Catholics For A Free Choice. (Book Review).

Brian Clowes, Ph.D., Catholics For A Free Choice, Human Life International, Front Royal, Virginia 22630, U.S.A., 2001, 239 pages, $9.95 U.S.

I was under the impression that Catholics For A Free Choice (CFFC) were a small group--there are a few leaders like Frances Kissling and Rosemary Radford Ruether, well-known dissenters from Catholicism--and, reading between the lines of Dr. Clowes' book, I wonder if that is still not true. What is surprising however, is the amount of cash the group has collected from foundations, over $25 million from its beginning (1970) up to 2001. There is the author's explanation.

1) There is poverty in Latin America

2) Overpopulation causes poverty

3) Therefore, we must reduce the population of Latin America in order to reduce poverty.

4) This can only be done through "family planning" programs

5) But the vast majority of Latin American's are Catholic

6) The Catholic Church condemns abortion and contraception

7) There, we must convince Latin American's to stop listening to the Church

8) Let's fund CFFC, which accomplishes this under the cover of being "Catholic." If we attempted to subvert and undermine the teachings of the Catholic Church ourselves, people would call us "anti-Catholic." So let's leave the dirty work to Catholics For a Free Choice, because they can get away with it under the guise of being "Catholic" themselves.

I would be tempted to add a ninth point: Remember that the Kissinger Report, National Security Memo 200, came out in 1974, and that, like the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, its method of ridding itself of unwanted people was to enslave or kill them. (The slavery envisioned in NSM200 was the degrading slavery of contraception). The foundations' reaction may well have been, "If the government itself thinks like this, why shouldn't we?" At any rate, beginning in 1979, the likes of the Ford Foundation, and many others, became very generous to CFFC.

CFFC has a kind of creed which Dr. Clowes dismantles in thorough fashion. Here it is. Its creed is a nice match for the group's name, for both are lies.

1) "The Bible says nothing about abortion."

2) "You are not guilty of sin if you follow your conscience."

3) "The fetus is not a person."

4) "The Church's ban on abortion is not infallible."

5) "Dissent is necessary for the life of the Church."

6) "We respect the ability of women to make good decisions."

7) "Please don't call us 'pro-abortion.' Nobody is for abortion. We are 'pro-choice.'

8) "The majority of Catholics are pro-choice."

9) "If you want to cut the abortion rate, you must support the widespread availability of contraception."

10) "The celibate male priesthood has no right to pronounce doctrine in areas outside its expertise."

11) "The Church's teachings on abortion have changed many times over the centuries."

12) "We respect the right of others to hold opinions different from our own."

In other words, the foundations have answered the fool in terms of his folly, and become like him themselves. My first reaction was to find CFFC infuriating, but, the more I read, the more I found them sad. Their philosophy goes like this. They start with the claim that the "normal" is whatever happens. Then, "whatever happens" is what I want to happen. If it is not what I want, I will seek power until I 1)ring it about. At the moment, the Church is the one with the power. I will wrest that power from the Church, and I will do whatever it takes to get that power away from her. What makes it sad is to see so much energy utterly wasted. CFFC does not realize that the Church's power is not based on what the Church wants, but on the truth--the truth as in "I am the way, the truth, and the life." The very definition of a loser is a person who goes up against the truth.

To compound its folly, CFFC goes up against Mary, the Queen of heaven and earth, the absolute summit of feminine power, the thing they claim to seek. Rosemary Ruether would have it that the Word did not become flesh, but that flesh became Word, forgetting in her zeal to build up womankind, that as you can't have Christ without Mary, so you can't have Mary without Christ. Let the clouds rain down the just one, and let the earth bud forth a saviour (Isaiah 45:8).

I have an objection to the author's claim (p.8) that "even the most committed pro-life activists favour leeway in the law for cases such as danger to the mother's life." Such laws have proved meaningless in practice. Any law on this point must remind the doctor of his obligation to save both lives. If his best to do so is not good enough, you may have a medical problem, but not a moral problem unless his inability to cope is the doctor's own fault.