Retraction and apology on Caritas Haiti

It has just come to my attention that Caritas Haiti published a "clarification" on their activities.  You can read the document in French here.

The author of the "clarification" is the Director General of Caritas Haiti.  He explains that the language on their website does not imply any support for abortion or contraception.  On the contrary, they affirm their adherence to Church teaching on these matters.  

I deeply regret the error on my part and apologize to Caritas Haiti, Development and Peace, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and to my readers.  I had contacted Caritas Haiti to seek clarification before publishing my story, but they never replied.  In the past, I've been ignored by other groups that subsequently proved to be financially supporting pro-abortion activities.  As a result, the silence of Caritas Haiti was not reassuring.  Nevertheless, I'm deeply sorry about my error.

I'm still surprised that they used language typically employed only by pro-abortion groups.  I'm fluent in French, having actually been raised mostly in French, so I fully understand the subtleties of the French language.  I hope that Caritas Haiti will be refining the wording on their website to avoid erroneous interpretations about their ministry. 

Their clarification was released one week after the Holy See visited my blog (side note:  the Holy See came back a second time on February 18).  The two ambiguous sentences that Caritas Haiti felt the need to clarify in the document above were specifically the sentences I quoted in my blog post.  It wouldn't surprise me that the Holy See contacted Caritas Haiti to request that they publicly clarify their stance.  This is a testament to the growing influence of blogs.  With influence also comes great responsibility.  We need to be careful about what we write.

Once again, I apologize for this error.  Yet, this does not call into question the Development and Peace scandal and the involvement of Canada's bishops.  Many D&P partners openly advocate abortion and contraception directly on their websites or in their offices.  There can be no misinterpretation in those cases.  One error on my part doesn't erase the mountain of evidence collected over the past year by various sources.

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