Archbishop O’Connor and Cardinal Bernardin Spar Over Abortion Issue

In one corner was New York’s Archbishop John J. O’Connor, hard battler against abortion, and in the other was Chicago’s Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin, advocate of a “consistent ethic” for life in all its aspects.

They traded some gentle, glancing nudges, but mostly talked of how much time they have spent as partners in the ring together, perhaps sparring a bit, but working for common objectives.

“You got caught in an eggbeater,” O’Connor said. “Some people feel you softened the position against abortion because of your ‘seamless garment’ view for a consistent ethic about life.”

Bernardin said that approach by U.S. bishops has “strengthened our position,” recognizing the “linkage of all life issues” and upholding the “sacredness of life” against various threats such as war, want and abortion.

“The opposite criticism has been made of you,” Bernardin said, “that you’re not interested in other life issues” besides abortion. But “it’s evident we’re all committed” to pro-life on the various issues.

‘Most Vulnerable’

O’Connor said “there’s room for everybody to try to protect the suffering in one way or another” but that he is concerned that “the most vulnerable, the unborn infant, is easy to lose in the shuffle.”

Bernardin said that some people, previously supporting choice about abortion, have told him they’ve “had to rethink” their attitudes “because of the logic” of the bishops’ consistent “moral vision” defending life on all fronts.

O’Connor, who has accused some Catholic politicians of waffling about abortion in their public actions, said he was distressed that “at particular times, important facets of an issue get lost.”

O’Connor, 65, a longtime Navy chaplain who became New York’s archbishop last year, was host last Sunday night on the first of a weekly series of conversations on WPIX-TV in New York. Bernardin, 56, head of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee and formerly the bishops’ president, was guest.

The two had just returned from a visit to Nicaragua where President Daniel Ortega presented to the U.S. Catholic delegation proposals for reducing tensions with the United States.

“It’s awfully difficult, categorically, to determine who is right and who is wrong there,” O’Connor said. He said the delegation had agreed with Ortega that “we’d be happy to transmit” his proposals to President Reagan “if he’s interested.”

‘Bridge Builders’

“We’d like to be bridge builders,” Bernardin said. “There’s always hope that this was a first step for some kind of improvement in relations between our country and Nicaragua.”

U.S. Catholic bishops for several years have urged a policy of nonintervention militarily in Central America by other nations, and efforts at negotiated rather than military solutions.

The Reagan Administration has provided arms and military advisers to El Salvador, and Reagan has called for continued financial-military support to guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan government.

On another matter on which the bishops have criticized the Administration--its nuclear strategies--both Bernardin and O’Connor served on a five-member committee that drafted the bishops’ pastoral letter against nuclear warfare.

O’Connor said he had been portrayed as “one of the guys who refused” to approve the document. “That’s sheer nonsense,” he said, adding that he sees it as “a balanced document.”

“That’s one thing that saddens me,” Bernardin said, adding that it was claimed “we were at odds, and that you were an obstacle. Nothing is further from the truth.”

‘Near Consensus’

Bernardin, who headed the committee, said he purposely had chosen member bishops of varying viewpoints, and that their candid, intense debates and reconciliation of views had produced a document that “ultimately was a near consensus” of all the bishops when adopted in 1983.

Both bishops outlined steps they have taken to integrate the document into Catholic education.

Concerning a new pastoral letter being developed on the U.S. economy, they said that reaction so far had concentrated only on the final policy recommendations, largely ignoring the biblical-theological basis detailed for them.

Of the letter’s stress on improving the lot of the poor, Bernardin said, “Many poor people are not benefiting from our economy today.”

Describing his work, Bernardin said that to avoid getting bogged down in the complaints and demands that come into the office, he gets a lift by going out and mingling with the people in the parishes.

O’Connor interjected that “no complaints” had come to his office since he took over.

Bernardin grinned, “I don’t believe it.”