'Justice and Peace': dissident 'Catholic' groups

Catholics are naturally concerned with Justice and Peace. What characterises these groups is their complete unconcern about the issues of justice and peace about which Catholics have an important contribution to make to the contemporary debate as Catholics, and their fixation on issues - some genuine, some laregely imaginary - which are popular with the spectrum of opinion represented in the pages of the Guardian. So instead of talking about abortion, the lethal exploitation of the embryo, and the destruction of the family, they talk about third-world debt and climate change.

That, however, is not enough for us to include them in this list. For them to be there there must be pretty solid indications that they do not simply ignore Church teaching, but actually reject it. The joining in with the left-liberal establishment's agenda places the leaders of these organisations in a social context in which support for condoms to fight AIDS, contraception, abortion, and 'non-traditional family structures and lifestyles' is simply taken for granted. So with or without some attempts to veil the fact, these organisations reject the Church's teaching on these issues, to a greater or lesser extent.

What these groups are promoting is the same tired old rubbish as the government, the BBC, and secular quangos and NGOs. But they are doing it with Catholic volunteers and Catholic donations, with the approval of the Bishops (they all appear in the Catholic Directory for England and Wales) and therefore with special access to Catholic schools and parishes. This is a scandal and it must stop.

Click on the names of the groups to see our full dossier on each one.

The 'Justice and Peace' brigade.

Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD) An official agency of the Bishops' Conference, contrary to its protestations, and to the repeated teaching of the Church, it promotes the use of condoms to combat AIDS. It also has a bizarre habit of employing people who reject the Church's teaching on sexuality in their private lives, or line their pockets at the taxpayer's expense: see a separate dossier here.

Progressio formerly Catholic Institute of International Relations (CIIR) It no longer calls itself 'Catholic' but still wants to milk its Catholic history to undermine Church teaching. It attacks the Church's position on the use of condoms against AIDS, and is also linked to groups which promote abortion.

livesimply, a joint project of CAFOD and Progressio, presents itself as applying Catholic teaching on justice, compassion for the poor and concern for the environment, but instead of doing anything - even mentioning - abortion, practical almsgiving, or anything else distinctively Catholic it wants Catholic parishes to promote low-energy lightbulbs and turning down the heating to 'save the planet'. Their 'ecumenical partner' is 'Christian Ecology Link', which supports not only contraception, but abortion, and even the forced abortions of the Chinese 'one child policy': this is so appalling we have done a dossier on them as well.

Pax Christi, a political campaigning group opposing nuclear weapons, the war in Iraq etc., consistently misrepresenting the Church's teaching on war. Without claiming to be a Catholic organisation in its self-description, it is not only listed in the Catholic Directory but collects money on 'Peace Sunday' in parish churches. It is part of the 'Justice and Peace' establishment which produces much hot air on global poverty while ignoring abortion, euthanasia and the attack on the family.

National Justice and Peace Network, an umbrella group and campaigning organisation working from diocesan offices around the country and promoting the ideas of all the above organisations.

The Archbishop Romero Trust, ostensibly promoting knowledge of the Servant of God Archbishop Romero, it has extremely close links to the militant homosexual groups noted here.