WED, AUG 8 -- Historical note: someone called our attention recently to the 1992 threat by the Archbishop of Guam to excommunicate any politician who failed to support a pro-life law then before the legislature. Media Watch reported:  

Gagging over Guam -- The American territory of Guam has made a rare appearance on the media's radar screen by passing a strong pro-life law that upsets pro-abortion activists -- and reporters. On the October 1 CBS Evening News, reporter Bob Faw began: "At every convention, they brag America's day begins here. What they don't trumpet is that something could also be ending on Guam -- the right of American women to get an abortion. Guam's legislature didn't just sing its national anthem. By a whopping unanimous vote, it enacted the most stringent anti-abortion rights bill ever passed in any American jurisdiction."
     Faw went on to detail how Guam's Catholic archbishop sat in the Pacific island legislature's gallery during the debate suggesting excommunication for any Catholics who didn't support the bill. Faw suggested: "So talk all you want about separation of church and state back home. Just don't talk about it on this island, which is 96 percent Catholic." Faw asked the archbishop: "You're saying only one viewpoint will be permitted, only one set of beliefs is to be established. That's not the American way."

TUE, JUL 24 -- Ex-priest James Carroll, in the July 24 Boston Globe, wrote a bitter diatribe denouncing the Church's teaching contained in Humanae Vitae. While theologically erroneous, and negligent with respect to the sociological evidence documenting the unintended side effects of contraception, it is revealing of attitudes among some priests, theologians, in 1968. Our analysis.

Colombia's Roman Catholic Church warned Wednesday (July 18) it would excommunicate abortion practitioners and called for opposition to a new law allowing abortions in the case of rape. The law allows judges to reduce or waive penalties for abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape "or other crimes." "The abominable crime of abortion becomes partially justified by this legislation," the bishops wrote, calling for Catholics to disregard it. (Agence France Presse; July 18, 2001)

TUE, JUL 17 -- Brent Bozell's online Cybercast News covered excommunication petition: "More than 4,000 people have signed a petition to excommunicate 50 Roman Catholic current and former politicians who support abortion and take other positions thought to be in conflict with church policy."

TUE, JUL 10 -- The Irish Examiner of July 10 covered the excommunication petition to the Pope. "Catholic organisations in the US, who initiated the petition, are asking anti-abortion groups in Ireland to nominate politicians to be cited in the petition, along with 52 public figures in the US, including Senators Edward Kennedy, John Kerry and Joseph Biden." Full article.

FRI, JUL 6 -- Cleveland Diocese donated $30,000 to abortion-related group (CWNews.com/LSN.ca). Ohio Catholics who were distressed on learning that the Diocese of Cleveland donated $30,000 last year to a community organization affiliated with the National Abortion Rights Action League, have issued new protests upon learning another grant was made this year.
    Several Catholics had contacted the Diocese to protest last year's funding of a group with links to NARAL through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). However, the diocesan newspaper, the Cleveland Catholic Universe Bulletin, reported June 22 that the Cleveland Diocese's CCHD grants for this year once again include $30,000 to the same organization-- Organize! Ohio's Grassroots Leadership Development Program.
    Organize! Ohio's (OO) list of member organizations last year included the National Abortion Rights Action League of Ohio (NARAL). OO's web site described NARAL as “the political arm of the pro-choice movement in Ohio.” While NARAL does not appear on OO's member list this year, Kate Pilacky, Project Director for OO, said that for administrative reasons and not because of "any controversy going on with right-wing groups."
    OO's mission, according to its web site, is “to build a system of support for community organizing by providing training, increasing communication, and advocating for resources to strengthen local organizing efforts around the state. The project also provides an avenue for local organizing groups to act on a statewide level on policy issues of common interest.”

WED, JUL 4 -- World Net Daily covers excommunication petition. "Using the Catholic Church's canonical procedures for adjudication of complaints, 2,000 petition signatories are prepared to ask Pope John Paul II to excommunicate self-professed Catholic governors and members of Congress who support legalized abortion."

SAT, JUN 30 -- Judie Brown, President of the American Life League and a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy on Life has become a plaintiff in an international and ecumenical Ecclesial lawsuit to be filed directly with the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II.

SAT, JUN 16 -- Despite having ten years of Catholic education, membership in the Knights of Columbus, and having been elected on a pro-life ticket, as well as voting pro-life for years, Massachusetts State Senator, has announced that he is now "personally opposed" to abortion, and now intends to vote pro-abortion, and to uphold Roe v. Wade. Why? He just never thought that deeply about the issue! [And how "deep" does one need to be?] Coincidentally, he is also running for the late Congressman Joe Moakley's U.S. House seat.

In Atlanta the U.S. Catholic bishops voted unanimously, according to Saturday’s [June 16] Boston Globe, to require Catholic colleges to accurately convey Catholic teaching, which seems a fairly modest consumer protection measure. But, discipline is mostly "pro-choice." Report.

MON, JUN 4, 2001 -- A story in today’s Australian Herald Sun is headlined “Church gays refused communion.” These dissident Catholics, members of the Rainbow Sash Movement, were refused Holy Communion by Bishop Denis Hart at St. Patrick’s Cathedral; all were given a blessing by the bishop instead.

Rainbow Sash spokesman Michael Kelly said, “We were saddened, not surprised, that we did not receive communion,” Mr. Kelly said. “We were hoping for a sense of welcome and a sense of warmth - the refusal of communion is just a symbol of the continuing discrimination and alienation of gay and lesbian people who suffer at the hands of the church.”

Bishop Hart said the church had a constant teaching in regard to who may and may not receive holy communion. Bishop Hart said, “In this particular matter, the constant teaching of the Catholic church is that sexual activity is restricted to marriage between a man and a woman,” Bishop Hart said.

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