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Pro-choice Catholics

MIKE CONSIDINE

Mill Hall

At a recent mass, the priest talked about the American Bishops’ debate on denying us Pro-Choice Catholics communion. He said that being Catholic, we must comply with all the teachings of the Church and being Pro-Choice is against those teachings. I think this is a misunderstanding by the Bishops of what we Pro-Choice Catholics believe and would like to take this opportunity to explain why.

While I cannot speak for all Pro-Choice Catholics, I can speak for myself, and I believe Joe Biden and many more when I say I believe abortion is a sin.

Let me say that again so that it’s clear as a Pro-Choice Catholic: I agree with the teaching of the Church that abortion is a sin. I hope and pray that no woman has an abortion and that if it is healthy for them to do so that they have the baby and if they cannot provide or give the child the love it deserves that they put the child up for adoption.

That said, as an American Catholic, I believe a woman has the constitutional right to choose. I am against the government passing laws to take that right from the women when such laws will once again drive abortions underground into back-alley butcher shops and cause some to self-abort dangerously in the privacy of their bathrooms.

Abortion laws will unfairly affect the poor and lower-middle-class, while those with means will fly to Canada or Mexico to have their abortion so that they would have little effect on the actual number of abortions. If the so-called Pro-life movement would put as much effort into programs that might work as they try to make criminals out of women, we might be able to find some solutions to lower the numbers.

So I would humbly use the words of Pope Francis when I ask the Bishops to deliberate on this issue as pastors, not politicians. It is also the teaching of the church that of papal supremacy, and his authority as the ruling agent who decides what are accepted as formal beliefs in the Roman Catholic Church. So when the Pope advised the Bishops to move with unity and avoid letting the issue become a point of “discord.” He also subsequently said in a homily that Communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.” I believe the Bishops got their marching orders from the God-ordained leader of the church.

One final point to take into consideration when deciding to deny us a sacrament is a question of what sin have we committed?

As I stated, I am against abortion, believe it is a sin and would advise women to look at other options; I politically disagree that the government should have the power to force women one way or the other.

If you deny the sacrament to those who support a women’s right to choose, then you must also deny it to those who support the death penalty. How about those who don’t help the poor or asylum seekers? Where does it end and tell us the truth, why are we really here?”

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