NEWS FEATURE: Abortion, Segregation Different Issues for Catholic Bishops

c. 2004 Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS _ For more than a year, some conservative Catholics have invoked the memory of former New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel in urging discipline of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights _ much as Rummel excommunicated a group of vocal segregationists in 1962. But, as some scholars point […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

NEW ORLEANS _ For more than a year, some conservative Catholics have invoked the memory of former New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel in urging discipline of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights _ much as Rummel excommunicated a group of vocal segregationists in 1962.

But, as some scholars point out, the comparison is not apt.


Rummel did not excommunicate three Catholic public figures merely because they espoused racist views, several church officials said. Instead, he sanctioned only those few who also challenged the archbishop’s authority to desegregate Catholic schools _ and to do so as a matter of Christian witness.

“The only thing comparable would be if some Catholics started a movement to insist that Catholic hospitals do abortions. That would be closer to the Rummel business,” said the Rev. Tom Reese, a Jesuit writer and editor of the Catholic magazine America.

A Time magazine poll last month reported that 73 percent of 500 Catholics polled thought that presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry should not be denied Communion because he supports abortion rights.

Communion and abortion became the focus of debate during the spring, when a handful of bishops _ still fewer than a dozen out of 195 Catholic dioceses _ announced they would unilaterally withhold Communion from Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.

Since then, it has become clear that the vast majority of bishops, including those in Louisiana, will take a less authoritarian course by merely urging abortion-rights politicians to voluntarily refrain from Communion.

The politics of Communion has stirred widespread debate and a good deal of comment from other religious groups.

Forward, a national Jewish weekly newspaper, recently called some bishops’ decision to deny Communion “an affront” to democracy.

“It’s bullying, and people don’t like it,” said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an unofficial group that supports abortion rights.


The Catholic Church responds that it’s merely calling on its members to act out their faith. It rejects the idea that politicians can compartmentalize their faith on Sunday, but steer their decisions by individual conscience on the legislative floor on Monday.

Writing in support of Catholic bishops’ decision to withhold Communion, Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine, recently editorialized that Catholics and Protestants alike are traditionally charged to inform their consciences by the light of Christian teaching.

“Luther’s `My conscience is captive to the Word of God’ is foundational for us,” wrote the Protestant editors.

“Kerry’s notions of conscience stress individual liberty of thought, while Catholic and Protestant understandings anchor the Christian conscience to God’s word and God’s people,” the editorial said.

For Catholics and evangelicals, who hold that human life begins at conception, opposition to abortion is intimately linked to the fight against segregation: They center on the same conviction _ that human life always demands respect, despite outward appearances.

In that sense, Reese said, Catholic bishops dealing with the Communion issue desperately want to avoid giving the rest of the country the impression that opposition to abortion is a faith matter peculiar to Catholics.


“The more they talk about abortion as a matter of Catholic faith, that’s a disaster for the pro-life movement,” Reese said. “Abortion has to be described as a human rights issue, not as a theological or religious issue.”

MO/PH END RNS

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