Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...countered, arguing that all Catholics must follow the Vatican's teachings. "When you have sisters and priests and brothers saying outlandish things like Catholics for a Free Choice, you call them on that sort of thing and say. 'No, that isn't what a Catholic can believe.' To be a Catholic means to stand with the Church. If you want to take the option, take the option. But don't take it is the name of a Catholic option...
Pope John Paul II's position on abortion is firm and uncompromising: it is morally wrong and equivalent to infanticide. That papal teaching, along with its corollary that Roman Catholics should actively seek to overturn legislation that allows the taking of prenatal life, has put the Vatican in a confrontation with 24 American nuns that could lead to their expulsion from religious life. The nuns are among 97 Catholics, including three men who belong to religious orders, who signed "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and + Abortion," an advertisement published in the New York Times last October...
Rome clearly did not agree. Last month the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes commanded the heads of the religious orders whose members had signed the ad to get public retractions from the offenders. The superiors were told to dismiss those who refused to recant...
According to Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco, chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' doctrinal committee, the Vatican had no choice but to defend "the clear and constant teaching of the church that deliberately chosen abortion is objectively immoral." Under the disciplinary provisions of the church, the nuns who have been admonished will have to decide in the coming weeks whether to disavow their statement or face dismissal. Some nuns have already indicated that they will not back down, even though they oppose abortion. Says Sister Donna Quinn of Chicago, executive director of Chicago Catholic Women and past...
...effort to devise a response to the tough Vatican measures, 35 of those who signed the declaration, including many of the dissident nuns, met in Washington just before Christmas. A new statement released by the group was no less a challenge to the Vatican than the first. Said the group: "We are appalled by the recent action of the Vatican against women who are members of religious orders. We believe that this Vatican action is a cause for scandal to Catholics everywhere. It seeks to stifle freedom of speech and public discussion in the Roman Catholic Church and create...