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Catholics
wrestle with a life issue:
Some Calgary church-goers question Bishop Henry's support of feminist lobby The Calgary Herald Joe Woodard (reprinted with permission of the author) Catholics have been at the centre of the pro-life movement since the passage of the 1968 Omnibus Bill, legalizing abortion in Canada. At the same time, some active pro-lifers -- and sometimes laymen -- believe church leaders do not give the issue the importance they think it deserves. Earlier this month, Calgary's Bishop Frederick Henry's addressed the annual meeting of the Alberta Pro-Life Alliance. He chose the occasion to voice support for the International March of Women 2000. The March of Women 2000 is a four-month-long public relations campaign organized from Montreal, involving 3,700 women's groups from 154 countries. Canadian sponsors include the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, the Communist League and the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. Its 80 pages of demands include abortion rights and same-sex marriage. During his two years in Calgary, Henry has cultivated the reputation of a forceful commentator on social issues such as VLTs, labour disputes and health-care reform. Now, in espousing a left-of-Catholic-centre position on abortion, he has unsettled a portion of his flock, thereby threatening support from Catholic laity for his Annual Bishop's Appeal. The appeal was established in 1993 as a funding source for Calgary Catholic Charities. Henry's predecessor, Bishop Paul O'Byrne, had pulled Catholic Charities out of United Way because of United Way's support for pro-abortion organizations. At the May 6 pro-life convention, however, Calgary's now-sitting bishop questioned his predecessor's wisdom in withdrawing from United Way. He then defended a $110,000 donation made by the Canadian bishops' Catholic Organization for Development and Peace to the controversial March of Women 2000. Since Henry's talk, some Calgary Catholics have vowed to boycott the diocese's Annual Bishop's Appeal because of what they see as his compromise on the abortion issue. ``My wife and a great many of her friends are now refusing to support his appeal,'' said former Calgary mayor Rod Sykes, a Catholic. ``They're simply not satisfied he'll use donations in ways they would approve. Bishop Henry has made it plain he'll give money to organizations that support abortion, if they support other causes he likes.'' The divide between pro-March and anti-March Catholics centres on the issue of whether, or to what extent, a good cause justifies co-operating -- even if only by association -- in what the Catholic Catechism calls ``moral evil in procured abortion.'' Because of this perceived denial of the sanctity of human life, Pope John Paul II has referred to the West as ``the culture of death.'' At the pro-life meeting May 6, Henry laid out three possible responses to this culture. The first was withdrawal; the second, revolution; the third, involvement. Henry's example of withdrawal was O'Byrne's pulling Catholic Charities out of United Way. Henry questioned that decision, because it ``creates the impression that Catholics only care for their own.'' His example of involvement was the Catholic bishops' funding of Women's March 2000. Henry supported the decision to back the march because it promotes causes such as alleviation of poverty and of violence against women. The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace made clear its disagreement on the issue of abortion. Last Saturday Toronto's archbishop Aloysius Cardinal Abrozic announced he was cutting back his diocese's support of the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace because it is funding the Women's March 2000. A week earlier, Hamilton's Bishop Anthony Tonnos did likewise. Now, in Calgary, some Catholics are turning their backs on Henry's Annual Bishop's Appeal. Calls have come to the Herald from Lake Bonavista, Willow Park, Bel-aire and Varsity from former supporters of the ABA declaring boycotts. One Mayfair resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, said he gave $500 yearly to the ABA, but not any more. ``I wrote the bishop a letter, asking what he was doing supporting this feminist march, and I got a snotty letter back, saying that I demonstrated `a high degree of superficiality'. So I'm not giving him anything.'' A retired Catholic lawyer from Charleswood said ``it's unfortunate'' the bishop has alienated part of the Catholic community. He said withdrawing support from the ABA was a ``natural reaction'' to the bishop's position. However, the lawyer notes, the Annual Bishop's Appeal pamphlet includes a special funding category for the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, allowing donors to opt out of that particular charity. So he expects far more Catholics will take that route, continuing to support local programs. Dennis Gruenwald, the director of the Annual Bishop's Appeal, said the major drive for donations takes place during Lent, which ended April 21, so Henry's comments may not have much effect on its bottom line this year. The year's target for the ABA is $1.5 million. Over one third of donations will go to parish projects, and a third to Catholic Charities-supported agencies, such as Street Teams, Hospice Calgary and the Interfaith Food Bank. Some $310,000 is earmarked for national and international programs like CCODP. Gruenwald was unable to say how donations are doing, but is confident the appeal is going well. Last year the ABA initially fell short of its target, and a supplemental appeal was made in the autumn to make up the shortfall. Former mayor Sykes said, ``If there are any problems with the Bishop's Appeal now, they can be laid at the doorstep of this current bishop. ``When Bishop Paul (O'Byrne) took Catholic Charities out of the United Way, he did it because he had to. Since the mid-1980s, Calgary Catholics had objected to their donations being associated with the United Way and its support of abortion providers. When we left, it was as much a relief to the United Way as it was to us.'' Calgary Catholic Sue Fryer, a natural family planning activist, has worked as a pro-family lobbyist at United Nations conferences at Cairo, Beijing and Istanbul. She believes Henry ``simply doesn't understand how important it is that the Canadian bishops not be seen to march alongside Catholics for Free Choice'' -- an unofficial abortion rights lobby. ``It doesn't matter if the bishops register their objection to abortion,'' Fryer said. ``For over a decade an organized feminist lobby has been trying to enshrine abortion as a fundamental right under international law. So now when the feminists lobby the UN delegation from some Third World country, they'll point to the Women's March's demand for reproductive control, and they'll point to the support of the Canadian bishops, and they'll never mention the bishops' reservations about abortion.'' Courtesy of LifeSite Daily News, a production
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