Just days before Christmas, a radical pro-abortion, pro-LGBT Dutch diplomat was given a Pontifical award by Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Lilianne Ploumen, former minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in the Netherlands, was honored by the pope with the title of Commander in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. She received the award while accompanying Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima during a visit to the Vatican.
The award is supposed to be given to persons who contribute “meritorious service to the Church.” However, Ploumen’s activism on behalf of abortion, homosexuality, and transgenderism shows she has caused extensive damage, not service, to the Bride of Christ.
- From 2004 to 2007 Ploumen was the director of programs and on the board of directors for CORDAID, the Dutch Catholic aid relief agency that was caught funding Planned Parenthood and dispensing contraception.
- In February 2010, Ploumen called on LGBT activists to disrupt Mass at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in the Netherlands, wearing pink triangles with the words “Jesus excludes no one.”
- In 2014, Ploumen ended Dutch foreign aid to Uganda for passing a bill banning sodomy and same-sex “marriage.”
- In January 2017, she established a progressive global initiative called “She Decides,” an organization that has raised over $300 million and seeks to promote “access to modern contraception, to sexual and relationship literacy and safe abortion.”
The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great was established in September 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI. Membership in the Order is conferred on individuals for their “personal service to the Holy See and to the Roman Catholic Church, through their unusual labors, their support of the Holy See, and their excellent examples set forth in their communities and their countries.”
Ploumen says she is “very honored” by the Pope’s decision and claims that the Vatican not only knew about her activism beforehand but that the award was confirmation for her “service for society” and for having “invested a lot of time in establishing contacts with the Vatican” over the past several years.
The Holy See Press Office denied the claim that Plouman was given the honor because of her activism. This is “not at all an endorsement of the political views in favor of abortion or birth control that Ms. Ploumen promotes,” a spokeswoman said. It is “in keeping with the diplomatic practice of exchanging honors between delegations during official visits by heads of state or government to the Vatican.”
Cardinal Willem Eijk, the Archbishop of Utretcht, Netherlands, distanced himself from the decision, saying in a statement he had no knowledge of and was “not involved” in the bestowal of the honor.