Bishops Enlist PR Firm in Abortion Battle : Religion: Clergymen hope to shift the debate in their favor. The opposing side claims the move violates the separation of church and state.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, stung by the success of abortion-rights groups, has retained the Hill & Knowlton public relations firm and former President Ronald Reagan’s pollsters to help design a counteroffensive that the bishops hope will shift the debate and alter the political climate on the issue.

The decision marks the first time that the bishops have sought such help in waging a public-policy debate, one official said. It drew an angry response from abortion-rights advocates, who branded it a waste of church resources and a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

The national effort, to be aimed at the general public and public officials, follows a decision by the bishops last fall to elevate the abortion issue and try to reach a wider audience with their views.

“Some organizations have lost sight of fundamental values, such as the sanctity of human life, or they have tried to convince America that the main issue in the abortion debate is the right to choose rather than, as it really is, what is being chosen,” Cardinal John J. O’Connor, archbishop of New York and chairman of the conference’s Committee for Pro-Life Activities, said in a statement.

Noting that abortion-rights groups have hired pollsters and media advisers to help them, O’Connor added: “Given the stakes--life itself--we can do no less.”

One estimate put the cost of the project at $5 million, but officials said that could not be determined until Hill and Knowlton and the Wirthlin Group, which will conduct the polling, had finished an initial evaluation.

“I don’t know if the program will be a $5-million program because we don’t know what the elements of it will be,” said John Berard, deputy general manager of Hill & Knowlton, Washington. “But any program in this regard will be longer than it will be short.”

In his statement, O’Connor said he hoped that the effort could be carried out “on peaceful grounds, without vitriol.” Angry reactions from abortion-rights advocates quickly dashed his hopes.

“In a church that is having difficulty keeping inner-city parishes open, that can’t keep schools open and with nuns on welfare, spending $5 million on this seems a totally inappropriate use of money and may make a lot of Catholics, even those who agree with them on abortion, very unhappy,” said Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice. “No other issue has ever received this kind of expenditure or attention of this type.”

But Father Kenneth Doyle, a spokesman for the conference, said: “That question really has no relevance because it’s not as though the money is being shifted from one purpose to another.”

Doyle said the money for the project would be sought “from donors, including institutional donors.”