"Effort to oust Vatican from UN "
One of the most hypocritical aspects of the Watchtower’s NGO affair is its condemnation of Christendom’s support for the UN. Bethel even had the temerity to publicize a lobbying campaign of NGOs that were calling for the Vatican to be stripped of its so-called “permanent observer status” at the United Nations. However, in doing so the writers neglected to inform Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Watchtower was also functioning as a DPI-approved NGO at the time. For that matter, conspicuously absent in Watchtower literature is any reference to NGOs at all. Curiously, the only place that the NGO acronym even appears in any Watchtower publication is the October 22nd, 2000, Awake. The article entitled: “Effort to oust Vatican from UN” reads, in part:
“THE Rome-based news agency Inter Press Service (IPS) reported that “an international coalition of more than 70 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has launched a global campaign to oust the Vatican from the United Nations.” Presently, the Vatican is a permanent observer, or nonmember state, in the UN organization. The Vatican has had that status since 1964.
Why does this group of NGOs, which by the end of April last year had increased to 100 organizations worldwide, object to the Vatican’s position in the UN? Because the Vatican, the NGOs argue, is a religious authority and not a political state. Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, told IPS that the coalition does not oppose the Vatican’s right to express its view, but “what is in question is the right of this non-state to occupy a position with governments…
…According to Ms. Kissling, “the appropriate role for the Vatican is that of a NGO—the same as all the other NGOs representing Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais and other religious organisations.” The coalition wants UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and ultimately the UN General Assembly to conduct an official review of the place the Vatican occupies within the world’s largest political body.”
The very fact that the Watchtower Society saw fit to publicize the efforts of its fellow NGOs to oust the Vatican from the UN is indicative of its own support for the campaign. But most assuredly, the above quote would never have been republished in the Awake magazine had Miss Kissling also specified that Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the “other religious organizations”represented at the UN as an NGO.
