Ad Signed by 1,000 Catholics Scores Reprisals in Abortion Dissent

In a new challenge to Roman Catholic Church leaders, more than 1,000 Catholics were expected to publish a broadside defending dissent on abortion and blasting Vatican reprisals against dissenters.

The declaration, which was scheduled to be published as a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, includes signatures of at least five priests and 40 nuns, sponsors said, although many signers did not include affiliations.

Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which helped organize the protest, said in an interview that a main goal of the statement is “to send a clear message to the Vatican that Catholics will not be intimidated by reprisals against Catholics who speak out . . . that reprisals will lead to more public comment rather than less.”

Similar Ad Published

Seventeen months ago, a smaller group of Catholics stirred what has become a substantial controversy within the church with a similar ad contending that staunch opposition to abortion by Pope John Paul II and other church leaders was not the only legitimate Catholic position.

That statement, published at the height of the 1984 presidential campaign, was intended to counter church leaders’ criticism of Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro, a Catholic, for her position that she was opposed to abortion but not in favor of outlawing it.

Noting the expulsion threats and other efforts to penalize original signers, the new statement says in a “declaration of solidarity”:

“Such reprisals consciously or unconsciously have a chilling effect on the right to responsible dissent within the church, on academic freedom in Catholic colleges and universities and on the right to free speech and participation in the U.S. political process. Such reprisals cannot be condoned or tolerated in church or society.”

Bishops’ Reaction

William Ryan, associate public affairs secretary for the U.S. Catholic Conference, said that the bishops’ national organization had no formal reaction to the new ad and was “standing with” a statement that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago made last September.

In that statement, prompted by the first ad and by continuing discussion of it, Bernardin said a Catholic who chooses to dissent from the church’s anti-abortion stance “or to support dissent from it is dissenting not only from church law but from a higher law which the church seeks to observe and teach. Such dissent can in no way be seen as legitimate alternative teaching.”