Fr. Tim Moyle re Save A Family Plan

When Is Gender Mainstreaming Not Gender Mainstreaming

John Pacheco at Socon or Bust did a dump or two on Save A Family Plan, a charity that both Fr. Tim Moyle of Where the Rubber Hits the Road and I have considerable knowledge of from our experiences with St. Peter's Seminary. John has gone on the attack over the use of a term "Gender Mainstreaming" because of what it means to him, not what it means to Save A Family Plan. This is totally unfair to a very worthwhile charity, and frankly I wish that he would get his stories straight before he launches off on an organisation or a person.

This is not his first kick at someone from St. Peter's Seminary, as you may recall his kicking at Fr. Michael Prieur from there over what he calls baby euthanasia.

Here is what Father Tim Moyle wrote about Save a Family Plan and gender mainstreaming in their context:

John Pacheco of the SoCon website has been raising concerns about the Save A Family Plan, a Catholic charity group that works out of St. Peter's Seminary and in India. He has pointed out that SAFP practices "Gender Mainstreaming" which is a phrase with many definitions. The United Nations seem to use this term to cover a multitude of anti-life and pro-homosexual programs that are absolutely in opposition to church teaching. If SAFP were to use the term to mean the same, then with would be a major scandal.

However, according to the SAFP website, this is not what they mean when they use the term. Below is their definition of "Gender Mainstreaming":

Gender Mainstreaming

SAFP is committed to achieving gender equality, and as a means of addressing gender disparity, gender mainstreaming is applied across all SPED II program activities as a cross-cutting theme. By integrating gender considerations into all organizational and program activities—planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, reflection—SAFP and its partners increase their own capacity to understand, promote, and facilitate development that views the needs of women and men equally. Gender impact assessments guide this process at the planning stage by recognizing the often-different needs of men and women, and by determining how planned interventions will differentially affect them.

This entire issue points once again to the problem of people who set themselves up as the arbiters of orthodoxy on the net and proceed to attack those who do not (in their opinion) meet the Catholic standard. As Michael Brandon at his Freedom of Thought blog has stated on more than one occasion, such people would be better served by going to the source of their concern before publishing edicts of heresy about others.

Don't get me wrong. People like John Pacheco at SoCon do a great deal of good. It is simply my prayer that they would be a little more cautious and do their homework before they issue their pronouncements. Excellent programs such as SAFP are not above criticism, but they have earned the right to be extended the benefit of the doubt in such issues as "gender mainstreaming".

Fr. Tim Moyle

Thank you Father Tim for clearing this up.