A Catholic priest who is campaigning against the change of article
42A of the Constitution in this Saturday's referendum, has said that he
absolutely stands over an article published in Alive! newspaper last
week in which he described the proposed amendment, as being,
“anti-parent.”
In an interview with CiNews, Fr Brian McKevitt OP, who is editor of the catholic monthly newspaper Alive!
accused the media and RTÉ in particular of, “suppressing,” much of the
debate from the No campaign and only using John Waters as spokesperson
for the No campaign.
Fr McKevitt said he would, “welcome a debate with Children's Minister
Frances Fitzgerald,” and that to date, all he had is, “less than a ten
minute debate with her on RTÉ's Week in Politics programme.”
Earlier this week the Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald TD accused Alive!, which is edited by Fr McKevitt, of, “misrepresenting,” the proposed constitutional amendment.
Ms Fitzgerald insists that, “parents rights would not be altered in
the event of a Yes vote."
The latest edition of Alive! describes the
referendum as ant-parents and carries headlines such as, State to back
teenagers over parents.
“The kind of headlines that I saw in Alive! are very
extreme and they're not correct. They are misrepresenting what the
amendment is about. The amendment is about protecting children,” Ms
Fitzgerald said.
“Parents rights and family rights are extremely central to our
Constitution. Not a word in relation to those has been changed in the
amendment. Parents' rights remain absolutely central but we're putting a
greater focus on protecting the vulnerable child in exceptional
circumstances.”
However Fr McKevitt said he disagrees with the Children's Minister.
He points out that article Three, which states that, “Provision shall
be made by law for the voluntary placement for adoption and the
adoption of any child,” is wrong.
“Parents have a natural duty to rear their child. This amendment
completely ignores this fact. Are all the rights which are to be given
to children going to be State-given rights as opposed to parents own
natural rights?”
He added, “The referendum is also asking voters to give children a
whole cart of rights without stating what these rights are. Many of the
rights that children will be given will be decided by the courts if
this amendment is passed and these rights will come from the UN Charter
on Children's Rights, which is a very worrying development.”
Questioned why this may be the case, he cites Article 13 of the UN
Charter on Children's Rights, which states, “The child shall have the
right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless
of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art,
or through any other media of the child's choice.”
According to Fr McKevitt such a development, “allows for the
exploitation of immature children and can lead to issues such as cyber
bullying of children.”