Minister for Children Katherine Zappone An Irish faith-based charity has defended highlighting an event on social media, shunned by the Holy See, which was connected with promoting abortion
Misean Cara, who support missionary organisations, defended retweeting a post on Twitter from the Embassy of Ireland which highlighted a controversial summit in Kenya.
The tweet shows a picture of the Minister for Children stating: “Minister Katherine Zappone leading Ireland’s delegation at #NairobiSummit for #ICPD25, attends this morning’s vibrant Opening Ceremony where global leaders commit to ensure universal sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls around the world #KeepThePromise.”
The event was protested by the Church in Kenya and pro-life groups, with the country’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference saying it had a “hidden agenda” with an intent to “corrupt our youth and enslave them to foreign ideologies”.
The Governments of Denmark and Kenya, together with the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) organised the conference in Nairobi from November 12-14.
The Holy See stated the organisers’ decision “to focus the conference on a few controversial and divisive issues that do not enjoy international consensus and that do not reflect accurately the broader population and development agenda outlined by the ICPD [International Conference on Population and Development], is regrettable”.
A spokeswoman for Misean Cara stated: “Misean Cara is not going to make a comment on this issue. We’re a missionary development organisation of 91 members and we fully support our members in missionary development work in education, health, livelihood and human rights.
“Our social media is managed by our staff in house, and we follow and retweet Irish embassies from time to time to show our support for overseas development assistance.”