"Cracklin'" wrote in message
...
Cardinal Bernardin, chairman of the American bishops’ Committee for
Pro-Life Activities, asserts that abortion is a moral wrong and that the
official stand of the church is binding on all Roman Catholics. Again,
Roman Catholic professor of moral theology at Notre Dame University in the
United States, James T. Burtchaell, wrote in 1982: “My argument is
straightforward. Abortion is homicide: the destruction of a child.” Yet,
four years later, priest Richard P. McBrien, chairman of the theology
department of the same university, took pains to explain that abortion is
not a defined doctrine of his church. According to this view, Catholics
who subscribe to abortion cannot be excommunicated, even though they may
be viewed as being disloyal.

McBrien is a liberal priest - he has no power outside of the ministerial
duties. He's free to babble in academia all he wants, though.


On account of this ambiguity of church authority, many prominent Catholics
are outspokenly pro-abortion. Included among them in the United States are
some priests. Also a number of nuns, some of whom endorsed a controversial
abortion newspaper advertisement for which they were threatened with
expulsion from their orders.

A small, small, minority - politicians for the most part. Just a bunch of
hogwash.

BAM