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Stephen D Mumford DrPH (NAC Chair)
President,
The Center for Research on Population and Security
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Contents
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 imprisoned or put to the
sword, in the certainty that this is what makes for the endurance and faith of
the saints [#73].
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.
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 were 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.
References
[1]. AB. Hasler, How the Pope Became
Infallible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), p. 25. Back
[2]. A. Jones. Vatican, “International
Agencies Hone Family, Population Positions.” National Catholic Reporter
(reprinted in Conscience, May/June 1984. p. 7). Back
[3]. Hasler, op. cit., p. 270. Back
[4]. T. A. Byrnes, Catholic Bishops in
American Politics (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991, p.
66). Back
[5]. Ibid., p. 41. Back
[6]. Ibid., p. 48 Back
[7]. Ibid., p. 49. Back
[8]. Ibid., p. 143. Back
[9]. Ibid., p. 57. Back
[10]. Ibid., p. 144. Back
[11]. Ibid., p. 50, (Quoted from Leo
XIII’s encyclical, Chief Duties of Christian Citizens). Back
[12]. S.D. Mumford, American Democracy &
The Vatican: Population Growth & National Security. (Amherst, N.Y.: Humanist
Press, 1984). Back
[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 and Security, 1986). Back
[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). Back
[15]. D.J. Dooling, Decision in McRae v.
HEW, New York: U.S. District Court, 1980. Back
[16]. P.D.
Young, “Richard A. Viguerie: The New Right’s Secret Power Broker.” Penthouse (December 1982) p. 146. Back
[17]. M. Negri, “A Well-Planned
Conspiracy.” The Humanist (May/June 1982), 42(3):40. Back
[18]. Mumford, op. cit., 1996 (see pages 178-83). Back
[19]. A 1996 Catholic Alliance fund raising letter signed by Maureen Roselli. Back
[20]. J. Conn, “Papal Blessing?” Church & State (November 1995), p.4. Back
[21]. C. Bernstein, “The Holy Alliance.”
Time, February 24, 1992. Back
[22]. B. Moyers, “Echoes of the Crusades.” Church & State, December 1995. p. 16. Back
[23]. T. Droleskey, “Zealotry Masquerading
as Principle?” The Wanderer, February 18, 1993. p. 10. Back
[24]. “U.S. Bishops Spark New Abortion Debate.” INTERCOM (1976) 4(1):13. Back
[25]. H.V. King, “Cardinal O’Connor
Declares That Church Teaching on Abortion Underpins All Else.” The Wanderer,
April 23, 1992. p. 1. Back
[26]. P. Likoudis, “Vatican Letter calls
on Bishops to Oppose Homosexual Rights Laws.” The Wanderer, July 30, 1992.
p.1. Back
[27]. J. Langan, “Defending Life Even Unto
Death.” National Catholic Register, September 17, 1996. p. 1. Back
[28]. “Be Defenders of Life, Says Cardinal
Lopez Trujillo.” The Wanderer, October 12, 1995. p. 7. Back
[29]. New York Times, October 1, 1998, p. 1. Back
* * *
Dr. Stephen D. Mumford is president of the Center for
Research on Population and Security and author of The Pope and the New Apocalypse: The Holy War Against Family Planning.
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