Saying No to NOW

Approaching a woman waiting to receive Communion last week at St. Brigid's Catholic Church in Pacific Beach, Calif., the priest paused hesitantly. Eying the National Organization for Women button she was wearing, he asked gravely: "Do you believe in abortion?" Just as seriously, she responded: "You mean I have to give my beliefs before I receive Communion?"

The answer was yes. The woman was just one of dozens of parishioners sporting NOW buttons who were refused the Eucharist at St. Brigid's and other Roman Catholic churches in the San Diego area. Surprising as it was, the altar quizzing formed only part of the spectacle at the church. Outside, a crowd of angry feminists joined in a chant: "Not the church. Not the state. Women must decide our fate." Some carried signs that urged: PRAY TO GOD. SHE WILL HELP

YOU. Meanwhile, antiabortionists paraded with photographs of dead fetuses, and banners proclaiming NOW, NEVER and MAHER FOR POPE.

Maher is the Most Rev. Leo T. Maher, 59, the bishop of San Diego who now seems bent on escalating single-handed the Roman Catholic Church's war on abortion. In a letter read at Masses in San Diego last week, Maher announced that no one in his 512,000-member diocese who publicly admits to membership in an organization that promotes abortion can receive the Eucharist or serve as a lector (lay reader). He specifically cited NOW for its "shameless agitation" on behalf of abortion.

Maher was traveling in Europe when his letter was first released two weeks ago. It caused consternation among San Diego priests, and Maher's aides explained that Catholics could belong to NOW--if they opposed its pro-abortion view. Upon his return Maher endorsed that shift at a testy press conference. But buoyed by a stream of favorable phone calls, telegrams and letters, he justified his condemnation of NOW by name. He also insisted that support of a woman's freedom of choice on abortion--which is NOW's policy--is as bad as promoting abortion as such. "You have these two creeds," he said, "one of pro-abortion and one of the preservation and sacredness of life. How can you believe in them both at the same time?"

Maher's move was apparently prompted by complaints from some Catholics in his diocese--a center of "right-to-life" activity--about a feminist leader named Jan Gleason. She is not only a parish lector but also a NOW member and, most upsetting of all to the antiabortionists, the national head of Catholics for a Free Choice. This group, like NOW, supports a woman's right of personal decision on abortion.

Day of Outrage. Predictably, feminist groups seized on the bishop's broadside as an opportunity to make some points for their cause. Local NOW officials encouraged Catholic members to wear their buttons to Mass and force the issue. Catholic women, declared one NOW leader, must decide between "their body or their church." NOW'S national headquarters called for a "Day of Outrage" against the Catholic hierarchy --on Mother's Day. Just back from a week of ferrying orphans from Viet Nam to the U.S., Lector Gleason remarked: "I like the bishop very much, but he's never been pregnant."

Bishop Maher's position is severe by any measure. Catholic canon law provides that women or doctors who intentionally involve themselves in abortions are automatically excommunicated, but Maher is now denying the Eucharist on the basis of individuals' personal beliefs about the matter. Before it was modified, his outright ban on NOW membership was unusually extreme. Historically, Catholic bans on specific organizations have been rare and have involved only groups like the Masons, which the church opposed for many years as essentially anti-Catholic.

For their part, groups that favor free choice on abortion can claim no great record for tolerance either. Four months ago, the NOW chapter in Columbus voted to excommunicate one of its members, Pat Goltz. Her crime: she headed an anti-abortion organization called Feminists for Life.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission last week entered the right-to-life fray, opposing proposed constitutional amendments to ban abortion, and three laws that restrict federal funding for it. The commission, acting under its mandate to monitor federal policies on sex discrimination, said that anti-abortion amendments would hinder the rights of women as well as the religious rights of persons who hold different views. The commission is headed by Arthur Flemming, a Methodist layman who was formerly president of the National Council of Churches. Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York, chairman of the Catholic bishops' pro-life committee, protested that the commission had apparently joined "those who would violate the rights of the most powerless among us --the unborn child."

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