vietnam, France and Hong Kong. Only one of them is a nun and one is Palestinian.