Chicago
Cardinal George says MAP sometimes acceptable; prefers to address
conscience issue rather than fight contraceptive coverage in
Obamacare takeover
Special
to PFLI E-News©
Chicago, IL -- 30 Mar 2010
On
Saturday March 27, the Archdiocesan Pro-Life Office in Chicago, IL
sponsored an all day conference called Caritas in Veritate.
Some questions were posed to Chicago's Catholic leader, Cardinal
George, during the Q&A at the end of the day. While the session
itself was taped, the Q&A session was not. An on the scene
source, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that:
Cardinal
George spoke on Caritas in Veritate.
1)He (Cardinal) agreed that the so-called "morning after pill" (MAP) may be given in case of rape if given before ovulation determined by an ovulation test to be sure that the likelihood of the contraceptive effect is more probable than the abortifacient effect. This mimics the position taken by the USCCB and the Catholic Health Association, contrary to papal pronunciations on the matter of abortifacients whose purpose and/or intent is to destroy a new life.
2) The questioner was not sure if he (Cardinal) understood his second question which had to do with sexually active women taking hormonal contraception for therapeutic reasons. Perhaps the Cardinal failed to think about the abortifacient effect and said that it was "OK".
3)(a little bit late...) What has the USCCB done to prevent federal funding of contraception? He (Cardinal) said that contraception is accepted culturally so they support conscience rights instead of trying to prevent federal funding.
Most so-called "contraceptives"
are in fact high powered steroids that often have a multiplicity of
mechanisms of action, one of which is definitively abortifacient.
Various studies over decades of research state the abortifacient
mechanism comes in to play 2-50% of the time, depending on the
study.
The Cardinal's office was contacted for comment and
spokesman Mary-Louise Kurey, director of the respect life office for
the Archdiocese, stated: "...I read your email regarding the
conference hosted by the my office, and your quotes from Cardinal
George are remarkably inaccurate. If you wish to speak with me about
it, please call me on my cell..."
PFLI contacted Kurey
again this morning again and got an out of office message. Her
original reply also contained what PFLI can only surmise is a veiled
threat or CYA: "Please do not go to press; otherwise I'll have
to issue some kind of clarification and I would hate to see the
credibility of PFLI tainted."
Given that is the first
contact PFLI has had from the Archdiocese in 26 years, including our
conspicuous fight against abortoholic ex-Governor Rod "Slobodan"
Blagojevich's diktat against pharmacists of conscience from
2005 to 2008, PFLI finds it an odd meet-n-greet.
Developing....