From the editor

On 14 May 2020, the wealthy and powerful of this world will gather in Rome to sign the Vatican’s Global Compact on Education which will be implemented through the structures of Catholic education, involving over 70 million children and young people. What exactly is in the pact is yet unknown. But what we do know is what the key figures of the United Nations who have taken an interest in the initiative want the children to learn. We know what is in the working document and what Pope Francis has proposed with regard to education throughout his pontificate. We know the funding principles of some of the prospective partners who would help to provide the estimated $26 billion annual budget for the project. Even if the veil has not yet been lifted from the pact, we are able to connect these dots and predict what children and their families are going to be signed up to (see p.5).

A week later, on 20-21 May, Voice of the Family will hold its annual Rome Life Forum, which this year draws its theme from Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Divini Illius Magistri, on Christian education. (See details on the inside cover.) Pius XI places the most serious responsibility on Christian educators to safeguard the innocence of children, which will foster willful purity in their later life. The theme purity is particularly important for us today, because it is the antidote against every evil we face in the pro-life and pro-family movement – abortion, gender ideology, attacks on marriage, IVF technology, pornography, sex education, and so on.

The concept note for a Vatican workshop preparing for the Global Education Compact quoted UNICEF, saying that “educated girls are likely to marry later... They are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, better able to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and more able to participate in decision-making at all levels. Additionally, this...furthers Goals 2 and 3: universal primary education and gender equality”. Under Sustainable Development Goal no. 3, by 2030 UN member states are required to: “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services” – a term routinely used by UN bodies to radically increase the use of contraception and access to abortion worldwide. When girls are “educated” to delay marriage and protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases, does this happen through abstinence or with (abortifacient) contraception? It is scandalous that pontifical institutions should offer a platform for these discussions, especially without presenting a definitive answer. Thus, the moral voice of the universal Church is lent to a global agenda that ridicules purity and sexualizes children.

At Fatima, Our Lady showed the three little shepherds the terrifying vision of hell where the souls of poor sinners go. She revealed that it was sins against purity that lead most souls to hell. Today, a hundred years later, when sins against purity are state policy in the most powerful nations of the world and many Churchmen favour policies and school-based sex education that destroy the innocence of children, our commitment must be to recover the true wisdom of the Church and nurture the natural love of purity in her children. This is the FOCUS of this issue of Calx Mariae (see p.15).

Our Rome Life Forum could not come at a more crucial time. We are at war and purity is both our weapon and our shield. In purity is power and strength. Purity wins – for we have the promise of Our Lady that in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph. In the meantime, we must aspire to purity in the whole of life: faith and doctrine, holy orders, monastic life; personal and family life. Purity is the frontline of the counterrevolution. This is what we will discuss at the Rome Life Forum in May, followed by the Rome March for Life. We invite everyone to come to Rome and join the fight!

2020 VOICE OF THE FAMILY ISSN:2517-6455 © EDITOR Maria Madise

EDITORIAL BOARD Liam Gibson Matthew McCusker John Smeaton John-Henry Westen

DESIGN & PRODUCTION EDITOR Selina Fang

EDITORIAL OFFICE VOICE OF THE FAMILY Unit B, 3 Whitacre Mews, Stannary Street, SE11 4AB, London, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)20 7820 3148 Email: editor@voiceofthefamily.com www.voiceofthefamily.com/calxmariae

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DISCLAIMER: Great care is taken to credit photos and seek permission before publishing. If you have a query regarding copyright, please contact the Editor. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission. Donations for the continuation of this magazine in print will be gratefully received by Voice of the Family at the address above or online via: www.voiceofthefamily.com/donate

Calx Mariae seeks to contribute to the rebuilding of Christian civilisation by providing features and analysis in the areas of life, family and culture. Our aim in producing this magazine is to strengthen our readers in the faith and in their witness to the truth about human life and the family. Calx Mariae is published by Voice of the Family, an international coalition of prolife and pro-family organisations formed in support of Catholic teaching on the family. The following truths are particularly at the heart of Voice of the Family’s work:

9 Marriage, the exclusive, life-long union of one man and one woman, is the foundation of a stable and flourishing society and is the greatest protector of children, born and unborn. 9 The procreative and unitive ends of the conjugal act cannot licitly be separated; the rejection of this truth lies at the root of modern attacks on life and the family. 9 Parents are the primary educators of their children and the protection of this right is essential for building a new

“culture of life”.