By Michelle Goldberg
Daily Beast
February 3, 2011
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-02/the-shame-of-an-exorcist/
Until last year, Thomas Euteneuer was president of Human Life International, a group that has worked successfully to limit abortion and family planning all over the world. In August, he abruptly left his job, and now we know why. Earlier this week, Euteneuer, a Catholic priest, confessed to "violations of chastity" with a woman he was performing an exorcism on. When it comes to clerical abuse of vulnerable people, this may be a new frontier.
Euteneuer was a major figure in the anti-abortion movement. Though not well known in the United States, his organization has had a profound effect on women's rights around the world. It was founded in 1981 by Paul Marx, an anti-Semitic priest who blamed Jews for abortion. "If you have read my book The Death Peddlers, notice how many Jews helped lead the infamous 1971 abortion planning meeting in Los Angeles," wrote Marx, continuing, "Also, note the large number of abortionists (consult the Yellow Pages) and pro-abortion medical professors who are Jewish." He was a bigot, but he understood, correctly, that reproductive issues are often global. The United States and the United Nations play major roles in distributing family planning worldwide, while feminist movements regularly collaborate across borders. Human Life International aimed to work on the international stage as well.
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| Article - Goldberg Thomas Euteneuer Father Thomas Euteneuer conducted an outdoor Mass on April 1, 2005, outside the hospice center where Terry Schiavo died. (Wilfredo Lee / AP Photo) |
It was and is a radical organization; its spokesman, Don Treshman, once praised the shooting of a Canadian abortion doctor as a "superb tactic." Such rhetoric made it hard for the group to work on Capitol Hill or in international forums, so in the late 1990s, it created two spin-off organizations. One, The Population Research Institute, is devoted to dogging international family planning organizations like the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA. The other, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, or C-FAM, lobbies inside the United Nations.
These groups have had some notable successes. During the Bush administration, for example, the Population Research Institute accused the UNFPA of complicity with forced abortion in China. Even though a State Department investigation found the charges baseless, Bush nevertheless used them as a pretext to defund the U.N. group, which plays a major role in supporting women's health initiatives around the world. (Obama restored its funding shortly after taking office.)
Meanwhile, Human Life International, which Euteneuer took over in 2000, has built itself into a powerful force in the increasingly globalized anti-abortion movement. Abortion is broadly illegal in much of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and botched abortions account for tens of thousands of maternal deaths annually. Human Life International has offices and affiliates worldwide to fight against abortion liberalization, and, where possible, to make the law even more restrictive.
When it comes to clerical abuse of vulnerable people, this may be a new frontier.
In 2006, for example, Nicaragua removed all exemptions to its already strict abortion law, making the procedure illegal in all circumstances, even when a woman's life is at stake. The man who led the charge for the ban, a conservative gynecologist named Rafael Cabrera, was the president of Human Life International's Nicaraguan affiliate. When I interviewed him in 2006, he gave me Spanish-language versions of Human Life International literature.
The year after his group's victory, maternal mortality in Nicaragua doubled, and Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases in which women had died after being refused treatment for pregnancy complications.
So to people involved in international women's rights work, Euteneuer's organization is well known. He regularly circled the globe, visiting 58 countries over the last decade. He's also occasionally made news in the United States, particularly in 2007, after he said that Fox News host Sean Hannity should be denied communion because of his support for birth control. A Florida crisis pregnancy center that he established was featured in the HBO documentary "12th and Delaware".
It was and is a radical organization; its spokesman, Don Treshman, once praised the shooting of a Canadian abortion doctor as a "superb tactic." Such rhetoric made it hard for the group to work on Capitol Hill or in international forums, so in the late 1990s, it created two spin-off organizations. One, The Population Research Institute, is devoted to dogging international family planning organizations like the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA. The other, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, or C-FAM, lobbies inside the United Nations.
These groups have had some notable successes. During the Bush administration, for example, the Population Research Institute accused the UNFPA of complicity with forced abortion in China. Even though a State Department investigation found the charges baseless, Bush nevertheless used them as a pretext to defund the U.N. group, which plays a major role in supporting women's health initiatives around the world. (Obama restored its funding shortly after taking office.)
Meanwhile, Human Life International, which Euteneuer took over in 2000, has built itself into a powerful force in the increasingly globalized anti-abortion movement. Abortion is broadly illegal in much of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, and botched abortions account for tens of thousands of maternal deaths annually. Human Life International has offices and affiliates worldwide to fight against abortion liberalization, and, where possible, to make the law even more restrictive.
When it comes to clerical abuse of vulnerable people, this may be a new frontier.
In 2006, for example, Nicaragua removed all exemptions to its already strict abortion law, making the procedure illegal in all circumstances, even when a woman's life is at stake. The man who led the charge for the ban, a conservative gynecologist named Rafael Cabrera, was the president of Human Life International's Nicaraguan affiliate. When I interviewed him in 2006, he gave me Spanish-language versions of Human Life International literature.
The year after his group's victory, maternal mortality in Nicaragua doubled, and Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases in which women had died after being refused treatment for pregnancy complications.
So to people involved in international women's rights work, Euteneuer's organization is well known. He regularly circled the globe, visiting 58 countries over the last decade. He's also occasionally made news in the United States, particularly in 2007, after he said that Fox News host Sean Hannity should be denied communion because of his support for birth control. A Florida crisis pregnancy center that he established was featured in the HBO documentary "12th and Delaware".
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