Imago Dei, Volume 3, Issue 1

The Monthly Newsletter of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute

January 2013 - Volume 3, Issue 1

Promoting Human Dignity based on the recognition the Man is made
in the Image and Likeness of God

Editorial

Before French military involvement in Mali hit our news screens, it is doubtful if most people could even find this country on a map. Yet now, with the Islamist threat from Mali and the whole of the Maghreb becoming apparent, it has become the primary issue of the day for Western governments.

While France enjoys the plaudits for its quick and forthright military response the truth is that France, along with the rest of the Western powers, acted too late. For years, the emerging Salafist danger within the Maghreb, brought out of the near-ungovernable turmoil of that region, has been apparent.

Only last summer, the Dignitatis Humanae Institute pointed to the danger of previously insular terror groups in Nigeria and elsewhere, expanding their raison d'être and their base of operations. The danger was not contained, and now Western nations find themselves deploying troops all across the region in a desperate bid to confine the threat.

While France and others may be willing to temporally set their militaries to this task, they have showed no signs of wishing to address the long-term root causes, the intra-state violence waged against differing ethnic groups and faiths, in a power vacuum only exacerbated by the Arab Spring. Those who have suffered most from this state of anarchy are West Africa's Christians, as has been the case throughout the MENA region.

Until these structural problems within the Maghreb are addressed, Islamist terror groups will continue to find fertile ground for propagation; and the recent advances of Western nations in the region, for all the blood and treasure spent, will amount to nothing.

Daniel
Daniel Howard

Editor, Imago Dei

Pro-Life News

The pro-life cause in the United Kingdom has recently gained a very promising enterprise. January 16th saw the official launch of the Alliance of Pro-Life Students - a nationwide initiative aiming to "build university communities in England, Scotland and Wales that have a lasting and profound respect for human life from fertilisation to natural death."

It is the first national body of this kind focusing on the promotion of pro-life values within student communities across the United Kingdom. Speaking exclusively to Imago Dei, Eve Farren, the leader of the Alliance, explained that:
"The creation of APS was a response to a growing

need to provide university students with a platform to voice their opinion on pro-life issues and hence react to the increasing number of attempts to silence pro-life motions at academic establishments. As such, APS functions as an umbrella group uniting and providing support to pro-life student groups from all over the country."

Eve Farren has also emphasised that "students are the future of our societies and play crucial role in shaping them, therefore support and promotion of pro-life values in this group is so important." The APS activity is gathering momentum as they have already scheduled several forthcoming events at the leading UK universities, Oxford and Birmingham to name a few, where they will "channel the energy and enthusiasm of students to revitalise the pro-life movement" through their three guiding principles: building, supporting and connecting.

Further information can be found here

Recent Press Releases

Nirj Deva MEP: "Deeds, not Words" Required over Pakistan Honour Killings

UK: "Creeping towards Liberticide"

French Government: We will "dissolve" "Religious Pathology" and "excesses" in the Church

"The Institute promotes recognition of the infinite value of every single person by recognising each human life as being made in the Image and Likeness of God, from conception until natural death. The Imago Dei is the source of the sanctity of human life. Promoting Human Dignity protects this sanctity in the political sphere, as the Christian Faith upholds it in the cultural sphere. The Institute exists to draw these themes together."

Benjamin Harnwell

Founder, Dignitatis Humanae Institute

Links

Website
Facebook
Declaration
Donate

If you have any human dignity related stories you would like including in next month's newsletter, please contact us by at:

press-office@dignitatishumanae.com

For enquiries into internships with the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, please contact office@dignitatishumanae.com

Reflection

"When God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man."

Pope Benedict XVI

Recent Publication

Exposing vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide - Alex Schadenburg

With Western nations increasingly eroding the legal safeguards against euthanasia and assisted suicide, the new publication from Alex Schadenburg, Executive Director and International Chair of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

highlights the false

Speaking to Imago Dei, Alex stated:

"Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide was written to counter the false conclusions from the recent studies in the UK and Canada that have stated that: "euthanasia and assisted suicide can be safely legalized with safeguards and that there are no indications that a "slippery slope" has occurred in jurisdictions where it has been legalized."

By uncovering the truth that is found in the data from the recent peer reviewed studies from Belgium and the Netherlands we learn that vulnerable patient groups are dying by euthanasia without request and that these deaths are being covered-up by the doctors not reporting these deaths as a euthanasia death.

Read Exposing Vulnerable People and learn what is really occurring in Belgium and the Netherlands."

Further information be be found here

Human Dignity News