WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) – Catholic leaders are condemning the casting of abortion slogans onto the D.C. Basilica by so-called pro-choice Catholics on the eve of March for Life.
Washington’s Cdl. Wilton Gregory on Friday blasted Catholics for Choice for defacing the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Thursday evening with anti-life messages like “Pro-choice Catholics you are not alone.”
Gregory decried:
The true voice of the Church was only to be found within the Basilica … last evening. There, people prayed and offered the Eucharist, asking God to restore a true reverence for all human life. Those whose antics projected words on the outside of the church building demonstrated by those pranks that they really are external to the Church and they did so at night – John 13:30.
The sacrilegious act took place while thousands of pro-life Catholics from across America gathered inside for the 2022 National Prayer Vigil for Life.
Attempting to defend the pro-abortion group’s actions, the organization’s communications director, Ashley Wilson, tweeted: “I know that my faith teaches Catholics to honor personal conscience. And yet, the Catholic hierarchy seeks to polarize pro-choice Catholics and villainize people who make the moral choice to have abortions. I am tired of feeling shame and stigma for being a pro-choice Catholic.”
Before the night gets too far away from me, let me say a bit about why @Catholic4Choice did what we did tonight. �� (1/?) pic.twitter.com/vG0qHQg4EU
— Ashley Wilson (@APdubs) January 21, 2022
The group’s other anti-life messages illuminating the side of “America’s Catholic Church,” included “1 in 4 abortion patients is a Catholic,” “Stop stigmatizing” and “Start listening.”
Catholic Bishops Echo Rebukes
Several other Church leaders were attentive to the controversial group’s publicized points and rebuked the stunt.
San Francisco’s Abp. Salvatore Cordileone tweeted: “The attempted desecration is enormous. Diabolical.”
Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas reacted to the images with a sense of incredulity.
“If this is real it is an atrocity,” tweeted Strickland. “Support of murder projected on the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception??? I pray that it is a fake photo photoshopped for evil purposes. If it is real it is horrible & even faking it is evil.”
‘Catholic’? Hardly
The nonprofit, pro-abortion organization advocates for multiple issues that oppose Catholic teaching. Its website claims 66% of Catholics “support the development of new vaccines using embryonic stem cells” and touts 98% of Catholics “have used some form of birth control in their lives.” It asserts “people deserve the right to access the full range of family planning services, including all forms of artificial contraception.”
Catholics for Choice also devotes a significant portion of its site to the promotion of LGBT ideology. It is critical of the Church’s views on transgender and abortion issues, wrongly asserting they stem from the Church’s ancient patriarchal structure:
The reason the Catholic institution condemns transgender people is the same reason it condemns gay and lesbian people is the same reason it doesn’t allow women to be priests is the same reason that women are denied access to abortion. It’s all rooted in the same notion that God created women to be subservient to men. The Church condemns anything that strays from those roles.
The Church’s view actually stems from its teaching that life is sacred. Paragraph 2270 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church prescribes: “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
And contrary to the group’s pro-transgender stance, paragraph 2333 in the Catechism exhorts men and women to accept their biological beginnings:
Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
USCCB: Latest Stunt ‘Offensive’
America’s Catholic bishops have previously denounced actions of the progressive, pro-abortion group. In 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) Committee on Pro-Life Activities warned unsuspecting Catholics of an ad campaign Catholics for Choice launched that called for “taxpayer funding of abortion in the name of the Catholic faith.”
The USCCB also reminded the faithful that “the use of the name ‘Catholic’ as a platform to promote the taking of innocent human life is offensive not only to Catholics but to all who expect honesty and forthrightness in public discourse.”
The March for Life theme this year is Equality Begins in the Womb. The theme reflects a message Catholics for Choice defiantly rejects; it instead argues “March for Life: You don’t speak for us.”
Archbishop Cordileone’s correction also contained a message of love and mercy for the dissident Catholics: “Mother Mary, pray for them, now and at the hour of death. Amen.”