Angelicum invites Cherie Blair to speak in Rome

Troubling news from the Social Sciences Faculty at the Angelicum in Rome. It seems we have new stories like this all the time:

"Pro-life Catholics around the world are responding with outrage that the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome (the “Angelicum”), one of the premier Catholic institutions of higher education, has invited Cherie Blair, the pro-abortion wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, to speak at a conference on women’s rights on December 12th." (LifeSiteNews)

Cherie Blair is simply very bad news when it comes to sexual ethics, as the LifeSiteNews article details at length. She's also made the AmP pages on occassion.

Fr. Philip Powell has obtained a copy of the reply written by Sr. Helen Alford, OP, the dean of the Angelicum social sciences school, who claims that because the Pontifical Academy invited her, so can they.

Her response doesn't satisfy John Smeaton who writes: "it was not justified of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to have invited Mrs Blair to speak in 2006, nor is it justified of the Angelicum today."

I have to say inviting Cherie Blair on the topic of women and human rights is a paradoxical choice because it is in this area where she most directly opposes Catholic doctrine and practice, energetically and continually.

Ph/t: Dawn.

update: Hilary White, LSN's Rome correspondent, posts an update.