CFC European Advisory Group
Both Europe and the European Union remain critical and challenging places for progressive Catholics and the work of Catholics for Choice. Between the continuing debates about and national policies regarding abortion, the public discussions of stem cell research and new technologies and the impact of fundamentalisms on public policy, there exists a manifest need for progressive voices and activism in the region.
CFC has long been involved in work that affects various European countries as well as the European Union. This work has included:
- working with national and European parliamentarians,
- coordinating the All Party Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics in the European Parliament,
- providing communications trainings to individuals and groups working on sexual and reproductive health and rights issues,
- conducting opposition research,
- reaching out to and educating progressive Catholics about our issues, and
- promoting policies that enhance reproductive health and rights, the separation of religion and politics, and more.
This year, CFC instituted a CFC-Europe Advisory Group to bring together leading Catholic thinkers and activists from different parts of Europe to serve as a working group on the issues. Through the efforts of this group and dedicated staff, CFC will continue its work to infuse its values into public policy, community life and Catholic social thinking and teaching in Europe.
The members of the group are:
- HENK BAARS
- FRANS A.J. BANEKE
- SUSANA CRUZALTA AGUIRRE
- GAIL GROSSMAN FREYNE, LL.B, PhD
- ANNA (ANKA) GRZYWACZ
- ELFRIEDE HARTH
- CHINI RUEDA SABATER
- MARGARET MAYANS DICKINSON
HENK BAARS
Henk Baars currently works as a manager of eight social projects located in the poor neighborhoods of The Hague for Stek (for City and Church or voor Stad en Kerk), the most important Protestant church in the city. As the former president of the Eighth of May Movement, Henk was denied the opportunity to get another job in the Catholic church of Holland by the bishops, leading him to work in the Protestant church.
Henk initially served as a pastor in a steel mill in IJmuiden, and later in Amsterdam as an industrial chaplain in the shipbuilding industry and the world of finance. He was a community worker in Haarlem and the coordinator of a team that helped the Catholic parishes in their development
In 1985, Henk started with others and eventually became president of the Eighth of May Movement (named for the date the pope visited Holland), an organization that drew more than 10,000 Catholics to its annual gatherings. Recently, Henk and a group of friends of the movement initiated a Web site to create a platform for more progressive ideas (www.rk-kerkplein.org). They are a member of the EN (European Network group).
Henk is president of the Urban Mission Network in the Netherlands, a network of 200 social projects related to the Catholic and Protestant churches. He is a member of the board of the oldest peace movement in Holland—'Kerk en Vrede' (Church and Peace).
He has a background in Catholic theology, and he is married with two sons.
Frans Baneke (58), a Dutch national, holds a Master in Economics from the University of Amsterdam. He worked at UNDP Manila and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs before joining the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), where he worked for 20 years. At FMO, he dealt with numerous private investment finance projects in Africa and Asia, acted for four years as FMO representative in Jakarta and for two years as Secretary General of the Brussels office of the European Development Finance Institutions. In 1998, he became Managing Director of African Management Services Company (AMSCO), a company established by UNDP and the World Bank Group to provide interim management and training programs to private companies in some 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2003, he became Executive Director of World Population Foundation (WPF) and in 2005, he was elected Chairman of EuroNGOs, the European platform of organizations focused on Reproductive Health in European development programs.
Frans is an economist with ample international experience who strongly believes in the importance of population and reproductive health issues. He was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition and has come to the conclusion that working on sustainable development is not possible without deep understanding of and attention to cultural, spiritual and ethical dimensions—especially with respect to the position of women.
Susana Cruzalta started her work in the human rights area in 1994 at the education department of the Human Rights Center “Don Sergio” in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she gave workshops and participated in the elaboration of educational materials. From 1995 to 1997, she worked at the Communications Department of the Human Rights Center “Fray Francisco the Vitoria OP” in Mexico City, where she conducted research on human rights in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and collaborated in the preparation and promotion of a human rights magazine called “Justicia y Paz” (Justice and Peace).
Susana joined Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD) in Mexico in 1995, where she worked on the elaboration, distribution, translation and promotion of educational materials until December 2000. She was also responsible for the establishment and coordination of the “Latin American and Caribbean Youth Network for Sexual and Reproductive Rights” and represented CDD in various national and international events.
Susana was born and raised in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She holds a degree in international relations from the University of the Americas Mexico and an LLM in human rights law from the University of Nottingham, UK. In January 2001, she moved to Berlin and in March 2003, she moved to Rome.
GAIL GROSSMAN FREYNE, LL.B, PhD
Gail Grossman Freyne is a psychotherapist and mediator and is a founding member of the Family Therapy & Counselling Centre in Dublin where she works in private practice.
Gail was born in Australia and did her law degree at Melbourne University. She has practiced law in both Australia and New Orleans, La. Recently, she completed her PhD in feminist ethics, her particular area of interest, and it will be published in November as “Care, Justice and Gender: A new harmony for family values.”
In Ireland, Gail is particularly interested in the legal and psychological aspects of the sexual abuse problem and also in the case currently before the High Court brought by a lesbian couple who are seeking to have their Canadian marriage recognized in that jurisdiction. She also teaches gender in the professional training program for family therapists, and ecofeminism in the MA program in theology and ecology in the University of Lampeter, Wales.
She is married and lives in Dublin with her husband, Sean, and their two daughters, Bridget and Sarah.
Anka Grzywacz is a freelance translator living in Warsaw, Poland. She holds an MA in applied linguistics from Warsaw University. She has been a volunteer at the Federation for Women and Family Planning for five years. Anka has been involved in numerous projects, including the Women on Waves campaign for the right to safe and legal abortion. During the past three years, she has received training and practiced as a peer sexual educator in secondary schools with a group of volunteers called Ponton. She also attended numerous workshops and conferences, particularly on youth reproductive rights issues.
Recently Anka decided to pursue a political career and started preparing for the new role by serving as a volunteer assistant to vice president of Poland's major left-wing party, Social Democratic Alliance (SLD), Professor Joanna Senyszyn. Her ambition is to become an MP dealing with women's rights issues. Anka makes a living translating documents, articles from the foreign press and movie subtitles.
Elfriede Harth has been the European Representative of Catholics for Choice since 2001. She has worked to enhance the presence of CFC in the European Parliament, assuming the secretariat of the European Parliament's Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics, and she has been a leading actor in the progressive Catholic community in Europe and an active observer in the European sexual and reproductive rights community (EuroNGOs). Harth was the first spokesperson of the International We Are Church Movement (1996-2001), and for three years president of the European Women's Synod (1998-2001). She is a member of Maria von Magdala, a German Catholic feminist association and of Femmes et Hommes en Eglise, a similar organization in France. Harth holds a diploma from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and a postgraduate degree in sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France. She is Colombian and German.
Chini (María Eugenia) Rueda Sabater works as an elementary school teacher. She is president of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir in Spain and joined the group in 2003. She is also a member of GIE (Spanish Interest Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health).
Chini has worked on women related issues since the 1990s. She was involved in educational programs for marginalized women in Vallecas (Spain) and in Mindanao (the Philippines). She has been connected to feminist theology reflection groups and has written several articles on that issue.
Chini holds a degree in systematic theology from Comillas University, a Jesuit University in Madrid, and graduated with a degree in elementary school teaching from Zaragoza University. She lives in Villalba.
Margaret Mayans Dickinson was born in 1948 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, to a Spanish father and English mother. Educated at Carmelitas de Vedruna in Gandía (Valencia) and at a boarding school run by the IBVM Loreto nuns in Madrid, Margaret also studied two years of biology at Valencia University. She has studied theology in Seville and at the Jesuits’ Centro Arrupe in Valencia.
After being married for one year, she obtained an annulment from the Catholic church in Spain because divorce was illegal. She was a member of the Valencian socialist party for a number of years and spent one year as an IBVM postulant to the novitiate in Seville.
Margaret retired from Iberia Airlines of Spain in July 2006 after thirty seven years. Since 1998, she has been involved with Dones Creients Valencia, a movement trying to bring faith and feminism together. In 2005, she joined Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir Spain, and represented the group in the “Jo no t’espere” campaign protesting the pope’s visit to the July 2006 World Meeting of Families in Valencia.