January 20-26, 2008 Issue |
Posted 1/15/08 at 2:24 PM
Today, they are announcing campaign plans. But in the spring
2007 issue of Conscience, the publication of a nefarious group of abortion
promoters who call themselves, strangely enough, “Catholics for a Free Choice,”
announced its new president.
Jon O’Brien, who worked as program manager at International
Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Bureau in London, replaces Frances
Kissling.
Kissling stepped aside after spending 25 years at the helm
of this organization. Her successor pays her lavish homage, referring to her as
“a prophetic voice,” in an article in the same issue that he titles, “How
Catholics for a Free Choice Saved Civilization.”
Hyperbole is not alien to Catholics for a Free Choice.
In an interview as outgoing president, which is defiantly
titled, “Be Not Afraid,” Kissling confided that “there are certainly days when
I believe that the [Catholic] institution is so deeply corrupted that it should
be destroyed.”
In a previous interview in Mother Jones magazine, she was
more brazen: “I spent 20 years looking for a government that I could overthrow
without being thrown into jail. I finally found one in the Catholic Church.”
Kissling, like Napoleon before her, has failed in her lofty
ambition.
Napoleon had troops at his disposal. Kissling has lies and
deceptions. One may find reason to believe that the latter, if in the end they
are not triumphant, at least, for the time being, are more effective.
Kissling and her disciples identify themselves as Catholics,
though there is nothing about the Church that they accept.
At the Cairo Conference on Population and Development,
Kissling placed Pope John Paul II at the top of her “enemies list.”
“If there is a devil in Cairo, it can only be released
[introduced] by the Pope’s obstructionist meddling.” The Church’s opposition to
abortion, she said, “is about money and power, not about spirituality.”
Concerning Evangelium Vitae (The Value and Inviolability of
Human Life), she remarked: “What he [John Paul II] calls the ‘culture of death’
is really human freedom, being able to make choices based on conscience.”
Conscience, for Kissling, has a great deal of latitude.
It does not function, as the etymology of the word
indicates, “with knowledge” (con + scientia), but, oddly enough, entirely
without it. Moreover, so it seems to Kissling, no faithful Catholic ever
consults his conscience when deliberating over abortion.
Kissling’s venom is not reserved for the papacy. She once
said of Cardinal John O’Connor, when he was archbishop of New York, that he is
“the kind of man who, if the Church still had the power to burn people at the
stake, would be right there lighting a fire.”
Being pro-choice is mandatory; being pro-love is optional.
It is a strange thing for a group of people to call
themselves Catholics when the only doctrine it adheres to — the moral
acceptability of abortion — is one that the Catholic Church has consistently,
clearly and resolutely denounced.
It is like a group of people who identify themselves as
baseball fans, but are united only by their common hatred of baseball.
According to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Catholics
for a Free Choice is “a tool to use against the Catholic Church. Nothing more.”
A former and very active, member of the group, Marjorie Reiley
Maguire reported in one article her personal disillusionment with this group.
She branded the group as “an anti-woman organization” whose agenda is “the
promotion of abortion, the defense of every abortion decision as a good, moral
choice and the related agenda of persuading society to cast off any moral
constraints about sexual behavior.”
She also reported that while she was involved with the
group, she was never aware that any of its leaders ever attended Mass.
Nonetheless, the mainstream media continue to portray the
group as a Catholic organization in good standing. And it continues to identify
itself as more Catholic than the hierarchy: “The bishops won’t tell you, but
CFFC will: There is an authentic pro-choice Catholic position.”
What can be made of such shenanigans? The Catholic Church is
the most formidable opponent of abortion. If, through lies and deceptions, the
Church could be presented to the world as legitimately pro-choice, then this
formidable opponent, if not destroyed, could be re-invented as an abortion
ally.
In the end, however, light will triumph over darkness. In
the meantime, we should not allow ourselves to be misled into thinking that the
culture of death is the culture of life.
Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and
Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
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