I write in response to a recently published letter, titled “Shame on you, Father Tom,” by Josh Rowle, which accuses Fr. Thomas Flowers, pastor of St. Jude the Apostle Parish in Lewes, of being misguided and highhanded in his statement that he would not have authorized the sale by a local Girl Scouts troop of their cookies on parish grounds during Sunday Masses because of the Girl Scouts of America’s affiliation with Planned Parenthood - an organization which acts in direct opposition to Catholic Church morality and teaching by promoting and providing abortions.
In his condemnation of Fr. Flowers’ position, Mr. Rowle cites the girlscouts.org website and factcheck.org as refutation of the claim that the GSA does have a cooperative relationship with Planned Parenthood. The GSA, on its own website, does deny any formal affiliation with Planned Parenthood - a disavowal which is simply reiterated by Factcheck - because, it can be demonstrated, they do not want to alienate the many local troops made up of girls from families with traditional values, especially very many Catholic communities which have had a long and strong association with GSA. And it should be noted that the local troops are not necessarily or even likely to hold or even be aware of the GSA’s national agenda or involvements.
Had Mr. Rowle been as “diligent” in his research as he implies he was, he would have discovered several more objective and authoritative sources which cite many clear and irrefutable evidences of the GSA’s involvement with and support of Planned Parenthood and other organizations advancing agendas absolutely unacceptable to the Catholic ethic.
One such well-established and highly regarded source is the Catholic News Agency which published the article, “Girl Scouts Leadership: Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay Ideologues,” by Mary Hasson, mother of seven and fellow in Catholic Studies at the very prestigious Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
( https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/cw/post.php?id=621).
In that article, Mrs. Hasson makes the thoroughly researched and documented case that the GSA espouses a sure bias which “reflects the core convictions of the Girl Scouts’ National Leadership Team and Board of Directors. These individuals, who frame and implement the Girl Scouts’ mission, maintain tight connections with Planned Parenthood, other abortion advocates, and foundations that support them.” Mrs. Hasson goes on to provide a detailed and lengthy list of examples of such biased attitudes and involvements:
GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez collaborated with Planned Parenthood as head of Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas; (See UPDATE).
GSUSA National President Connie Lindsey donated to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT Chicago Foundation for Women;
GSUSA Board Member Barbara Krumsiek is the board chair of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation which funds Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington;
GSUSA Board Member Monica Gil is a volunteer and former board member (through 2011) of the Saban Free Clinic in L.A., which provides “free and easy” birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion referrals to teens over 12, without parental notice or consent;
GSUSA Board Member and Executive Secretary Debra Nakatomi is international commissioner to the pro-abortionWorld Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and promoted contraceptives to Asian teens through California’s Get Real program;
Laurie Westley, GSUSA senior vice president of Public Policy, Advocacy & the Research Institute, previously worked for the National Women’s Political Caucus, a group dedicated to electing pro-choice women.
Joan Wagnon, the GSUSA treasurer, board of directors, accepted large campaign contributions from late-term abortionist George Tiller while she was Secretary of Kansas’ Department of Revenue and praised Tiller’s “social conscience and … big heart”; Ellen S. Fox, GSUSA board member from 2008 through 2011, serves on the Investment Committee of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Board of Directors.
The list goes on. Fr. Tom, as we affectionately call our pastor at St. Jude’s, could not have done other than to refuse a large Catholic parish’s support of a movement that fundamentally contradicts, to the spiritual and moral peril of our most vulnerable members, our church’s central affirmation of life and rejection of the “culture of death,” as St. John Paul II termed it.
Alfred Hanley, Ph.D.
parishioner, St. Jude the Apostle Parish
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