Catholics to Pope: Kick out lawmakers

July 4, 2001

Using the Catholic Church's canonical procedures for adjudication of complaints, 2,000 petition signatories are prepared to ask Pope John Paul II to excommunicate self-professed Catholic governors and members of Congress who support legalized abortion.

Titled "A Canonical Petition to Excommunicate Culture of Death 'Catholics,'" the petition names 46 Democrats and five Republicans as "defendants," including Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Gov. Gray Davis, D-Calif. and Gov. Tom Ridge, R-Pa.

Key "plaintiffs" are Judie Brown, president of American Life League; William Cotter, president of Operation Rescue-Boston; Timothy A. Chichester, executive director of Yankee Samizdat; various other anti-abortion groups and Catholic media organizations.

Plaintiffs state they are professed Catholics who bring the petition on behalf of themselves as members of the Catholic Church. Non-Catholics have also signed onto a "friend of the court" brief as members of other faiths "who are stricken by the scandal of notorious Catholics who relentlessly distort the most basic teachings of Christ in their pursuit of a Culture of Death."

"Be it the Defendants enabling of the genocidal attack of the abortionists upon our Black and Hispanic population or the acquiescence to, or promotion of, anti-family homosexual movements, the result is the same: a great loss of faith, the diminution of the Catholic Church in the eyes of both Christians and non-Christians, and the unspeakable spiritual and physical woe of living in a society formed in law by the Defendants," the unprecedented petition states.

Chichester, organizer and originator of the petition, said Brown's recent joining as a plaintiff is a signal to all pro-life people from around the world.

"This is a legal document as dangerous to sign as the Declaration of Independence," he said, "and Mrs. Brown's leadership is as courageous as any of our founding fathers. I think she fully understands the extra suffering she will have to endure for her bravery. For the first time, Catholics and non-Catholics from around the world are united in an international ecumenical effort to combat the Culture of Death in a manner that directly targets those whose hands are covered in blood as well as those who fail to spiritually guide them."

Over 2,000 plaintiffs have joined via word of mouth since the project began, and it has a goal of 100,000 actual plaintiffs by midsummer, which would make it a record-breaking case for the Vatican, said Chichester.

"My goal here is to have people from around the world standing together in their native dress and give the petition to the Holy Father," he told WorldNetDaily. "Regardless of numbers, the avenue we are pursuing creates a powerful voice in light of pending U.S. Supreme Court nominations and the anti-Christian bigotry of those who consider practicing Christians' morality unfit for office."

Item 2272 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life." The petition argues that since defendants create and enforce laws that support legalized abortion, the defendants are guilty of violating Church law.

Additionally, in Pope John Paul's "Evangelium Vitae," or "The Gospel of Life," the pontiff noted, "the Church makes clear that abortion is a most serious and dangerous crime, thereby encouraging those who commit it to seek without delay the path of conversion. In the Church the purpose of the penalty of excommunication is to make an individual fully aware of the gravity of a certain sin and then to foster genuine conversion and repentance. … No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church." Abortion is a crime "which no human law can claim to legitimize," he wrote.

Chichester informed some of the defendants in writing of the petition's impending filing. In the letters, he asks lawmakers to announce they will align their actions as public figures with the tenets of their professed faith. Making such a request before filing an official complaint with the Church is known in the Church as a "Work of Mercy," he said.

"As a child, you were most likely taught about Spiritual Works of Mercy. This petition is such a work," the letter states. "Sadly, if it proceeds to your public excommunication from the Catholic Church, that, too, would be a work of mercy."

The petition and accompanying friend-of-the-court brief are currently open for signatures from both Catholics and non-Catholics. A date for submitting the documents to the Pope has not yet been set.