Abortion-Rights Advocates Picket Outside Church

Abortion-rights activists and worshipers at a Van Nuys Catholic church clashed in a peaceful but occasionally mean-spirited debate during a demonstration Sunday, the second weekend in a row that the San Fernando Valley has been a battlefield in the continuing controversy.

About 25 activists carrying placards that called for keeping abortion legal walked a picket line in front of St. Elisabeth Catholic Church during morning services, occasionally exchanging insults with churchgoers. A week earlier, about 500 anti-abortion demonstrators marched from a Pacoima church to a nearby women’s health clinic where a prayer vigil was held.

The demonstrators at St. Elisabeth handed out leaflets that criticized the church for allowing members of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue to use its parking lot. Operation Rescue members have used the church parking lot as a meeting place before going to Los Angeles-area health clinics to perform “rescues” by blocking women from entering.

“I am a Catholic, but I take offense to this Catholic church supporting a terrorist organization like Operation Rescue,” said Janice Pemberton, an organizer of the demonstration, which drew members of several abortion-rights groups.

“If they are going to continue to allow this church to be used by Operation Rescue, we will keep coming back here,” vowed Lois Appleton, another demonstrator.

The Rev. Paul J. Hruby, pastor of St. Elisabeth, said Operation Rescue has used the church parking lot twice as a gathering spot after a member of the group, who is also a member of the parish, asked permission. “We open our church to a number of organizations. This is just one of them,” Hruby said.

However, Hruby said he did not believe that the organization uses the lot anymore, a point the abortion-rights activists disputed.

For the most part Sunday, the activists were largely ignored by parishioners on their way to Mass. Occasional debates on abortion quickly grew into shouting matches, and personal insults were exchanged. Abortion-rights leaflets were handed out to parishioners, many of whom stuffed the materials unread into trash cans at the church’s door.

Los Angeles police officers stood nearby, but there was no violence, despite the occasionally heated debates.

Robert Padden, 26, a Van Nuys landscaper, became enraged by the sight of the abortion-rights activists as he left Mass. He engaged in a shouting match with a group of demonstrators; it was broken up by police officers who told Padden that the activists were exercising their right to freedom of speech.

Padden said he would do the same. He went home, painted “Abortion Is Murder” on both sides of his Ford panel truck and drove back to St. Elisabeth, where he spent more than an hour circling the church.

“There are certain things you just have to stand up for,” Padden said from behind the wheel of his truck. “This is my church! I am just ashamed that they have the right to do this, and their freedom of speech allows them to back the murder of babies.”

Padden added: “I just decided I would use some of my own freedom of speech. And I think I am going to leave the truck painted this way.”

Others from the church said the confrontation could be beneficial in the long run.

“They have their right to do what they want to do, and we respect that,” the Rev. Michael Baker, a resident priest at St. Elisabeth, said of the abortion-rights activists.

“I think this could be good because seeing this might make our people say, ‘What do I believe?’ It is easy to watch this on TV and in the newspapers, but when you step out of church and see it, it might start you thinking about it.”