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March
divides Catholic hierarchy
The Calgary Herald Joe Woodard (reprinted with permission of the author) The decision by the executive of the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops to support the feminist World March of Women 2000 is causing the deepest division within the Canadian Catholic hierarchy in its history. Early in June, Bishop John Sherlock from London, Ont., published a letter defending the CCCB's public endorsement and $110,000 support for the women's march. In doing so, he condemned Catholic pro-life activists who question that decision. On June 7, Vancouver's Archbishop Adam Exner, chairman of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family, joined three other bishops who have already condemned the march. He announced a boycott of the CCCB's social justice agency until it is clear the funds will be used "only for purposes not in conflict with Catholic teaching." A day later yet, Ottawa's Archbishop Marcel Gervais issued a statement acknowledging "the division creeping into our ranks over the March of Women." But he then defended the support for the march by the national hierarchy as "standing with the poor and the outcasts of society." Catholic theologian Monsignor Vincent Foy of Toronto says the disagreement over the march is "the most profound public rupture of episcopal collegiality in history." And he called it a "very good sign" that some bishops might now condemn a wayward national bureaucracy. The World March of Women 2000 has been organized over the last five years by the Federation des Femmes du Quebec, and now claims support from women's groups in 149 countries. Its demands for an end to poverty and violence against women include free abortion access and normalization of homosexual relations. The Catholic controversy over the world march has been growing for almost four months. In February, the four-bishop executive council of the CCCB, led by Prince George's Bishop Gerald Wiesner, drafted a statement supporting the world march. The national executive of the Catholic Women's League agreed to sign on at once without polling its membership. When the CWL's national executive sent a march information package to its regional presidents, it warned them to black out any reference to the march's pro-abortion stance. The conference of bishops' social justice agency, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Justice and Peace, was already supporting the march. That support has been reported variously as $110,000 since 1997 and $135,000 since 1996. But this all remained quiet until the official opening day for the World March of Women 2000. On that opening day, March 8, one of its participating groups, the Colectif Autonome Feministe, invaded and desecrated Montreal's Notre Dame Cathedral. This attracted the attention of pro-life groups who then discovered and publicized the march's aims and its official Catholic support. Then, through April and May, a number of CWL chapters revolted from the decision of their national executive with at least one chapter calling for its resignation. In late April, Hamilton's Bishop Anthony Tonnos publicly repudiated the decision of the conference of bishops' executive. In early May, Toronto's Archbishop Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic announced he was withholding part of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Justice and Peace allocation from his diocese. And in late May, Antigonish's Bishop Colin Campbell called on his local Catholic Women's League to resist their national leaders. In response, march supporters have touted its positive causes such as an end to violence and forced marriages, and institution of a world currency tax. They have tried to debunk the radical feminist label as name-calling and blame pro-life activists for the uproar. Calgary's Bishop Frederick Henry, who sits on the Canadian Catholic Organization for Justice and Peace executive council, gave a speech in May to the Alberta Pro-Life Association in which he called pro-life activists "the rudest people I have to deal with." He argued the national Catholic organizations had distanced themselves sufficiently from the march's pro-abortion stance that they might co-operate in its other laudable goals. This week's defence of the march by Sherlock, its rejection by Exner, and its subsequent defence by Gervais ensures the controversy has not ended. Sherlock's statement supporting the march closely mirrored Henry's May 6 speech. Henry was Sherlock's auxiliary bishop in the late 1980s. About pro-life activists, Sherlock said, "There are people who have their own particular agenda and unless the whole church follows them, they sit in negative judgment." Exner said his diocese will not support the march, "with its present international and national demands, because some of these demands are ambiguous and some are directly opposed to essential and fundamental elements of Catholic teaching." He is withholding his diocese's contribution to Canadian Catholic Organization for Justice and Peace as a necessary measure "to restore our people's confidence." And he asks the conference of bishops, the CWL and the organization for justice and peace to find "means and measures other than the March of Women 2000" to promote the elimination of poverty and violence against women. "The Archdiocese of Vancouver would be willing to change its present stance if the ambiguous and offensive international and national demands could be changed to exclude everything offensive to Catholic teaching," Exner said. "If that could be done, then the march could be supported; otherwise, it cannot." According to an Ottawa diocese spokesman, Gervais's later defence of the march was penned without knowledge of Exner's condemnation. "Let us learn how poverty and violence affect women," Gervais said. "Let us add our voices to those striving to correct these conditions, all the while being faithful to the principles we hold." However, Gervais's condemnation of pro-life activists was somewhat gentler than those of previous march supporters. "It may make us feel more pure if we do not associate with those of opposing views," he said, "but it does not advance the cause of the Church, the cause of women, nor the cause of the unborn." Foy said the opposition to the march among Catholic laymen and priests is widespread and angry. "The original decision to support the march was made by a small committee, and the bishops who've supported it have been largely ignorant of its anti-Catholic nature," he said. "But if they don't withdraw support, this will be the death-knell of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Justice and Peace." Joe Woodard is a Herald reporter Courtesy
of LifeSite Daily News, a production of Interim Publishing. |