Mahony Urges Activism on Abortion Issue : Religion: Cardinal says Clinton’s election means foes can no longer rely on presidential vetoes to stop legislation and is ‘cause for real alarm.’

Declaring that the election of Bill Clinton threatens sweeping new abortion rights initiatives, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony called Thursday for increased pressure on Congress to turn back an expected tide of bills that maintain a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

In one of the most pessimistic public assessments by a Roman Catholic prelate on the political implications of Clinton’s election, Mahony said anti-abortion forces could no longer count on a veto to turn back abortion rights forces.

“It may be beyond our ability to stop federal legislation that in the past was blocked solely by presidential veto,” said Mahony, who was elected Tuesday as chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities.

Mahony said the prospects of sweeping abortion rights initiatives “is cause for real alarm among pro-life Americans.”

His statement came one day after the nation’s 285 Roman Catholic bishops, meeting here for their fall conference, convened in closed session to discuss the impact of Clinton’s election on abortion legislation. The issue was raised by Cardinal James Hickey of Washington.

“One thing is clear to me,” Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati told reporters Thursday. “Church teaching about abortion is not going to change. We are going to continue to try and teach that teaching. No matter what you call it, it’s still killing unborn children and we think that’s wrong.”

Mahony succeeds Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York as committee chairman. O’Connor has been an outspoken foe of abortion who has barred politicians who support abortion rights from speaking in Catholic churches and colleges in the Archdiocese of New York.

Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, indicated Thursday that he will continue the church’s hard-line opposition.

He singled out the controversial Freedom of Choice Act of 1992, pending before Congress, and called for its defeat. The bill would guarantee the same right to an abortion that was extended by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973.

This year, the high court ruled that some of those rights may be restricted, although it upheld Roe’s underlying principle of a woman’s right to choose.

The restrictions could mean long delays in getting an abortion and repeated and costly trips for rural women who must go to distant cities for abortion services.

The abortion rights legislation has been backed by the National Abortion Rights Action League, and President-elect Clinton has promised to support the measure.

“Now, more than ever, we must redouble our efforts to see that our newly elected lawmakers do not make the tragic mistake of sanctioning such legislative madness,” Mahony said in an open letter to abortion opponents.

The new anti-abortion committee assignment is certain to give Mahony a higher profile among the nation’s 285 Catholic bishops.

Indeed, Mahony wasted no time in issuing the letter to all “pro-life Americans,” which declared: “I stand with you. All the bishops of the nation stand with you.”

Since 1991, when he was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, Mahony has become increasingly visible in the U.S. church. This week, Mahony drew a surprising number of votes to place second in the nine-way race for vice president of the conference. By custom, the vice president succeeds to the presidency in the next term.

His strong polling came after a dramatic, unscheduled and widely applauded appeal for the church to act promptly to address sexual abuse by priests.

Mahony addressed the bishops after he and two other bishops met privately with several people who had been sexually abused by priests. In large part because of Mahony’s appeal, the bishops for the first time pledged an “appropriate and effective” response to dealing with the abuse problem.

Although the president of the bishop’s conference issued such a statement last June, Thursday’s unanimous voice vote marked the first time the entire conference had adopted the statement as its own.