During a recent Catholic conference in Warsaw, Archbishop Zbigevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia, noted that constant cooperation and dialogue among Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, and other Christian groups has been vital in protecting life and family in the Baltic nation of Latvia.
Stankevičs spoke at the Ave Maria School of Law and Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw on May 19 at the conference “St. John Paul II Natural Law Legacy.”
Stankevičs used his own ecumenical experience in Latvia as an example of how St. John Paul II’s doctrine of natural law might serve as the foundation for ecumenical cooperation in protecting human values.
The metropolitan archbishop of Riga, who is based in the Latvian capital, is not a stranger to ecumenical activity and thought. He was ordained as the first bishop in a Lutheran church since the separation from Protestantism in the 1500s in 2001. The unusual move, which took place in Riga’s Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral, formerly the Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary, marked the start of the Stankevičs family’s cooperation with the Lutheran church in Latvia, which would eventually turn into a partnership in the cause of life and the family. The archbishop has been a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity since 2012.
“I would like to present this ecumenical cooperation in three experiences in my country: the abortion debate, the civil unions discussion, and the so-called Istanbul convention,” Stankevičs began.
Getting involved in the abortion issue
Stankevis struggled to obtain suitable consultation for Catholic couples on natural family planning after being ordained as a priest in 1996. As a result of this, h He decided to open a small center that offered natural family planning under the motto “let us protect the miracle [of fertility].”
His participation in the world of natural family planning would lead him into the midst of Latvian society’s abortion issue, finally leading him to the conclusion that moral debates in the public sphere benefit from a foundation in natural law, as highlighted in John Paul II’s teachings.
Stankevičs said, “I knew that theological arguments would not work for a secular audience, so I wanted to show that Catholic arguments are not opposed to legal, scientific, and universal arguments, but rather are in harmony with them”.
“[A] few years later our parliament introduced the discussion to legalize abortion. No one was doing anything so I decided to do something. I consulted some experts and presented a proposal that was published in the most important secular newspaper in Latvia,” the archbishop said.
“Why I was Lucky,” a paper by Stankevičs, used both biological and spiritual reasons to defend human life. “But she was a believer, a Catholic, so she refused the pressure,” this he said about his own mother, who was under pressure to get an abortion when she was pregnant with him.
Following the legalization of abortion by the Latvian parliament in 2002, Christians of various denominations decided to join forces to defend the right to life and the family.
Catholics make up 25 percent of the population in Latvia, Lutherans 34.2 percent, and Russian Orthodox 17 percent, with other smaller Christian denominations accounting for the rest.
“We started to work together by the initiative of a businessman in Riga, a non-believer who wanted to promote awareness about the humanity of the unborn,” the archbishop recalled.
He said, “Bringing all Christians together in a truly ecumenical effort ended up bearing good fruits because we worked together in promoting a culture of life: from more than 7,000 abortions per year in 2002, we were able to bring it down to 2,000 by 2020″.
Ecumenical advocacy for marriage and family
Concerning civil unions legislation, another area where Stankevičs has organized ecumenical groups around natural law defense of marriage, the archbishop said he has witnessed the tension surrounding LGBT problems in Latvian society rise as increasing pressure is applied to legalize same-sex partnerships.
Stankevičs “had the opportunity to explain the teachings of the Catholic Church and what was the real meaning of the Holy Father’s words” after being invited to a debate on a popular Latvian television show called “One vs. One” after Pope Francis’ remark “who am I to judge?” was widely interpreted in Latvian society as approving homosexual unions.
The legislation suggested by the ecumenical group of Christians would have introduced compulsory restrictions aimed at protecting any sort of shared family; “for example, two old persons living together to help one another, or one old and one young person who decide to live together.”
“The law would benefit any household, including homosexual couples, but would not affect the concept of [the] natural family,” Stankevičs explained. “Unfortunately the media manipulated my proposal, and the Agency France Presse presented me internationally as if I was in favor of gay marriage.”
The Latvian Constitutional Court ruled in favor of legalizing homosexual partnerships in 2020, and the parliament was directed to pass laws in accordance with the ruling.
The Latvian Men’s Association responded by launching a campaign to change the Latvian constitution to clarify the idea of family. The Latvian constitution, which was adopted in 2005, stated that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman, but it created a legal hole regarding the definition of family, which the court sought to fill by interpreting it to encompass homosexual relationships.
The Latvian bishops’ conference backed the Men’s Association’s revision, “but most crucially,” Stankevičs explained, “we put together an ecumenical statement signed by the leaders of 10 different Christian denominations supporting the idea that the family should be based on the marriage between a man and a woman. The president of the Latvian Jewish community, a good friend, also joined the statement.”
Something odd happened next, according to Stankevičs. “The Minister of Justice created a committee to discuss the demand of the constitutional court, and it included several Christian representatives, including three from the Catholic Church, which worked for a year.” Despite all of the debates and proposals, the Minister of Justice ultimately sent a proposal to parliament recognizing homosexual couples as married.
The response was also ecumenical: Christian leaders wrote to the parliament, urging them to reject the government’s proposal.
The idea has already cleared one round of voting, according to Stankevičs, “and it is highly likely that it will be adopted in a second round of votes, “and it is very likely that it will be approved in a second round of votes, with the support of the New Conservative party. But we Christians continue to work together.”
Avoiding Gender ideology
The Istanbul Convention, a European pact that the Latvian government signed but did not ratify, was the third area of ecumenical collaboration described by Stankevičs.
The treaty was established as an international legal instrument that acknowledges violence against women as a violation of women’s human rights and a form of discrimination.
Although the agreement purports to address a wide range of gender-based violence against women, Christian churches in Latvia have condemned the document’s excessive use of gender ideology in both its framing and terminology.
For example, the term “gender” is defined as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men,” a definition that allows gender to be defined independently of biological sex and thus raises the question of whether the document is truly aimed at women’s protection.
Christian communities have also raised concerns about the commission charged with enforcing the convention’s prejudice.
Slovakia and Bulgaria refused to ratify the agreement, while Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia expressed doubts, despite the fact that the treaty was eventually ratified in those nations, a step that the Polish government is attempting to reverse.
“When we found out that the Latvian parliament was going to ratify it, I went to the parliament and presented the common Christian position,” Stankevičs explained.
The Latvian parliament voted not to ratify the convention as a result of that visit, Stankevičs stated, crediting the appeal to the unity provided by the shared Christian perspective presented through natural law.
“In conclusion,” the archbishop stated, “I can say that in Latvia we continue to defend the true nature of life and family. But if we Catholics would act alone, we would not have the impact that we have as one Christian majority. That unity is the reason why the government takes us seriously.”