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Twitter post by Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco on Jan. 20, 2022, reacting to an activist group’s projection of pro-choice messages on the facade of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. / Screen shot of Twitter post

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 20, 2022 / 23:16 pm (CNA).

Pro-life Catholic leaders reacted with shock and disgust at an activist group’s projection of pro-choice messages on the fascade of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Thursday night in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the annual March for Life.

The group Catholics for Choice took responsibility for the images, which were beamed from a median across the street from the basilica while a prayer vigil to end abortion was going on inside.

In large letters visible blocks from the basilica, the messages read “PRO CHOICE CATHOLICS YOU ARE NOT ALONE,” “1 IN 4 ABORTION PATIENTS IS CATHOLIC,” and “PRO CHOICE CATHOLICS.”

Other slogans included the words “STOP STIGMATIZING” and “START LISTENING” on the church. The words were projected on both the 329-foot bell tower and upper facade of the church above the front entrance.

Ashley Wilson, director of communications and strategy for Catholics for Choice, tweeted an explanation of the group’s protest. 

“I know that my faith teaches Catholics to honor personal conscience,” she wrote. “And yet, the Catholic hierarchy seeks to polarize pro-choice Catholics and villainize people who make the moral choice to have abortions.”

“I am tired of feeling shame and stigma for being a pro-choice Catholic,” Wilson added. “And I’m not here for people to judge my own personal relationship with God.”

At 6:42 p.m. EST Catholics for Choice tweeted “FACT: 68% of Catholics want #RoeVWade to remain the law of the land. The #MarchForLife & @usccb want folks to think they speak for Catholics, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

The images were first reported on Twitter at 6:31 p.m. EST by reporter Jack Jenkins of Religious News Service. Widely shared on social media, the images drew some support but also sharp denunciations.

“The attempted desecration is enormous. Diabolical,” Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco tweeted. “Mother Mary, pray for them, now and at the hour of death. Amen.”

“Just when you thought @Catholic4Choice couldn’t sink any lower. The group inside is praying for babies and mothers—and for the group outside to repent and believe the Gospel,” tweeted Ryan T. Anderson, president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

“The President of the United States is the most prominent Catholic in America.  He must condemn this immediately,” tweeted CatholicVote.org. “His implicit defiance of Catholic social teaching on life has fueled this division in our church that activists are now exploiting.”

Others were incredulous at the images they saw of the basilica.

“If this is real it is an atrocity. Support of murder projected on the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception???” tweeted Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of Tyler, Texas. “I pray that it is a fake photo photoshopped for evil purposes. If it is real it is horrible & even faking it is evil.”

The provocative action by Catholics for Choice underscores a rise in hostility toward this year’s March for Life, when many pro-life Americans are hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. A decision in the Mississippi case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is expected in June.

On Saturday, a group called NYC for Abortion Rights plans to hold a rally titled “F— the March for Life” outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan. “Come picket and MAKE SOME NOISE with us!! We’re disrupting the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion bull— on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision,” the group tweeted Wednesday.

“MEANWHILE, we’re going to commemorate by disrupting their bull—- as much as we can, at the symbol of the Catholic Church’s grotesque power in NY. Come speak out, sing, play, and show the antis that abortion isn’t going away, and we aren’t either,” the tweet says. 

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Bishop Robert McElroy . Credit: Archdiocese of San Francisco

San Diego, Calif., Aug 13, 2021 / 17:26 pm (CNA).
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego has asked that priests in his diocese not sign religious exemption letters from coronavirus vaccine… […]

Atlanta, Ga., Aug 23, 2018 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An injunction blocking the enforcement of an Alabama law that would have banned a second-trimester abortion procedure was upheld by a federal appeals court on Wednesday.

The 2016 law in question would have criminalized dilation and evacuation abortions (D&Es), dubbed “dismemberment abortions” by the state Alabama, which are the most common type of abortion performed in the second trimester.

Dilation and evacuation abortions are only used by two abortion clinics in the state, West Alabama Women’s Center and Alabama Women’s Center, which challenged the law with representation from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a 3-0 decision Aug. 22, the judges of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found the law to be unconstitutional. The law was similarly blocked last October by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, who said it was unconstitutional because it would have effectively banned abortion in the state after the first trimester.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told reporters that while he was disappointed with the court’s decision, he was encouraged that the court “recognized the state’s important and legitimate interests in ending barbaric abortion procedures – in this case, procedures that literally tear apart babies living inside their mothers’ wombs.”

In his decision, Chief Judge Ed Carnes wrote that “the State has an actual and substantial interest in lessening, as much as it can, the gruesomeness and brutality of dismemberment abortions. That interest is so obvious that the plaintiffs do not contest it.”

“But the fact that the Act furthers legitimate state interests does not end the constitutional inquiry. The legitimacy of the interest is necessary but not sufficient for a pre-viability abortion restriction to pass the undue burden test,” he said.

Carnes wrote that the Alabama law posed an “undue burden” on women seeking second trimester abortions because the alternatives were not considered “safe, effective or available.”

“In our judicial system, there is only one Supreme Court, and we are not it. As one of the ‘inferior Courts,’ we follow its decisions,” Carnes wrote.

U.S. District Judge Joel Dubina wrote separately to concur with Carnes, adding that he agreed with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ criticism of the Supreme Court’s “abortion jurisprudence”, which “has no basis in the Constitution.”

“The problem I have, as noted in the Chief Judge’s opinion, is that I am not on the Supreme Court, and as a federal appellate judge, I am bound by my oath to follow all of the Supreme Court’s precedents, whether I agree with them or not,” Dubina wrote. “Therefore, I concur.”

U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams wrote separately to note that she agreed with the court in its final decision only.

Marshall has said his office may appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Alabama has had mixed results in passing recent pro-life legislation. In August 2017, a federal judge struck down an Alabama law requiring more scrutiny for minors who seek an abortion without parental consent.

The state is still considered to be one of the most restrictive in terms of abortion law. Alabama law requires that women be given counseling and an ultrasound prior to having an abortion, though it is optional for the woman to view the ultrasound image. It also has restrictions on the health insurance coverage of elective abortions that are not performed for reasons of life endangerment, rape or incest.

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