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I would be concerned about the Pope making an "ex cathedra" statment on abortion, simply because it feeds into the ludicrously distorted assumption that nothing is morally certain unless it has been expressed as an "ex cathedra" statement. It is morally certain that abortion (like all other forms of murder) is a grave sin; this really --- to any Christian who is not acting out of guile ---needs no "ex cathedra" reinforcement.

I just jumped into the discussion at this point, and have not read the rest of the thread. I'm assuming other FReeper Catholics have explained the relevant parts of Holy Scripture and the Church's unbroken and UNANIMOUS testimony for the past 20 centuries.

In fact, the teaching against abortion is probably the (!) single (!) clearest (!) example (!) of the authority of the "universal ordinary magisterium" , which means the teaching of all the bishops dispersed throughout the world (including the pope) which, ultimately, comes to us from the Apostles, who also wrote the books of the New Testament and through whose teachings we know the words and deeds of our Savior Jesus Christ.

The teachings of the 'ordinary magisterium' are considered infallible if they are indeed universal, that is, taught as being applicable to everybody at all times.

The teaching against the directly intended and deliberate destruction of an innocent life is a moral absolute. It applies under any circumstances: in law and in custom, war and in medicine, whether by abortion, infanticide, or euthanasia, a bullet, a bomb, or a baseball bat.

It is indeed mind-blowing that a prominent soi-disant Catholic University President pretends not to know this. Such people often fancy themselves "Vatican II Catholics," ignoring what Vatican II actually said: "Life must be protected with utmost care from the first moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes" (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, "Constitution on the Church in the Modern World"), citing sources going back to the first century AD.