Bishops Warn Against Dissent on Church’s Anti-Abortion Stance

Catholics who disagree with the church’s anti-abortion stand are disobeying God’s laws, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops declared Wednesday in a forceful new rebuke to those who say they are not bound to official church teaching.

“Such dissent . . . is not only from church law but from a higher law which the church seeks to observe and teach,” said the statement, issued by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago on behalf of the bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities.

In addition, the statement made it clear that Catholics who personally support the church’s position on abortion but concede others the right to dissent from it are also violating God’s law.

24 Nuns Signed Ad

Nearly 100 Catholics, including 24 nuns who have since been threatened with dismissal from their religious orders, signed an abortion-related newspaper advertisement a year ago next Monday. The full-page ad, which appeared in the New York Times, asserted that “a diversity of opinions regarding abortion exists among committed Catholics.”

The ad appeared during the height of the presidential election’s debate over abortion and pro-choice views expressed by Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro and New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, both Roman Catholics.

The ad stirred international attention and a confrontation between the nuns and the Vatican. Church authorities there demanded that the U.S. sisters retract their support from the statement or be expelled from their orders.

The bishops’ statement, which was released in connection with the U.S. Catholic Church’s “Respect Life Sunday” on Oct. 6, increased the pressure on the signers and their supporters not to run a new but similar ad in the New York Times, originally scheduled for publication this Sunday. The ad protests the threatened reprisals and expresses support for the right to dissent from church teaching.

Not Legitimate Alternative

“Such dissent can in no way be seen as legitimate alternative teaching,” the bishops’ statement said. “Much has been made lately of statements by persons who, emphasizing that they are Catholics, assert that they are not bound by what the church says about abortion.

“In reply, we wish to make a simple point: The church’s teaching in this matter is binding not only because the church says so, but because this teaching expresses the objective demands placed on all of us by the inherent dignity of human life.”

The official Roman Catholic Church teaching is that abortion is always “a grave moral evil.”

Frances Kissling, a member of the Committee for Concerned Catholics, which is sponsoring the new ad, said that a decision had been made some time ago to withhold publication of the ad, pending expected action by the Vatican against the nuns. “We can’t set a date because we don’t know when that action will take place,” she said. She added that there are about 1,000 signers.

Kissling, who is also executive director of Catholics for a Free Choice, a pro-choice group, criticized Bernardin’s statement.

“I think the need--and the right--to dissent and freedom of conscience are central to the Catholic faith. Abortion is an area in which a Catholic can legitimately dissent from church teaching, and I think the bishops exceed their power in attempting to silence (the) dissent,” Kissling said.