LONDON BISHOP JOHN SHERLOCK'S JUNE 19 STATEMENT

My Dear Friends,

It will not surprise you to learn that I have received such a volume of mail in response to my expression of opinion on the March for Women that I cannot reply to each of you separately.

Thank you for expressing your opinion, and I thank many of you who did not pass judgment on me as anti-life or pro-abortion. I am neither. However, I see from your letters that some who have been fighting bravely against the killing of the unborn, the developmentally disabled, and the aged feel betrayed by me. I deeply regret that anything I have said should be interpreted as hostile to those who stand courageously in defense of the unborn, the developmentally disabled, and the aged. But the pro-life agenda is broader than that of some organizations which bear the name.

There are two reasons which persuade me that Catholics should not abandon the March for Women to proponents of abortion and lesbian activity. The first is that poverty and violence, especially the poverty of women and children, kills and disables more children than abortion does, and it is against poverty of women and violence that we march. The second is that our presence should be a public sign that true concern for women's dignity, equality, and human rights rejects the inclusion of abortion and other so-called rights.

The Holy See is stubbornly present, despite vicious efforts to exclude it, at every United Nations' meeting dealing with women's rights even though Canada, the United States and many western European delegations send and finance women whose principal agendas seem to be "reproductive rights" which they define in ways contrary to the Gospel.

It must be uncomfortable for the delegates of the Holy See to face continuous and devious hostility designed to silence the voice of truth. But they stay and fight, and that is not only laudable and courageous but a moral choice of the highest integrity. That is how I would describe the decision to be involved with the March for Women.

In Christ,

Most Rev. J. M. Sherlock, D.D.
Bishop of London