Save Amnesty: Schools out for AI

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS in Northern Ireland are breaking their ties with Amnesty International following the organization's decision to advocate abortion as a human right.

Next month the Irish bishops will meet to discuss whether or not any of the Church's schools should maintain links with AI, but moves by some schools in Belfast would indicate that it is a foregone conclusion that the policy throughout the country will be to drop AI in favour of other human rights groups. The auxiliary bishop of Down and Connor, Donal McKeown said that his diocese had already taken the view that it would be inappropriate for Catholic schools to continue supporting Amnesty.

"Amnesty's espousal in recent months of campaigning for abortion access in limited circumstances will leave many people in a difficult situation, " he said. "All we are saying here is that it seemed inappropriate in those circumstances for Catholic schools to be promoting the organisation."

The deepening rift between many current members and AI over its pro-abortion stance will have longer-lasting implications for the organization: since its formation by the Catholic Peter Benenson in 1961, it has become common for Catholic schools to establish an AI group of their own, or to at least support the organization's campaigns and many former pupils have gone on to support the organization after they left school. With its decision to divide its membership base, AI is likely to lose the prospect of longer term supporters.

In Canada, the Catholic Bishops Conference is also expected to make a strong statement condmening Amnesty's aborion move when it meets in October. Last week St Basil's Secondary School in Ontario, Canada announced that it would no longer have ties with its local AI group.

In Australia the Bishops have already called for AI to reverse its policy and in August St Aloysius College in Sydney, Australia announced that it would disband its Amnesty International group and instead establish a Benenson Society at the school to campaign for human rights.

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