To Hell with Choice

By Richard N. Ostling

Stumping for the White House, John F. Kennedy promised voters he would leave office if his Roman Catholicism ever interfered with his political duties. Last week New York's John Cardinal O'Connor proclaimed that Kennedy was wrong: Catholics should fight, not quit. In a strongly worded twelve-page statement published in the archdiocesan weekly, the Cardinal declared that Catholic officeholders had an obligation to support their church's moral teachings -- especially on abortion. Failure to do so, he said, merited excommunication.

"Where Catholics are perceived not only as treating Church teaching on ^ abortion with contempt," wrote O'Connor, "but helping to multiply abortions by advocating legislation supporting abortion, or by making public funds available for abortion, bishops may decide that, for the common good, such Catholics must be warned that they are at risk of excommunication." Though the Cardinal emphasized that he was not writing on behalf of the U.S. episcopate, his words will inevitably have nationwide impact, and could fuel a backlash against church incursions into politics.

Reaction was immediate -- much of it indignant. Snapped New York Congressman Charles Rangel, a pro-choice Catholic: "I can't believe that such a meanspirited, threatening and intimidating statement could have possibly come from my Cardinal." New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a prominent target of O'Connor's threat, called the statement "profoundly disconcerting," adding judiciously that "those of us in public life take what he says very seriously and always have."

O'Connor's excommunication bombshell spotlighted his penchant for grabbing controversial headlines and intensified differences among U.S. bishops over how much to arm-twist pro-choice Catholic politicians. Meeting last November, the bishops declared, "No Catholic can responsibly take a 'pro-choice' stand when the 'choice' in question involves the taking of innocent human life." The same meeting elected hard-liner O'Connor chairman of the bishops' pro-life committee.

But some prominent bishops are at odds with shock tactics. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, O'Connor's predecessor as pro-life chairman, says that "the church can be most effective in the public debate on abortion through moral persuasion, not punitive measures." On the other hand, San Diego's Bishop Leo Maher denied Communion to a pro-choice Catholic who was running for the California senate.

Catholic canon law prescribes excommunication for specified moral or ecclesiastical offenses, including procuring an abortion. But bishops like O'Connor are breaking new ground in publicly applying the penalty to politicians who vote pro-choice or favor abortion funding. Father James Provost of the Catholic University of America says that a bishop could theoretically take such action under catchall canon-law provisions concerning errant church members, but he says such instances are "very rare." Though there was speculation that O'Connor would not have issued such a sweeping statement without tacit Vatican approval, Rome has no public policy on pro- choice politicians. Indeed, the church has tended to play down excommunication since the Second Vatican Council.

With reporting by Cathy Booth/Rome and Andrea Sachs/New York