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Catholics for Choice (CFC), formerly Catholics for a Free Choice, is a Catholic pro-choice organization based in Washington, D.C. that was founded "to serve as a voice for Catholics who believe that the Catholic tradition supports a woman's moral and legal right to follow her conscience in matters of sexuality and reproductive health." The group, founded in 1973, rose to prominence after a 1984 ad in the New York Times pointing out that Catholics held diverse opinions on abortion led to retaliation against signers, and has lobbied nationally and internationally for pro-choice goals. CFC is currently led by President Jon O'Brien.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) states that CFC is not a Catholic organization.

History

CFC was founded in by Joan Harriman, Patricia Fogarty McQuillan, and Meta Mulcahy, as Catholics for a Free Choice, to promote access to abortion in the context of Catholic tradition. Its first president was Joseph O'Rourke, a Jesuit priest who was expelled from the order in 1974. CFC emerged from Catholics for the Elimination of All Restrictive Abortion & Contraceptive Laws, a New York lobby group that had been formed in 1970.

O'Rourke remained as president of CFC until 1979, when Pat McMahon was hired as Executive Director. McMahon shifted CFC's legal status from a lobby to an educational association, opening the group up to tax-exempt status and to foundation support. One result of this was a $75,000 grant on behalf of the pro-choice Sunnen Foundation which funded the group's first publications, the Abortion in Good Faith series.

In 1978 Frances Kissling joined the group, and in 1982 she was made president. She lobbied politicians and activists, many Catholic, to work in favor of giving women access to contraception and abortion.

In 1992, CFC was classified as a non-governmental organization by the United Nations (U.N.); CFC subsequently participated in some U.N. conferences. With other groups, the CFC successfully lobbied against the naming of John M. Klink, a former representative of the Holy See at the U.N., to lead the State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in 2001. More recently, it has assisted in drafting legislation with the stated goal of reducing abortions, partly by increasing financing for family planning.

Kissling led CFC until her retirement in February 2007. CFC's former Vice-President and Director of Communications Jon O'Brien was subsequently appointed as the organization's new President.

New York Times ad

In 1982, CFC sponsored a briefing of Catholic members of Congress, highlighting the majority of American Catholic opinion that dissented with the Catholic Church on the topic of abortion. Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro wrote an introduction to the briefing, and endorsements were also received from Congressmen Tom Daschle and Leon Panetta. Ferraro wrote that responses varied to the problem of abortion, and that "the Catholic position on abortion is not monolithic..."

During the 1984 presidential campaign, Ferraro was chosen as the vice-presidential running mate of Walter Mondale. Cardinal archbishop John Joseph O'Connor sharply criticized Ferraro's pro-choice position, and in October 1984 Kissling responded to O'Connor by placing an advertisement signed by 97 prominent Catholics, including leading theologians, lay persons, priests and nuns, in The New York Times. The advertisement, entitled "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion", stated that "direct abortion ...can sometimes be a moral choice" and that "responsible moral decisions can only be made in an atmosphere of freedom from fear of coercion."

The ad directly challenged Church authority. The Vatican took disciplinary measures against some of the nuns who signed the statement, sparking controversy among American Catholics, and intra-Catholic conflict on the abortion issue remained news for at least two years. In the end, CFC was seen to gain credibility and status by the advertisement, while the Church hierarchy was unable to advance their political goals on the topic of abortion.

See Change campaign

Since March 1999, CFC coordinates an international campaign of 541 groups - including women's, abortion and family-planning groups - called the See Change Campaign, to downgrade the status of the Holy See in the United Nations from Permanent Observer to an NGO, which cannot vote and which must be invited if it wishes to address a meeting. See Change's website says, "We believe that the Holy See, the government of the Roman Catholic church, should participate in the UN in the same way as the world's other religions do—as a non-governmental organization....While the Holy See has the right to a voice at the United Nations, that voice should only be as loud as those of the world's other religions. NGO status would allow the Holy See to continue to advocate for its positions, but without the benefit of a special platform for its views."

The campaign was begun after Holy See representatives at UN conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, and Beijing continued to oppose abortion. Kissling, then CFC's president, asked: "Why should an entity that is in essence 100 square acres of office space and tourist attractions in the middle of Rome with a citizenry that excludes women and children have a place at the table where governments set policies affecting the very survival of women and children?"

The campaign was supported by European Parliament politicians; Marco Pannella, historic leader of the small party Italian Radicals, said "Not even at Mecca, the church is a state, even though some Islamic countries are confessional countries."

The campaign has faced difficulty in the UN and is unlikely to succeed. Anglican Bishop John Baycroft said "The Vatican has as much right to be as any of the other countries". While he says he doesn't agree with all the Pope's policies, Bishop Baycroft says the Vatican deserves its sovereign status as the territorial remainder of the Papal States. "There's a long, long history to it," he said. Also, the UN is well-served to count the Vatican within its membership, Bishop Baycroft says, because its world-wide network of community-level contacts gives it a sense of what ordinary people are thinking that few other governments can match. "It truly is a universal church," he says.

On July 2000, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a motion against the "See Change" campaign, with 416 "yes" vote and 1 "no" vote.

Mission

The organization describes its mission as "to shape and advance sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women's well-being and respect and affirm the capacity of women and men to make moral decisions about their lives. CFC works in the United States and internationally to ensure that all people have access to safe and affordable reproductive health-care services and to infuse our core values into public policy, community life and Catholic social teaching and thinking."

CFC writes that they "are part of the great majority who believes that Catholic teachings on conscience mean that every individual must follow his or her own conscience ― and respect others' right to do the same."

Funding

In 2007, CFC had a budget of $3 million, increased from $2.5 million annually in the years leading up to 2003. It is supported largely by secular foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Buffett Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Playboy Foundation.

Criticism

Church

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that CFC "is not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church as articulated by the Holy See and the NCCB," and that "its activity is directed to rejection and distortion of Catholic teaching about the respect and protection due to defenseless unborn human life." It also stated that "The public relations effort has ridiculed the Holy See in language reminiscent of other episodes of anti-Catholic bigotry that the Catholic Church has endured in the past."

Other critics

Critics dismiss Ms. Kissling’s organization as a mouthpiece for bigger, secular abortion rights groups and a front for anti-Catholic bigotry. Helen M. Alvaré, an associate professor of law at the Catholic University of America, said that CFC has "no grass-roots base among Catholics." She said the CFC arguments were not different from other pro-choice groups.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has described CFC as anti-Catholic.

Defense

In response to accusations of anti-Catholicism, theologian, ecofeminist and CFC board member Rosemary Radford Ruether wrote that CFC was part of a schism rather than a proponent of anti-Catholic bigotry, that the accusation was an attempt to portray the "Catholic right" as the only authentic Catholics, and that "the charge of 'anti-Catholicism' is being used as a scare tactic by the Catholic right in the service of repression of progressive Catholic views."

Excommunication

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, issued an interdict in March 1996 forbidding Catholics within his diocese from membership in 12 organizations including CFC. Bruskewitz stated that membership in any of these 12 groups "is always perilous to the Catholic Faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic Faith." Members of the diocese were given one month from the date of the interdict to remove themselves from participation in the named organizations or face automatic excommunication. Bruskewitz noted that heeding the ban on receiving certain sacraments, which results from excommunication, would "be left to the person's conscience." Frances Kissling, then CFC president, said, "What we would advise people in that diocese to say is that, 'We consider ourselves to be Catholics in good faith, and we think you have rendered the wrong opinion,' and to go about their lives as Catholics."

References

1. ^ Djupe, Paul A. and Laura R. Olson, Encyclopedia of American religion and politics, p. 84, Infobase Publishing 2003
2. Catholics for Choice | Action Center, retrieved 2011-08-11
3. "Catholics for choice protest in Rome". Reuters. July 12, 1994.
4. Catholics for Choice – About Us
5. ^ U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – Office of Communications
6. Priest Expelled for Forbidden Baptism Sarasota Herald-Tribune, p. 4b, Oct. 18, 1975
7. "When the swallows come back to Capistrano" Bottum, Joseph. First Things, Oct. 1, 2006. at highbeam.com. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
8. ^ The New York Times. Backing Abortion Rights While Keeping the Faith. Banerjee, Neela. February 27, 2007
9. "After 25 Years, a Catholic Warrior Steps Aside" Burke, Daniel. Religion News Service. 2007-02-22. at CFC website. Retrieved 2011-07-14.
10. ^ Keller, Rosemary Skinner; Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Cantlon, Marie (2006). Encyclopedia of women and religion in North America. Vol. 3. Indiana University Press. pp. 1104–1106. ISBN 0253346886.
11. ^ Dillon, Michele (1999). Catholic identity: balancing reason, faith, and power. Cambridge University Press. p. 106.
12. Weaver, Mary Jo (1999). What's left?: liberal American Catholics. Indiana University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0253213320.
13. Davis, Tom (2005). Sacred work: Planned Parenthood and its clergy alliances. Rutgers University Press. pp. 146–147. ISBN 0813534933.
14. "US-based Catholic group, feminists oppose Vatican position at UN". Agence France-Presse. March 15, 2000.
15. ^ Sandrasagra, Mithre J. (March 14, 2000). "NGOs Call For Review of U.N. Status of Holy See". Inter Press Service.
16. Pollitt, Katha (June 26, 2000). "Women: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?". The Nation.
17. Cornwell, Rupert (August 29, 1999). "Catholics bid to strip Vatican of statehood". The Independent on Sunday.
18. ^ Shulgan, Christopher (April 19, 1999). "Canadians join move to oust Vatican from UN International coalition". Ottawa Citizen.
19. ^ Eckstrom, Kevin (June 2000). "Pro-Choice Catholic Group Challenges Vatican at U.N.". Religion News Service.
20. CFC SEE CHANGE CAMPAIGN, retrieved 2011-08-11
21. ^ McGarry, Patsy (March 25, 1999). "Campaign to challenge Vatican's status at UN". Irish Times.
22. "Italian maverick politician urges abolition of Vatican state". Agence France-Presse. November 27, 2000.
23. H CON RES 253 | U.S. Congress Votes Database - The Washington Post, retrieved 2011-08-13
24. HOUSE PASSES BILL COMBATING ANTI-CATHOLIC ATTEMPTS TO EXPEL VATICAN FROM THE UN, retrieved 2011-08-13
25. Press Release, retrieved 2011-08-13
26. ^ Catholics for Choice – About Our Work
27. Hunter, James Davison, Before the shooting begins: searching for democracy in America's culture war , p. 744, Simon and Schuster, 1994
28. "Catholics for Choice Needs to Convert" Catholic League. Dec. 3, 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-20.
29. Ruether, Rosemary Radford (Autumn 2000). "The Mantra of Anti-Catholicism". Conscience: The Newsjournal of Catholic Opinion.
30. Extra-synodal Legislation: Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz at ewtn.com. March 19, 1996. Retrieved 2011-07-20.
31. "Catholics in 12 Groups Excommunicated in Nebraska". Daily News. Los Angeles, California: The Free Library, by Farlex. Associated Press. May 16, 1996. Retrieved July 18, 2011.
32. "Nebraska Bishop Excommunicates Catholic Reformers". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. March 25, 1996.

External links

• Catholics for Choice Official website
• Conscience Magazine

• Pro-choice organizations in the United States
• Pro-choice religious organizations
• Organizations based in Washington, D.C.
• Organizations established in 1973
• Christianity-related controversies
• Roman Catholic Church in the United States
• Christian political organizations