NOR DECENT:

Catholic Priests Organization Comments on Kerry Communion (US Newswire, 4/12/2004)

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, a national anti- abortion organization of Catholic priests, commented on the controversy surrounding whether Senator John Kerry's should be allowed to receive Holy Communion.

"The central point is being missed in most of the commentary. Senator Kerry supports in his public life the continuation of a procedure which, in these very days, is being graphically described in courtroom trials about the ban on partial-birth abortion.

"Dr. Timothy Johnson, describing abortion under oath in the New York's Southern District Court, said on March 31, 'So one of the common technical challenges of a dismemberment D&E is what is called a free-floating head or a head that has become disattached and needs to be removed...And technically it is difficult to grasp the head; it is round, it slips out of the instruments that we generally use...The instruments are thick enough and heavy enough that you can actually grasp and crush with those instruments as if you were picking up salad or picking up anything with -- THE COURT: Except here you are crushing the head of a baby. THE WITNESS: Correct.'

"So the issue is not what the Church says; it's what basis human decency says. Once we understand this, it's not hard to understand where the Catholic Church stands."

Well, yeah, except for that...

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 12, 2004 2:00 PM