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Comments on Fr. Doc Ortman’s Parish Bulletin Column of August 4, 2002

On August 4, 2002 a column written by Fr. Doc Ortman appeared in the parish bulletin of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Plymouth, MI. In this column, Fr. Ortman made, among others, the following assertions:

1) Being pro-choice is not the same as being pro-abortion.

2) People opposed to legal abortion “would have the state legislate the freedom that only God could give or take.”

3) “Those who regard Ms. Granholm as a ‘heretic’ do not understand, nor do they wish to understand, that choice is a blessed gift.”

4) “Make no mistake, Christians are pro choice in the purest sense of the term.”

Response:

Father Ortman’s column distorts the Catholic moral teaching on abortion. Since he is a priest and a teacher of the faith, it is likely that his attempt to create confusion in this area is deliberate, culpable and a cause for scandal. However, even if Fr. Ortman is the victim of poor theological training, he has a grave obligation to correct the confusion he has caused to the faithful. We, therefore, call for a public retraction on his part and a public declaration of his full support for the Catholic doctrine that “direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or a means, always constitutes a grave moral evil” (John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, 62 [1995]). A few other points must be made.

1) The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is “an unspeakable crime” (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 51). This teaching is infallible. It is “based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by ordinary and universal Magisterium” (Gospel of Life, 51). The Second Vatican Council teaches that definitive judgments of the ordinary and universal Magisterium are infallible (cf. Lumen Gentium, 25). Moreover, John Paul II has confirmed the definitive, infallible status of the Church’s condemnation of abortion in his encyclical, The Gospel of Life (cf. no. 62). The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines heresy as “the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith” (*2089). There is every reason to believe that those Catholics who openly reject the Church’s clear condemnation of abortion are at least in material heresy and liable to the excommunication specified in Canon 1364 of the 1983 Code of Canon of Canon Law. Thus, those who have labeled Ms. Granholm’s views on abortion as “heretical” have a firm basis for their judgment in spite of what Fr. Ortman claims.

2) Fr. Ortman confuses the Church’s teaching on human freedom with an acceptance of the legal freedom to choose abortion. Here, he shows himself to be very wide of the mark. In 1972, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught that any law which supports the legal right to abortion is immoral and, indeed, no law at all (cf. Declaration on Procured Abortion, 21-22). Moreover, the Congregation made it clear that no one can “take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it” (no, 22). This teaching is reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II in the Gospel of Life in these words:

Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection” (no. 73, emphasis in original).

3) The US Catholic Bishops have taught on several occasions that the “pro-choice” position on abortion is not acceptable for Catholics. In their 1989 “Resolution on Abortion,” the US Bishops declared: “No Catholic can responsibly take a ‘pro-choice’ stand when the ‘choice’ in question involves the taking of innocent human life” (Origins, Vol.19: No. 24; Nov. 16, 1989, p. 395). In their 1998 statement, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, the Bishops note:

No public official, especially one claiming to be a faithful and serious Catholic, can responsibly advocate for or actively support direct attacks on innocent human life...Those who justify their inaction on the grounds that abortion is the law of the land need to recognize that there is a higher law, the law of God. No human law can validly contradict the Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.”

4) In light of these clear doctrines of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, we call upon Cardinal Maida to demand that Fr. Ortman make a public retraction of the misleading and scandalous views expressed in his column. We also ask for an open declaration by Fr. Ortman of his full support for the infallible Catholic doctrine on the immorality of abortion and the invalidity of the laws that permit abortion. We also ask that Jennifer Granholm either distance herself from advocacy for legal abortion or else be denied the right to receive the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. This latter policy would be in accord with the courageous stand taken by Bishop Leo Maher of San Diego who in 1989 informed California Assemblywoman, Lucy Killea, that her pro-choice position on abortion prevented her from the worthy reception of holy communion (cf. Origins, Vol. 19: No. 28; Dec. 14, 1989, p. 457).