THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE DEFENSE OF TRADITION, FAMILY AND PROPERTY – TFP (www.tfp.org) [January – 1990]
The
American TFP brings to Light
Courageous
Statements by American Bishops Protecting Morality and Human Life
LAST year [1989], responding to the blatant
contradiction of the so-called pro-choice Catholics, the American Society for
the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) issued its statement, "Abortion:
A Real Slaughter of the Innocents Is Being Carried Out Every Day Throughout
the World." The declaration, published as a half-page
advertisement in the Washington Post,
reasserted that a Catholic is by definition antiabortion and supported this
affirmation with ten conclusive Papal texts from Pius XI to the present. It
also circulated as a leaflet in last year's March for Life.
Today, in light of the confusion surrounding Catholic
moral obligations regarding abortion, the American TFP feels that
antiabortionists will profit by having at hand some recent statements by
Catholic bishops who have stood out in the fight against abortion. By
publishing these, we both satisfy this need and pay just homage to the valiant
statements of these prelates.
Bishops’
Statements:
The
National Conference of Catholic Bishops' 1989 Abortion Statement
"We
who revere human life as created in the image and likeness of God have all the
more reason to take a stand. For us abortion is of overriding concern because
it negates two of the most fundamental moral imperatives: respect for innocent life,
and preferential concern for the weak and defenseless.
"No
Catholic can responsibly take a 'pro-choice' stand when the 'choice' in
question involves the taking of innocent human life."
The
Nine Bishops of
In
a December 15 statement on abortion and political life, the bishops responded
to Ohio Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze Jr.'s recent statement on abortion:
"We
Catholic bishops of
"The
willful destruction of innocent human life, born or unborn, is a social evil of
the greatest magnitude. Any society which finds it acceptable for a parent to
destroy an unborn child or which provides for such destruction by public
funding has sown the seeds of its own destruction. If a defenseless unborn
child is dependent for survival on the forbearance of another or on the ability
to survive independently from his or her mother, then human life has become
cheap indeed and we are all vulnerable.
"We
cannot judge the state of anyone's conscience before God. . . . But it is clear
to us that, objectively speaking, the tolerance of abortion in our society and
the refusal to allow religious and moral principles to influence public life
are positions which are both morally and socially wrong."
Archbishop
Daniel E. Pilarczyk of
Bishop
Anthony M. Pilla of
Bishop
James A. Griffin of
Bishop
Andrew Pataki of Ruthenian Byzantine diocese of
Bishop
Albert H. Ottenweller of
Bishop
James R. Hoffman of
Bishop
James W. Malone of
Bishop Louis Puscas of
Romanians of the Byzantine Rite in the
Bishop
Robert M. Moshal of St. Josaphat
in
Archbishop
Anthony Bevilacqua of
Following
the signing into law of the Abortion Control Act of 1989 by Pennsylvania
Governor Casey restricting access to abortion, Archbishop Bevilacqua
released a statement on November 17.
"I
firmly hope that the direction to increase protection for the pre-born, upheld
by the Supreme Court, and now enacted into
Bernard
Cardinal Law, Archbishop of
At
the Assembly for Life in
Bishop James McHugh of
Prior
to the November 7 election, Bishop McHugh issued a
statement titled "Respect for Life and Political Responsibility."
"A candidate should ultimately be judged on his or her personal integrity,
philosophy and performance. Anyone who attempts to separate his or her
personal moral convictions from the shaping of public policy is unreliable and
unworthy of trust."
Bishop
Leo Maher of
BISHOP
Leo Maher made headlines in 1989 when he denied Lucy Killea,
a California assembly woman, "the right to receive the Eucharist in the Catholic
Church" because of her "pro-choice stand." Part of his statement
communicating this decision follows:
"I
regret to inform you that by your media advertisements and statements
advocating the 'pro-choice' abortion position in the public forum you are
placing yourself in complete contradiction to the moral teaching of the
Catholic Church, and consequently I have no other choice but to deny you the
right to receive the eucharist
in the Catholic Church. . . .
"The
'pro-choice' stand is a choice for abortion. This is against both the teaching
of the Catholic Church and divine law. The harm you are doing by espousing the
'pro-choice' view will require great efforts to repair. Like those who have
abortions, the guilt remains with them, and so will your guilt remain with you
as an advocate of this heinous crime.
"Since
the 'pro-choice' stand involves the taking of innocent human life, it only
proves how immoral abortion is. If you say abortion is a matter of choice, you
are forgetting someone. 'Pro-choice' is a phrase that is incomplete; it lacks
an object. One must ask the natural follow-up: the choice to do what? In this
case, it is the choice to take a child's life."
John
Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of
CARDINAL
O'Connor was named head of the Bishops' Pro-Life Activities Committee at the
recent bishops' meeting in November. His opposition to abortion and support
for Operation Rescue has made him a target of sacrilegious attacks by
pro-abortion activists.
According
to an Associated Press report, abortion-rights and AIDS activists disrupted the
December 10 Sunday Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral resulting in the arrest of
43 people. Thousands of others protested outside, criticizing the Cardinal and
Church teaching. The archdiocesean paper, Catholic New York, reported that the
Blessed Sacrament was desecrated at least seven times during Communion.
Answering
media allegations that the Church "forced obedience to a religious
political agenda" last November, Cardinal O'Connor answered:
"Is
abortion a question of religious belief? What religious belief—that an unborn
is a human being? In my view, the terrifying reality is that there are
Catholics and others who absolutely refuse even to look at the question of whether
the unborn is a human being. The 'right' of privacy has been made an absolute,
so that a woman is led to believe that even if the unborn is a human being, she
has the prior right to 'privacy' to kill her unborn."
At
a news conference in
The
Bishops of
On
November 20,
"We
have not violated the principle of the separation of church and state by our
public action. The First Amendment prohibits government from establishing a
church or favoring one religion over others. The Church has the right in our
democratic society to enter into public debate over moral issues which concern
the dignity of human life and the quality of human life. We seek no favors as
we enter this public arena, and we hope there will be no discrimination
directed against the Church because we have been compelled to raise our voices
in response to the voices of others.
"We
do not accept the dichotomy between private and public morality that is urged
as a compromise by some people in the abortion debate. For anyone to state
publicly that they are personally opposed to abortion but support the right of
women to choose abortion is inconsistent. This double standard of morality
would be disastrous for our society if it were followed to its logical
conclusion: e.g., someone saying that 'I am personally opposed to grand
larceny and drug trafficking and murder and rape, but I support the right of our
citizens to engage in these activities if they so choose.'
"If
some Catholic officeholders have come to the conclusion that in the
pluralistic society women must be given the option of choosing abortion in
order to guarantee their civil rights, then we have the obligation to remind
them that pre-born babies have no option but death in these decisions. The
Church must defend the most defenseless in our society, which in this issue
means babies before and after birth."
Bishop
Albert Ottenweller of
Bishop
Ottenweller has joined those who have participated in
Operation Rescue missions, resulting in his July 15 arrest.
"This
is a question of civil rights, we've got to be willing
to take a stand in order to protest the killing of the unborn. We need to make
people think about 22 million unborn children, the weakest in society, whose
lives are being snuffed out. Something must be done to make people look soberly
at the issue. To show how deeply I feel about abortion and the dignity of
human life, I am willing to go to jail along with the other members of our
group."
Auxiliary
Bishop Patrick V. Ahern, Vicar of
Bishop
Ahern is chairman of the New York Bishops' Pro-Life Committee. He has emerged
as a leader in the antiabortion movement, preaching against what he calls an alarming erosion in the conscience of Catholics regarding
abortions.
"If
we stop preaching on abortion, are we not quietly allowing the issue to be
lost?
"So
we must preach on it if we wish the consciences of our people to be not only
informed but sensitized, if we wish abortion to be for them a matter of life
and death in the sense they would never under any circumstances go near it, and
also to stir up in them the courage to give witness to others of their
conviction."