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Archbishop denounces health minister
Actions “make my blood boil”
Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Gervais has rebuked Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock, a Catholic, in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen.
The archbishop told the paper that Rock’s actions to promote the funding of abortion “make my blood boil,” and urged Catholic voters to “raise a stink” about the funding of abortion. “The fact that we do not have a law to protect the rights of the unborn . . . should not lead us to quietly accept abortion as a right, as a medically necessary procedure. Life is at issue here,” Archbishop Gervais said.
The archbishop lamented that although the Church teaches abortion is evil, there is not one major political party in Canada that is pro-life, even though nearly half of all Canadians call themselves Catholic. He exhorted Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Rock—both of whom identify themselves as Catholics—to come out forcefully for the pro-life cause. “Catholic politicians should be making their private opinions public. Religion is not a private affair. It is a public issue,” he said.
Pro-life leaders, while praising the archbishop’s comments, observed that Chretien, Rock, and other prominent Liberal party Catholic politicians are in fact already committed on the abortion issue. Steve Jalsevac of Campaign Life Coalition notes that “their practical support for abortion access, funding, and promotion nationally and internationally has been extreme.”
The Citizen reported that Archbishop Gervais was stunned when the mainstream media ignored a letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on the abortion issue, which was released January 10 but received virtually no public notice. The archbishop sent out the letter to all Ottawa priests, asking them to disseminate the message to their parishioners.