Catholic Doctrine and Reproductive Health WHY THE CHURCH CAN’T
CHANGE
by: Stephen D. Mumford DrPH
The anti-abortion movement in the United States was created in
response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973,
which legalized abortion. However, it really owes its origin to a
group of men in Rome 103 years earlier. This was 1870, the year of
Vatican Council I, a conclave of great importance in recent church
history. Why is this so?
Hans Küng, the renowned Swiss Catholic theologian, best summed up
the problem accounting for its creation when he said, “It is not
possible to solve the problem of contraception until we solve the
problem of infallibility.”l In his book, How the Pope
Became Infallible, Catholic historian Bernhard Hasler describes in
great detail what Küng meant: For more than a millennium, the
Vatican had possessed temporal power that ensured its survival. With
the loss of the Papal States in 1870, it appeared all but certain
that a strong papacy would simply disappear. The Vatican urgently
needed a new source of power.
A group of conservative and influential leaders, including Pope Pius
IX, came up with a brilliant idea for a new source: an infallible
pope. What is infallibility? According to Catholic dogma, when the
pope formulates a doctrine, he is simply transmitting this dogma on
God’s behalf. Therefore, the teaching cannot possibly be in error.
Roman Catholics could be certain that the teachings of the pope and
of God were one and the same, and, if strictly followed, one’s
entrance into heaven was guaranteed. Communicants found this concept
very attractive and were eager to behave in any manner required of
them. Such an arrangement placed enormous control over individuals
into the hands of the Vatican, extending across national borders and
even to the other side of the world. It could no longer control the
laity by means of its governance, as it had in the Papal States
which would later become Italy. But the Holy See could exercise
control directly by adopting a policy of psychological coercion
founded on a new doctrine—that of papal infallibility.
Protection at all Costs
Papal infallibility was a brilliant concept—and it worked for a
century. But at its introduction in 1870, the Catholic
intelligentsia recognized that, at some point in the future, this
principle would lead to the self-destruction of the institution.
Times were certain to change and in unpredictable ways, but the
Church would be locked on an inexorable course—teachings that could
not be changed without destroying the principle of infallibility
itself. These distinguished scholars foresaw that one day,
encumbered by its unchangeable teachings, the Church would find
itself down a blind alley from which there would be no escape and
faced with inevitable self-destruction as a result of a grave loss
of credibility. The blind alley turned out to be the issue of birth
control— contraception and abortion.
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Since the 1968 adoption of the papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae,
there has been a hemorrhage in the Church’s credibility. Humanae
Vitae ruled out any change of the Church’s position on birth control
for all time.
The proponents of papal infallibility could not imagine the
population explosion of the last half of this century. Just as
critics had predicted, institutional self-destruction is now well
underway. But, as it stands now, the Church cannot change its
position on birth control without undermining all of its dogma. The
following are only three among scores of findings to indicate how
the Vatican is destroying itself:
1.
In 1965 there were 42,000 young men in American seminaries studying
for the priesthood. Today there are fewer than 6,000, even though
the number of Catholics in this country has nearly doubled.
2.
The average age of nuns in the United States is 65 years. Only 3%
are under age 40, while 35% are older than 70.
3.
One-half of all American priests quit the priesthood before reaching
retirement age. Self-destruction as a result of loss of credibility
is underway but progressing slowly. The pope remains hopeful that he
can turn this around. He is convinced that, if he changes the
Church’s position on birth control and destroys the principle of
infallibility, self-destruction will be very swift. We know that
this matter was the focus of his
The Threats of Legalized Birth Control and Abortion
In 1964, Pope Paul VI created the Papal Commission on Population and
Birth Control. It was a two-part commission and met from 1964 to
1966. One part consisted of 64 lay persons, the other, of 15
clerics, including the future Pope John Paul II, then a Polish
cardinal. Pope Paul gave the Commission only one mission—to
determine how the Church could change its position on birth control
without undermining papal authority. After two years of study, the
Commission concluded that it was not possible to make this change
without undermining papal authority, but that the Church should make
the change anyway because it was the right thing to do! The lay
members voted 60 to 4 for change, and the clerics, 9 to 6 for
change.2 Pope Paul did not act immediately. A minority
report was prepared, co-authored by the man who is now Pope John
Paul II. In this report he stated:
If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself,
then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been
on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 (when the encyclical
Casti Connubii was promulgated), in 1951 (Pius XlI’s address to the
midwives), and in 1958 (the address delivered before the Society of
Hematologists in the year the pope died). It should likewise have to
be admitted that for a half century the Spirit failed to protect
Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a
very serious error.
This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme
imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts,
forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would
now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that
these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of
principles cited by the Protestants, which popes and bishops have
either condemned or at least not approved.3
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In this and other texts, the pope took the position that a change on
the birth control issue would destroy the principle of papal
infallibility, and that infallibility was the fundamental principle
of the Church upon which all else rests. A change on birth control
would immediately raise questions about other possible errors popes
have made in matters of divorce, homosexuality, confession,
parochial schooling, etc. that are fundamental to Roman Catholicism.
The security and survival of the papacy itself is on the line. The
Church insists on being the sole arbiter of what is moral. Civil law
legalizes contraception and abortion. Governments are thereby
challenging the prerogative of the pope to be the ultimate authority
on matters of morality. Most Americans look to democratic process to
determine morality. In the simplest analysis, the Church cannot
coexist with such an arrangement, which in its view, threatens its
very survival as a world political power. For this reason, the
Vatican was forced to interfere in the democratic process in the
United States by lobbying for the passage of numerous antiabortion
laws designed to protect its interests. There is a plethora of
documentation to support these findings, relating mainly to Vatican
and U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ sources, some of
which I will discuss later. Only legal abortion and legal family
planning threaten the Church. It has shown very little interest in
illegal abortion. For example, in Latin America, where abortion is
illegal, abortion rates are two or three times as high as those seen
in the United States. However, abortion is essentially ignored by
the bishops there.
Political Action
Even before the work of the Papal Commission on Popical Action. Even
before the work of the Papal Commission on Population and Birth
Control was completed in 1966, it was widely recognized in the
Vatican that the Church faced a grave problem regarding birth
control, including abortion. Vatican Council II, which ended in
1966, set the stage for the bishops to address this problem. One of
the outcomes of this Council was the Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World. Part two of the Constitution was titled,
“Some Problems of Special Urgency.” In his book, Catholic Bishops in
American Politics, published by the Princeton University Press in
1991, T.A. Byrnes observes,
“This list of problems to which the
Church was to turn its attention reads like a blueprint of the
American hierarchy’s political agenda in the 1970s and 1980s.”4
The first was abortion:
God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry
of safeguarding life—a ministry which must be fulfilled in a manner
which is worthy of man. Therefore, from the moment of conception
life must be guarded with the greatest of care, while abortion and
infanticide are unspeakable crimes.5
The Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church, another
Vatican Council II document, created the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (NCCB), which was organized according to universal
church law. It was created to serve as a political instrument of the
Vatican.6 During a meeting of the American hierarchy in
November 1966, the bishops formally established the NCCB as their
official collective body and
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established the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) as their
administrative arm and secretariat.7
From the very beginning,
there has been a common and correct
perception that the Catholic hierarchy was primarily an
anti-abortion political lobby. Byrnes summarizes his study of the
history of Catholic bishops in American politics by saying:
Before I end, I want to address one final
matter, namely the unique position that abortion occupies on the
Catholic hierarchy’s public policy agenda. Abortion is not simply
one issue among many for the bishops. It is rather the bedrock,
non-negotiable starting point from which the rest of their agenda
has developed. The
bishops’ positions on other issues have led to political action and
political controversy but abortion, throughout the period I have
examined, has been a consistently central feature of the Catholic
hierarchy’s participation in American politics.8
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion for
Americans. According to Bishop James McHugh, “within twenty-four
hours” of the court’s action, the bishops knew they would need to
mount a political campaign in favor of a constitutional amendment
prohibiting abortion.9
The Vatican wasted no time in responding. In 1974, the stage was
further set to create a political machine to end legal abortion in
the United States when Rome issued a document titled, Vatican
Declaration on Abortion, which states:
A Christian can never conform to a law which is in itself immoral,
and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the
licitness of abortion. Nor can a Christian take part in a propaganda
campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it. Moreover, he may
not collaborate in its application.10
This statement is an unequivocal rejection of the legitimacy of our
democratically elected government to pass laws legalizing abortion.
The papacy had placed its authority on the line, pitting itself
against the U.S. government. If the Vatican were to avoid the
looming destruction of papal authority, it must minimize the number
of abortions legally performed and ultimately succeed in reversing
the effects of Roe v. Wade. The 1974 Vatican Declaration on Abortion
follows the instructions set forth by Pope Leo XIII in his
encyclical on the Chief Duties of Christian Citizens:
If the laws of the state are manifestly at variance with the divine
law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church or conveying
injunctions adverse to the duty imposed by religion, or if they
violate in the person of the Supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus
Christ, then truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a
crime.11
The current abortion law in the United States is unquestionably
“hurtful to the Church.” Minimizing the number of abortions done in
the United States is obviously helpful to the Church.
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The
Bishops’ Pastoral Plan for Pro-life Activities
On November 20, 1975, at its annual meeting,
the American Catholic bishops issued the Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life
Activities, a frank and superbly detailed blueprint of the bishops’
strategy for infiltrating and manipulating the American democratic
process at national, state and local levels. It maps out the
creation of a national political machine controlled by the Vatican
through the bishops. The plan is directed toward creating a highly
sophisticated, meticulously organized, and well-financed local,
state, and national political machine. The plan candidly states that
the Church will undertake activities to elect officials from local
to national levels who will adhere to Vatican -ordained positions;
that it will seek to influence policy in ways that will eliminate
the threat to the Church; and that it will encourage the Executive
Branch to deal “administratively” with matters that are unfavorable
to the Church.
The Plan, in part, reads:
The abortion decisions of the United States Supreme Court (January
22, 1973) violate the moral order, and have disrupted the legal
process which previously attempted to safeguard the rights of unborn
children. A comprehensive pro-life legislative program must
therefore include the following elements:
a)
Passage of a constitutional amendment providing protection for the
unborn child to the maximum degree possible.
b)
Passage of federal and state laws and adoption of administrative
policies that will restrict the practice of abortion as much as
possible.
According to the Pastoral Plan, there is to be in each state a State
Coordinating Committee, functioning under the State Conference or
its equivalent, which will include bishops’ representatives from
each diocese in the state and will function to monitor political
trends in the state. Diocesan Pro-Life Committees are to coordinate
groups and activities within the diocese, particularly efforts to
effect passage of a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn
child. The diocesan committee is to rely for the information and
direction on the Bishops’ Pro-Life Office and on the National
Committee for a Human Life Amendment.
Noting that well-planned and coordinated
political action at national, state, and local levels would be
required, the pamphlet states that the activity is not simply the
responsibility of Catholics and should not be limited to Catholic
groups or agencies. This instruction was a clarion call by
the bishops for the creation of the New Right movement.
Indeed, during the period 1976–1980, all of the organizations that
became known as the “New Right Movement” were created, with one
exception: The Christian Coalition was created later to replace the
Moral Majority, which had fallen into public disrepute. Catholics
were key players in the creation of all these organizations and
influential in their leadership. This assessment of the creation of
this movement and the influence in it of the bishops is well
documented.12,13,14
In 1980, Federal Judge John Dooling ruled on McRae v. HEW, a
challenge to the Hyde Amendment, which prevented Medicaid payment
for abortion. The judge had spent a year
studying the anti-abortion movement in great detail, including the
bishops’
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Pastoral Plan. His findings showed that the
anti-abortion movement was essentially Roman Catholic with a little
non-Catholic window dressing.15
In a 328-page ruling, Dooling, a practicing Catholic, makes short
work of the anti-abortionists’ pretensions to be a spontaneous
grass-roots movement that owes its political victories to sheer
moral appeal. He confirms that the right-to-life’s main source of
energy, organization, and direction has been the Catholic Church,
and he describes in detail how the movement works to achieve its
goals.
The Protestant face carefully put on the
movement, first by the Moral Majority and then by the Christian
Coalition, was called for in the Pastoral Plan. Richard A. Viguerie,
a Catholic, is the man most responsible for the development and
success of the New Right. He was also involved in the original
discussions that led to the creation of the Moral Majority and, as
its fundraiser, can be credited with its financial success. Paul
Weyrich, a Catholic, claims credit for originating the idea for the
group and the name itself. In their search for an attractive front
man for the organization, they chose Jerry Falwell.16
Much effort went into avoiding public disclosure of the role of the
Catholic Church in the creation of the Moral Majority. Maxine Negri,
in “A Well-Planned Conspiracy,” exposed involvement of the Catholic
hierarchy in the Moral Majority.17 The Christian
Coalition replaced the Moral Majority with the bishops still in full
control. The evidence supporting this statement is compelling.18
For example, Maureen Roselli, executive director of the Catholic
Alliance, a branch of the Christian Coalition, claims that the
Coalition has 250,000 Catholic members.19 Catholic
Georgetown University political science professor Mary Bendyna told
the Religious News Service that she was surprised to find, even
before the creation of the Catholic Alliance, that all five staffers
in the Christian Coalition’s Washington, D.C., office were Catholic.20
Claims of autonomy by the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition
should not be taken seriously. What is described here is exactly the
organization contemplated in the Pastoral Plan.
What are some of the bishops’ successes on the three branches of our
federal government? The February 24, 1992, issue of Time magazine
showed that, with the election of anti-abortion Ronald Reagan in
1980, the views of the Vatican gained substantial influence within
the administrative branch of the U.S. government in the area of
population and family planning policy.21 Presidents
Reagan and later Bush were arguably the most pro-Vatican presidents
in American history.
This article was written by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Carl
Bernstein. He described what he referred to as the “Catholic Team”:
The key Administration players were all devout
Roman Catholics—CIA chief William Casey, [Richard] Allen [Reagan’s
first National Security Advisor], [William] Clark [Reagan’s second
National Security Advisor], [Alexander] Haig [Secretary of State],
[Vernon] Walters [Ambassador at Large] and William Wilson, Reagan’s
first ambassador to the Vatican. They regarded the U.S.-Vatican
relationship as a holy alliance: the moral force of the Pope and the
teachings of their church combined with their notion of American
Democracy.
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In a section of his article headed “The U.S. and the Vatican on
Birth Control,” Bernstein includes two more revealing paragraphs:
In response to concerns of the Vatican, the
Reagan Administration agreed to alter its foreign aid program to
comply with the church’s teachings on birth control.
According to William Wilson, the President’s first ambassador to the
Vatican, the State Department reluctantly agreed to an outright ban
on the use of any U.S. aid funds by either countries or
international health organizations for the promotion of abortions.
As a result of this position, announced at the World Conference on
Population in Mexico City in 1984, the U.S. withdrew funding from,
among others, two of the world’s largest family planning
organizations: the International Planned Parenthood Federation and
the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.
“American policy was changed as a result of the Vatican’s not
agreeing with our policy,” Wilson writes. “American aid programs
around the world did not meet the criteria the Vatican had for
family planning. AID [the Agency for International Development] sent
various people from the Department of State to Rome, and I’d
accompany them to meet the president of the Pontifical Council for
the Family, and in long discussions they finally got the
message._._._.”
However, the bishops may have had even greater
success in targeting the judicial branch. In the 12 years of the
Reagan and Bush administrations, these two presidents appointed five
Supreme Court Justices and 70% of all sitting judges in the federal
court system. All were anti-abortion, another goal of the Plan.
The legislative branch has been more difficult for the bishops,
although they did achieve sufficient influence in Congress to the
extent that pro-choice Congressmen could not override a presidential
veto of family planning bills. As long as the anti -family planning
interests controlled the White House, as they did during the Reagan
and Bush years, this was sufficient for the bishops’ purposes.
One of the more profound accomplishments of this Plan is the capture
of the Republican Party by the Vatican. This accomplishment was
vital to the bishops’ legislative agenda described in the Plan. In a
July 28, 1994, Los Angeles Times wire service story, Jack Nelson
describes the maneuvers of the Religious Right so that this takeover
is all but an accomplished fact.
On September 11, 1995, Bill Moyers gives his
assessment of the influence of the Religious Right in remarks titled
Echoes of the Crusades: The Radical Religious Right’s Holy War on
American Freedom: “They control the Republican party, the House of
Representatives and the Senate._._._.”22
Outgoing Republican National Committee Chairman Richard Bond told
the members of that committee on January 29, 1993, that it was time
for the Republican Party to abandon the papal position on abortion.
Bond said that the party should not be governed by “zealotry
masquerading as principle.”23
But who is the Religious Right? The Spring 1994 issue of Conscience,
the journal of Catholics for a Free Choice, exploded the myth that
the Religious Right is a Protestant movement. It was designed,
created, and controlled by Catholics in response to the Pastoral
Plan. These Catholics recruited opportunistic Protestants to give
the appearance that Protestants were the instigators. The leadership
is Catholic but the followers are
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often
Protestant. The National Catholic Reporter predicted that the
Bishops’ Pastoral Plan would lead to the creation of a new political
party, an American Catholic Party.
24
But instead, the Vatican simply chose to seize control of the
Republican Party.
The outcomes of the Plan have been truly remarkable. And they have
implications for all Americans.
The Vatican’s Bold Behavior
In April 1992, in a rare public admission of this threat, Cardinal
John O’Connor of New York acknowledged:
The fact is that attacks on the Catholic
Church’s stance on abortion—unless they are rebutted—effectively
erode Church authority on all matters, indeed on the authority of
God himself.25
The Vatican claims the right to protect itself
against “harmful laws”—even when democratically legislated.
The central difficulty here, of course, is that what the Vatican
considers “harmful” to itself and its authority often is
exactly what patriotic American lay Catholic and non-Catholic men
and women thoughtfully consider beneficial to themselves and their
families. In a letter to American bishops from the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—the most powerful Vatican
office—Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reminded the bishops that “The
Church has the responsibility to protect herself from the
application of harmful laws.”26 Obviously, if an
institution has the “responsibility,” it also claims the “right.”
The Vatican exercises its “right” to protect itself from the
application of harmful laws in the autocratic way it defines
harmful.
In 1995, Pope John Paul II issued his
encyclical Evangelium Vitae (Gospel of Life). It frankly attacks the
principles of liberal democracy and questions the legitimacy of the
American government. He instructs Catholics to defy civil laws he
deems illegitimate, and to impose papal teachings on all Americans
through political commitment, even if it means that they must
sacrifice their lives to do so. Evangelium Vitae is quite
lengthy and contains 105 sections. The following passages,
referenced by their section numbers, illustrate the pope’s message:
Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are
therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual
but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in
authentic juridical validity [#72].
Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim
to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such
laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them
by conscientious objection [#73].
It is precisely from obedience to God—to whom alone is due that for
which _is acknowledgment of His absolute sovereignty—that the
strength and the courage to resist unjust human laws are born. It is
the strength and the courage of those prepared even to be imrength
and the courage to resist unjust human laws are born. It is the
strength and the courage of those prepared even to be imprisoned or
put to the sword, in the certainty that this is what makes for the
endurance and faith of the saints [#73].
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Christians ._._. are called upon under grave obligation to
conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if
permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed,
from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally
in evil._._._. This cooperation can never be justified either by
invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the
fact that civil law permits it or requires it [#74].
To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a
moral duty; it is also a basic human right [#74].
Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute
for morality or a panacea for immorality. Fundamentally, democracy
is a “system” and as such is a means and not an end. Its “moral”
value is not automatic but depends on conformity to the moral law
[#70].
In her National Catholic Reporter article,
“Defending Life Even Unto Death,” Professor Janine Langan, of the
University of Toronto assesses Evangelium Vitae: “John Paul leaves
no room for ghetto Catholicism. Excusing our silence about matters
of truth because ‘we should not push on other people our Christian
God,’ as one of my students put it last year, is not acceptable.”
Professor Langan does not acknowledge that this encyclical is
extremist in nature but she describes it forthrightly: “In a
situation as grave as the present one, Christians are bound to come
into conflict._._._. Evangelium Vitae is thus a challenge to defend
life even at the cost of martyrdom.” Langan quotes the pope, “Life
finds its center, its meaning and its fulfillment when it is given
up [#51].” In her view, and the pope’s, martyrdom is admirable:
“Martyrdom is the one witness to the truth about man which every one
can hear. No society, however dark, can stifle it.”27
This chilling view of martyrdom held by the pope and Professor
Langan is not shared by most Americans. When fanatical Muslim
extremists resort to it, martyrdom is almost universally condemned
as religious extremism. Why should it be admirable behavior when
exercised by Catholics?
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of
the Pontifical Council for the Family, who spoke on October
3, 1995, on “Culture of Life, Culture of Death in the Encyclical
Evangelium Vitae,” makes it clear that the
Church is at war with democratic America with its civil laws:
The Pope invites us with courage to the boycott
of unjust laws which suppress the imperative of natural law carved
into consciences by the Creator. And legislators, politicians,
physicians, and scientists have the duty of conscience to be the
defenders of life in the war against this culture of death.28
This is an aggressive call to Catholics to impose papal law on all
Americans through legislation.
On December 21, 1998, the American Catholic bishops brought this all
even closer when they issued their statement, Living the Gospel of
Life: A Challenge to American Catholics. As to the role of the
Church in the political process, the bishops state: “._._. at all
times and in all places, the Church should have the true freedom to
teach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry
out its task among men without hindrance, and to pass moral judgment
even in matters relating to politics_._._.”[#18]. In other words, no
one should offer resistance as the Church goes about passing laws
demanded by the pope, such as parental consent laws.
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The
bishops have concluded that it is their job to pass civil laws that
will protect the Catholic faithful from abortions that they would
otherwise procure.
Conclusion
Vatican assertions, proclamations, declarations, and decrees serve,
above all, to exemplify its intense desperation on the matter of
legal abortion and family planning. Its very survival depends on
halting all legal family planning and abortion which are causing a
hemorrhage in the credibility of this religious institution. In my
opinion, this remarkable dilemma is entirely responsible for the
Vatican’s behavior. The Church, faced with disaster, is behaving
like a wounded animal.
Americans do not benefit from any law now being used to restrict
abortion. On the other hand, as others have documented, because of
innovations such as parental notification laws, young women are
irreparably harmed. Some will die. Some will commit suicide rather
than tell their parents. Many will suffer adverse consequences from
which they will never recover. The question is: should this human
sacrifice of young American women who are not even Catholic be
permitted so that men in Rome will be able to “infuse democracy with
the right values” in order to try to save a Church which finds
itself down a blind alley just as predicted by the Church
intelligentsia in 1870?
The political machine created by the Pastoral Plan has had
far-reaching consequences for all Americans. The impeachment of
President Clinton, the most pro-choice president in history, would
not have been possible without the successful implementation of this
plan in the House of Representatives. He has defied the pope,
strongly supporting access to abortion. All 13
House prosecutors were anti-abortion Republicans and are led by the
most rabid abortion foe in the House, Roman Catholic Henry Hyde.
According to the October 1, 1998, issue of the New York Times, Hyde
and the lawyer he chose to lead the Republican impeachment team,
David Schippers, another Catholic and father of 10, were both
knighted by the pope three years ago for their outstanding service
to the Catholic Church.29 Each of these 13 men
most certainly benefitted from the existence of the political
machine created by the Pastoral Plan. There are many other such
examples and they are negatively affecting us
all. fi
References
1.
AB. Hasler, How the Pope Became Infallible (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1981), p. 25.
2.
A. Jones. Vatican, “International Agencies Hone Family, Population
Positions.” National Catholic Reporter (reprinted in Conscience,
May/June 1984. p. 7).
3.
Hasler, op. cit., p. 270.
4.
T. A. Byrnes, Catholic Bishops in American Politics (Lawrenceville,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 66).
5.
Ibid., p. 41.
6.
Ibid., p. 48.
7.
Ibid., p. 49.
8.
Ibid., p. 143.
9.
Ibid., p. 57.
10.
Ibid., p. 144.
11.
Ibid., p. 50, (Quoted from Leo XIII’s encyclical, Chief Duties of
Christian Citizens).
12.
S.D. Mumford, American Democracy & The Vatican: Population Growth &
National Security. (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanist Press, 1984).
Free Inquiry Magazine:2000:Winter 2000/01:FI
13.
S.D. Mumford, The Pope and the New Apocalypse: The Holy War Against
Family Planning (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina: Center for
Research on Population an d Security, 1986).
14.
S.D. Mumford, The Life and Death of NSSM 200: How the Destruction of
Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy (Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina: Center for Research on Population and Security, 1996).
15.
D.J. Dooling, Decision in McRae v. HEW, New York: U.S. District Court,
1980.
16.
P.D. Young, “Richard A. Viguerie: The New Right’s Secret Power Broker.”
Penthouse (December 1982) p. 146.
17.
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