1375 / 02.08.07

 

Holy See

 

Prayer intentions for August

 

Difficulties since Vatican II

Benedict XVI says he had great enthusiasm during the Second Vatican Council, but acknowledges the difficulties the Church has faced since those years. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi recounted the Pope's words during the most recent edition of the Vatican Television program 'Octava Dies.' The Vatican spokesman was commenting on the Holy Father's question-and-answer session last Tuesday with priests from two dioceses of northern Italy. Father Lombardi recalled that the Bishop of Rome answered a priest who spoke of living through the Second Vatican Council, the hopes of 'changing the world,' and the difficulties of the succeeding years.

The Pontiff replied: 'I also lived the time of the Council with great enthusiasm; it seemed that the Church and the world had met again. We had hoped a great deal -- but things showed themselves to be more difficult.' Father Lombardi affirmed that the question-and-answer session had a 'relaxed climate of reciprocal confidence among those who have dedicated their lives to so many years of pastoral service in a difficult world that is in constant change.' In this context, 'the Pope delineates with a few very effective sketches the Church's path of the last decades, profoundly interpreting it in the context of the contemporary world,' the Vatican official added. Father Lombardi said Benedict XVI recalled 'above all the cultural crisis of the West that exploded in '68, with the fascination for Marxism and the illusion of creating a new world, and the crumbling of the communist regimes in '89: the fall of the ideologies that did not give room to faith but rather to scepticism.

'The Christian proclamation has to come to terms with this context,' the Vatican spokesman added. 'And the Church faces it with realism and humility without ceding to the triumphalism of those who think that they have found the way to the new world. 'At the bottom of this is the humility of the Crucified, which will always be contrasted by the great powers of the world, but which generates a real hope that is manifested in the creative vitality of the Church: in her communities and her movements, in the new responsibility of the laity, in ecumenical relations, in liturgical and spiritual experiences. The Pope of great theological ideas and great cultural wealth is also the one who helps us to live the simultaneously humble and rich condition of the hope of the Church on its way, as he says: 'With our feet on the ground and our eyes turned toward heaven.'' [Zenit] 1375.2

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency

During his Sunday Angelus audience on July 29, Pope Benedict XVI called attention to the 50th anniversary of the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that the Holy See 'fully approves' that group's work to encourage the peaceful development of atomic energy. Pope Benedict lamented the continuing efforts by many nations to acquire nuclear weapons or expand existing stockpiles. The spread of these weapons, he said, is both a threat to security and a distraction from the urgent business of eliminating poverty. He called for an end to the arms race, observing that 'the resources saved in this way may be used in development projects in favor of all people and primarily of the poorest.' He encouraged efforts toward 'the non-proliferation of nuclear arms, and to promote progressive nuclear disarmament.' [CWNews] 1375.3

United Nations

UNFPA donors

A report just issued by the UN's Population Fund (UNFPA) to its executive board shows that the top ten donor nations to the organisation are largely white, have fertility rates well below replacement level, have some of the highest contraceptive prevalence rates in the world and also have the most liberal abortion laws in the world. The combined donations from these countries-the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, UK, Japan, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Canada and Switzerland-account for 85.6% of UNFPA's total $389 million revenue from national contributions. With the exception of Japan, each of the top UNFPA donor countries has contraceptive prevalence rates well above 70%. The average fertility rate for the top ten donor countries is 1.59. None of the top UNFPA donor countries comes close to achieving a replacement-level fertility rate. Development experts point out that UNFPA spends most of its donors' money in the largely non-white countries in the global south. [C-Fam / LifeSiteNet] 1375.4

 

The Radical Onslaught

Spain's social re-engineering

The socialist government of Spain, while facing increasing domestic scepticism for its social re-engineering policies, has declared that 'diversity' education will become a compulsory part of the schools curriculum starting in the new academic year. The new Education to Citizenship subject, set by the Ministry of Education, will include training in acceptance of the new realities of 'gay marriage. The curriculum will teach children to accept 'diverse family situations' and include training in 'overcoming homophobic prejudice,' and rejection of 'discrimination' with regard to gender. In the parlance of the international pan-sexual movement, that encompasses radical feminism and homosexual identity politics, 'gender' is an almost infinitely malleable social construct, having little to do with biology or reproduction. Groups at United Nations conferences have proposed such recognition for up to eleven 'genders' including male homosexual, lesbian, bi-sexual, male-to-female 'transgendered,' asexual, hermaphrodite, and transvestite.

Babette Francis the president and National & Overseas Coordinator of the Endeavour Forum, Australia's leading UN lobbyist in pro-life and family issues, told LifeSiteNews.com in 2004 that such programs can be expected to be put in place all over the world as part of the international movement to deconstruct the family. The Spanish curriculum includes lessons in 'moral pluralism' the concept that there is more than one type of 'morality' and that adhering to the traditional concept of moral absolutes is inherently 'intolerant.' The Professionals for Ethics Association has denounced the proposal for its 'moralising and indoctrinating.' Luis Carbonel, president of Concapa (National Confederation of Catholic Parents and Pupils) told Fides news agency, 'Every responsible family has the obligation to refuse this school subject.' Saying it is a 'matter of freedom, to defend the basic and highest right to educate our children in keeping with our own principles,' he denounced the government for attempting to usurp the parents right to form 'the consciences of their children.'

Benigno Blanco, president of the Spanish Family Forum wrote a letter to the European Parliament, saying that 'the government of Spain is in conflict with the families, not with the Church.' Since it came to power in a voter reaction to a series of terrorist bombings in March, 2004, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party has engaged in a program of social reconstruction in an attempt to move Spain away from its traditionally minded Christian roots. Within a year, the new government had legalised homosexual 'marriage,' and adoption of children by homosexual partners. It has legalized embryonic stem cell research and the use of abortifacient birth control, and has moved to increase access to abortion, as well as attempting to eliminate mandatory religious education in the schools. Ironically, it was fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, who despise the moral corruption of the West, that facilitated the rapid moral decline of Spain engineered by the Zapatero-led socialists. In 2004 the socialists defeated the ruling People's Party (PP) then in power because of the political impact of the Madrid train bombings by Islamic terrorists three days before Spain's general elections. The bombing' intense highlighting of Spain's support for the Iraq war caused enough voters to switch their vote to the Socialist Party to upset what was expected to be a re-election of the PP. [LifeSiteNews] 1375.5

'Bad news for IVF embryos'

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has condemned the report of the House of Lords/House of Commons Joint Committee on the Human Tissue and Embryos (Draft) Bill. SPUC highlighted a number of the report's proposals for criticism:

* Wide areas of embryo research to be exempt from licensing

* Unprecedented new power for the regulatory authority

* Much wider permission for inter-species embryo creation than in the draft bill

* Broader grounds for creation of 'saviour sibling' embryos

* Support for weakening of the law against so-called reproductive cloning.

The Joint Committee on the draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill has called for whole areas of research involving human embryos to be exempt from requiring licenses, stripping away even the vestige of oversight currently required in the exploitation of embryonic human beings.
The Committee's report acknowledges that the bill lacks even the foundations that provided a 'partial ethical framework' (paragraph 44) for the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. The report suggests that this ethical foundation should be replaced (paragraph 56). But their suggestion is that the legislation itself should embody no ethical principle other than that the 'regulator is king'.

They call for the regulator (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - HFEA) to have power to exempt whole areas of research from the need for a license (paragraph 56). In these areas, scientists would have total freedom to create, manipulate and destroy any number of human embryos.

The Committee's report suggests that a joint committee of the House of Commons and the House of Lords be set up to provide an ethical framework for bioethics issues. However, the report does not say what powers such a committee would have, other than commenting on proposed legislation (paragraph 48). It would seem a mere window-dressing exercise to set up such a committee when all the power would rest with the regulator.

The report proposes that the government should be able to override the regulator's decisions but only at the regulator's own invitation (paragraph 56: 'The draft Bill should also provide a statutory power for the Secretary of State to make regulations .... only on the application of the regulator, to make provisions where necessary for the remit or authority of the regulator.')

Inter-species embryos

In addition, today's report form the Joint Committee says that if Parliament agrees to the creation of inter-species embryos, a wide powers for the creation and use of such human-animal hybrids and chimeras should be given. Once again, the regulator would have extensive powers.
At the same time the Committee proposes a new definition of 'inter-species embryo' which means any cross-fertilised embryo (human-animal) which does not have a full complement of 23 human chromosomes is not regarded as an inter-species embryo at all. An embryo made by taking a human sperm, deactivating one chromosome - or part of a chromosome - and fertilising a ewe's or sow's ovum, is not an 'inter-species embryo' as defined, and so would not come under the law.

Even though such an embryo might have the potential to develop human characteristics, scientists would be free to do almost anything with it - apart from placing it in a woman's womb (they could place it in an animal).

Furthermore, the committee recommends that the regulator (the HFEA) - not the courts or Parliament - should have the power to interpret the definition of inter-species. (Paragraph 178)

Human cloning

The report also supports the repeal of the law banning so-called reproductive cloning - that is, transfer of cloned embryos to the womb. Instead certain embryos will be categorised as 'permitted' embryos (permitted to be transferred to the womb). At present, cloned embryos would not be 'permitted'.

To those eager to push the boundaries, this amounts to an invitation to pursue cloning, as the transfer of a cloned embryo to the womb could be permitted by a simple change in regulations, without a full debate in Parliament and the public scrutiny entailed.

On 'saviour siblings' the report recommends that any 'serious' condition, not just 'life-threatening' ones, justifies the process of creating and destroying numerous IVF embryos in the hope of bringing one to birth that can provide cord blood or bone marrow to treat the older child.
In summary, the report is good news for ethically insensitive researchers, would-be cloners and other maverick scientists. It is bad news for IVF embryos and for the idea that law should have an ethical framework. [SPUC] 1375.6

 

 

International news

 

 

Defects of IVF

Boys conceived using an artificial technique seem to have less testosterone. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism reports that researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, found abnormally low levels of the sex hormone in male infants who were the result of intracytoplasmic sperm injection. [Reuters, SPUC] 1375.7

INDIA  Nuns arrested

The Catholic Church in India has been stunned by the arrest two nuns in the eastern Orissa state on Saturday, July 27. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), in a statement released on July 29, said that Sister Mary and Sister Prema of the Congregation of St Ann's had been arrested by police at 5 am on Saturday and detained at Mayurbhanj police station before being shifted to Baripada. 'We are really shocked by these arbitrary arrests,' Father Babu Joseph, CBCI spokesman, told CWN. He noted that the police who carried out the arrests had shifted the nuns to prevent their release on bail. Father Joseph said the police seem to have acted 'at the behest of (Hindu) fundamentalists who want to tarnish of the image of the Church.' The two nuns have been booked on charges of 'forcible conversion' and 'torturing students' after two girl students complained to Hindu fundamentalists that they had been 'forced to recite prayers' by the nuns. The CBCI further pointed out that memories of violence against Christians are 'still fresh' in the region around Baripada, where Australian missionary Graham Stuart Stains and his two young sons were killed in 1999 by Hindu fundamentalists who set fire to a vehicle in which the three Christians were sleeping. [CWNews] 1375.8

IRELAND  Croagh Patrick

Archbishop Michael Neary joined 30,000 pilgrims at Croagh Patrick in County Mayo this weekend, urging them to slow the pace of life. The summit of the mountain, also referred to as The Reek, has been honoured annually for 1,500 years since St. Patrick, in 441, spent 40 days and nights fasting there following the example of Christ and Moses. In honour of the day, Archbishop Neary of Tuam started the 5-mile pilgrimage climb at 7 a.m. and then celebrated a late-morning Mass at the summit. From the top, the archbishop encouraged pilgrims in his homily to 'slow down the pace of life.' All of us have to slow down as we climb to the summit, the Irish archbishop explained. 'Now and again we stop to catch our breath, or perhaps, in the early light, gaze on the beauty of God's creation. This is one of those pilgrimages which takes the ever demanding rush out of life,' he continued. 'The world in which we live has set an impossible pace.' Archbishop Neary continued: 'We are rushed from infancy to adolescence and then through those special years to an ill-timed adulthood. Then, as we grow older, we might be left to one side as following generations may see us as a burden or a handicap to their progress and ambition. Perhaps, today, we might bring home a lesson from this old mountain of St. Patrick. We might discover the need to reflect, to slow down the pace of life, to wonder at the beauty of the earth, and to really appreciate the value of our friends,' explained the 61-year-old prelate. He added: 'We live in the age of the instant, where there is no joy in the anticipation and no time to value the achievement. We have forgotten about the sacredness of now or, as some put it, 'the sacrament of the present moment.' 'As we leave this mountain and find in it a symbol of our own lives and struggles in its call for courage, perseverance, and in its joy, sorrow and fulfilment, we might remember those today who struggle with steeper slopes of hunger, exile, famine and separation from their own native lands.' Archbishop Neary concluded, 'We will pray too for those who scale the dizzy heights in search of peace when that summit seems so distant.' [Zenit] 1375.9

 

PORTUGAL  First private abortion clinic

The first private abortion clinic has been opened in Portugal following the change in the law earlier this month to allow social abortion up to 10 weeks' gestation. Previously abortion had been allowed only for disability and other restricted reasons. Many Portuguese doctors are refusing to perform abortions and several public hospitals have said they will not be able to offer abortion, despite the legal obligation to do so, because they lacked doctors willing to do them. [Los Angeles Times, SPUC] 1375.10

 

SPAIN  Mission Youth street demonstration

The Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela said this week he was surprised at the thousands of young people who have taken to the streets 'to proclaim Jesus Christ as the Saviour of mankind and of young people' in the Mission Youth event in Madrid. Speaking on the COPE radio network, the cardinal said young people have given 'testimony to it publicly, in a personal and communal way, with their words.' He explained that Mission Youth, which was launched in 2005, was intended to be a apostolic, spiritual and pastoral venture which was more explicitly defined over time to bring Christ to the young people of Madrid. 'The main objective,' he pointed out, 'was the missionary proclamation to young people in the circles in which they move.' Mission Youth has reached every place where young people interact, even on the weekends, he added. Cardinal Rouco announced that members of Mission Youth will have an audience with the Pope on August 9 at Castelgandolfo, 'coincidentally on the feast of St. Teresa Benedicta de la Cruz, one of the most brilliant young people of the 20th century. We want to tell the Holy Father about the Mission and ask for his encouragement to continue it,' the cardinal said. The next target of Mission Youth will be young married couples. 'The young families of Madrid evangelize the young families of Madrid' will be the theme for the next stage, encouraging young couples to be 'witnesses of the faith to their children, evangelizing their own homes,' he said. [CNA] 1375.11

 

UK  Abortion without consent

The Princess Alexandra hospital in Essex, England, has agreed to pay £27,500 in an out-of-court settlement with Teresa Cooper, 40, a mother of three children, for aborting her fourth child against her will and ignoring her attempts to withdraw her consent. In the two days between signing the consent form and the day the abortion was scheduled, she watched a pro-life video which reinforced her doubts. Mr David Kerry, her lawyer, said: 'It was as if she was on a conveyor belt which was impossible to stop.' [Guardian, SPUC] 1375.12

UK  Law Commission Report on Cohabitation

On Tuesday, the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales published the following Response to the Law Commission's Report on Cohabitation.

The Law Commission's Proposals concerning the financial consequences of cohabiting relationship breakdown are designed to alleviate the hardships that can arise when cohabitants separate. It is to be hoped that when the Government considers this issue, it will do so in the light of two guiding moral principles:

1. The duty of the state to promote, uphold and safeguard marriage as the basis of family life, the best and most stable environment for bringing up children.

2. The duty to remedy manifest injustice and alleviate unacceptable hardship or vulnerability to the extent that it merits the protection of the law.

The Law Commission have been careful to devise a scheme for cohabiting couples who separate which is entirely distinct from that which applies to spouses on divorce. One cohabiting partner would have to show that he or she suffered a continuing disadvantage as a result of contributions made to the relationship during the cohabitation. When, regrettably, married people divorce, legal provisions centre around the notion that both partners had made a commitment to share the whole of their lives together and thus that they share equally what they possess. Couples who cohabit and deliberately choose not to marry forgo the responsibilities and obligations of marriage, and still forgo, under this scheme, the legal benefits of marriage. It is proposed that they have to give evidence of 'economic disadvantage' deserving 'financial relief'.

The welfare of any children of the cohabitation is rightly to the fore in this proposed scheme, but it is not clear why the Law Commission have recommended that the couple should only be eligible when they had cohabited for a certain number of years ( the number not being specified yet). When the Law Commission consulted the Bishops' Conference about this issue, a major concern expressed was that any scheme should not in any way equate cohabitation with marriage, and, in particular, it was thought that identifying a minimum duration of the cohabiting relationship began to create a new legal status of cohabitation with attendant rights and entitlements.

This remains a real concern. Reading the Law Commission's proposals with all the complexities and implications of the proposed measures leaves one all the more convinced of the rightness of marriage as the basis of family life. We believe that being happily married is something that the majority of young people today still aspire to, and it is vital to the common good of our society that we create and sustain a legal framework that supports and encourages them in this aspiration. + John Hine, Auxiliary Bishop of Southwark, Chair of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales Marriage and Family Life Committee. [RCBEW] 1375.13

 

UK  Continuing campaign against fertility

The Lancet's continuing campaign against fertility. Invoking the need to 'eliminate' abortion, The Lancet continues a campaign launched last November to put 'sexual and reproductive health' back at the forefront of international health and development efforts. An article by Jill Replogle focuses on Latin America and the current controversy over abortion in various countries there. The article claims that four million abortions take place in the region annually and that unsafe abortions cause 14 per cent (70,000) of the 500,000 maternal deaths every year. It notes that the Brazilian government proposes to emulate Portugal in putting abortion up for popular referendum and has beefed up spending on the morning after pill.

A supporting editorial cites the agreement reached at the 1994 Cairo conference on population and development that, 'Every attempt should be made to eliminate the need for abortion.' It argues that making contraception accessible to all women will reduce demand for abortion. But it complains that, since Cairo, 'funding for family planning has decreased and informed debate about abortion has been stifled by political, religious, and financial pressure'. Abortion has to be legal for it to be safe, says the Lancet. The journal finds support in a new World Bank document promoting access to birth control in poor countries with high birth rates to improve their lot and enable women to join the workforce. According to a press release, the bank has a new health, nutrition and population strategy that treats family planning as a sign of 'functioning health system'. It offers to help 'address this critical issue through donor harmonisation, aid alignment, and mainstreaming family planning financing needs within a country's national health plan.' [Lancet / MercatorNet] 1375.14

 

 

UK  Mother misled by NHS

A hospital in England wrongly told a mother that her miscarried child had been cremated. The Princess Anne hospital, Southampton, has apologised to Ms Lisa Bertelsen for not telling her that her 12-week child's body was actually in its pathology department. The baby will reportedly be buried. [BBC, SPUC] 1375.15

USA  'Stinging rebuke'

Fr. Frank Pavone, the head of the pro-life religious order, Priests for Life, has issued a stinging rebuke to some Christian pastors who have tried to silence pro-life protestors. Fr. Pavone was particularly upset about an event that happened in Birmingham, Alabama. 'The Birmingham News carried a story on Thursday wherein some local pastors said that pro-life activists who held events on public sidewalks near their Churches 'did not have permission' to hold the events. 'Excuse me, pastors, but they don't need your permission. In America, the public sidewalks are a forum in which any citizen can communicate to any other citizen what is on his or her mind. The 'permission' has been granted by our Founding Fathers and it's called the First Amendment to the Constitution. This permission holds even when the public sidewalk happens to be in front of a Church. Every pastor in every denomination has a duty to understand this clearly and to respect the rights of every citizen to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.' [CNA] 1375.16

 

USA  Woman 'Catholic bishop' ordains woman 'Catholic priest'

An ersatz woman 'bishop' ordained a woman 'priest' and two women 'deacons' in a July 22 ceremony at an undisclosed interfaith centre in Santa Barbara. Present at the ceremony were over 100 invited guests, including, it appears, some 'Catholic' nuns. 'Reporters... agreed not to print the names or orders of the nuns in attendance,' reported the July 27 Santa Barbara Independent. However, multiple reports have surfaced on the worldwide web saying the secret ordinations were held at La Casa de María Retreat and Conference Center in Santa Barbara.

The center is owned by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, who, according to their web site, 'gave up their official ties to the Roman Catholic Church to become a lay community' in 1970. Earlier such events have been held at the centre as well. The woman who was ordained a 'priest' was Juanita Cordero, a 'lifelong Catholic' and a 'former nun,' said the Independent. Cordero underwent diaconal ordination last year in Pittsburgh, says her web site. Attending were her mother, three daughters, and husband Don, a former Jesuit. The new priestess is a social studies instructor at De Anza Community College in Cupertino. She has been studying Ayuvedic Medicine, Yoga, and the New Testament through the University of the South, says her web site. Patricia Fresen, the spurious 'bishop' who performed the ordinations, is a native of South Africa. She was a Dominican sister for 45 years before she was, she says, ordained to the priesthood in 2003.

Though she thought her Dominican community would back her, says an article on the Call to Action web site, they did not. They 'gave her an ultimatum from Rome - either to confess her sin of being ordained and never tell anyone about it, or ask for a dispensation from her Dominican vows of 45 years.' Fresen chose the dispensation. Fresen then went to Germany, where she lived with 'woman bishop' Gisela Forster. Fresen claims a Catholic bishop of a diocese in full communion with Rome offered her episcopal consecration. 'This is not being done for you,' he supposedly said. 'It is so this work of justice [women's ordination] may continue in the Church.' Fresen accepted the bishop's offer. According the Women's Ordination Conference web site, 'several other bishops' consecrated Fresen and two other women in 2005. 'Film and documentary evidence of that ceremony is being kept hidden by a notary public,' said the Independent, 'not to be released until the deaths of the male bishops.'

The Santa Barbara ordination ceremony, held on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, substituted 'Mother and Father' for 'Father' in reference to God and 'God/de' for 'God'. 'Jesus Christ retained his masculine identity, however,' assured the Independent. Neither of the two deacons ordained with Cordero is celibate, said the Independent. One, Norma Coon of San Diego, is married; the second, Toni Tortorilla of Portland, 'lives with her lesbian partner.' The paper said 'at least two additional Santa Barbara women are studying to be ordained.' Fresen and the women clerics assert they are faithful Catholics. Women's ordination, they say, is necessary to secure women's equality in the Church. However, the ideal apparently is not ordination, but the eradication of the ordained priesthood. Speaking at the Southeast Pennsylvania Women's Ordination Conference in 2005, Fresen said, 'One day in the future... there may well be a return to the practice in the early church, when there was no ordination of priests: people in the community took turns in leading the Eucharist... For now, I believe strongly that we need to break the unjust law which excludes women from ordination.' [California Catholic Daily] 1375.17

USA  Witch-hunt?

A doctor has been accused of hastening a patient's death to get his kidneys for transplant. Prosecutors in California claim that Dr Hootan Roozrokh prescribed excessive drugs for Mr Ruben Navarro, 25. The defendant's lawyer alleges a witch-hunt, and the case continues. [Times, SPUC] 1375.18

USA  Treatment for the elderly.

Changes to the US health system could constrain treatment for the elderly. The National Right to Life Committee has written to senators suggesting that moves by the House of Representatives could prevent old people from using their own money to supplement their healthcare and, thus, have to rely on inadequate schemes. [LifeNews, SPUC] 1375.19

 

USA  St Thomas More Society invitation to 'woman priest'

The St. Thomas More Society of San Diego has invited 'woman-priest' Jane Via to speak at a meeting on Friday, Aug. 3, even though Via is under interdict by San Diego Bishop Robert Brom, who last summer forwarded her case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for further action, possibly a formal declaration of excommunication. The Via invitation has sparked internal discord among members of the St. Thomas More Society of San Diego, with some members objecting that inviting someone in open defiance of ecclesiastical authority is not in keeping with the group's mission. Last year, the society invited pro-abortion state Assemblyman Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, to speak.

Despite his pro-abortion voting record, Vargas persists in calling himself a Catholic. And this is apparently not the first time Via has been invited by the St. Thomas More Society. In 1985, while teaching at the University of San Diego, Via signed a statement challenging Church teaching on abortion published in the New York Times, and then Bishop of San Diego Leo Maher also placed her under interdict. 'The Thomas More Society in San Diego had scheduled a speech by Jane Via... but later cancelled -- by order, she was told, of the bishop of San Diego, acting in response to instructions from Rome to silence her. Via was also told that she would not be able to speak at any public Catholic forum in the diocese until she retracted the statement,' says an article, 'Catholics and Abortion: Authority vs. Dissent,' by well-known Church dissident Rosemary Ruether. The article was published on religion-online.org.

Via, 59, has maintained that when Bishop Maher died in 1991, the interdict died along with him. California Catholic Daily has