.- Following the U.S. Bishops' announcement of their grassroots campaign to encourage the faithful to speak out against federal funding of abortion, the Knights of Columbus is calling upon its members to become active in voicing Catholic concerns as well.
“Knights and their families are strongly urged to contact their Senators and Congressmen during the recess, and ask that they support the House language authored by Representative (and brother Knight) Bart Stupak (D-MI), which retains the long-standing policy against federal funding of abortion,” reads an official statement from the Knights of Columbus.
Speaking on the topic of politicians and the Catholic conscience, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson expressed his concern in a recent column, saying that those who have argued that they were “personally opposed” to abortion but unwilling to “impose” that view on the rest of the country are now guilty of the same principle that they have tried in earnest to avoid.
“By working and voting to include abortion coverage in health care legislation, several Catholic politicians stand at the precipice of being the deciding votes in forcing a particular immoral view on their fellow Catholics, by forcing them to fund abortion through their tax dollars,” Anderson stated on Dec. 7, 2009.
Anderson also asserted that “It is doubly ironic that a law that would force millions to violate their conscience by paying their taxes and would entangle thousands of Catholic physicians, nurses, hospitals and charities in the evil of abortion is being considered at precisely a time when the majority of Americans 'in greater and greater numbers' are increasingly becoming more pro-life.”
Bulletin inserts distributed to over 19,000 parishes, a prayer campaign and pulpit announcements are all part of the USCCB campaign initiative. The effort is to help ensure that the final version of the health care reform bill sent to President Obama will include Hyde amendment protections explicitly preventing the use of federal money in promoting or paying for abortions.
