Follow Up

New Developments on Stories Featured in Catholic World Report

In December 1996, all seven of the active cardinals in the United States traveled to Rome, to lobby for approval of a new inclusive-language Lectionary.

Or did they?

As the calendar year drew to an end, few observers were inclined to dispute that interpretation of events. After all, an official Vatican statement had indicated that the cardinals met with Vatican officials to discuss the inclusive-language issue. Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and William Keeler of Baltimore had returned to home stressing the importance of the inclusive-language issue, and predicting approval of the new Lectionary.

But early in 1997, astute listeners began to hear some discordant notes--suggestions that the inclusive-language debate was not yet settled. In Philadelphia, answering call-in questions from listeners on a radio talk show, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua flatly contradicted the Vatican's public explanation of the purpose of the December meeting. When a caller suggested that the cardinals had asked for the meeting in Rome "to talk specifically on the inclusive-language issue," the cardinal interrupted. "But it was not, it was not," Cardinal Bevilacqua said. He left the astonished caller dumbfounded by continuing: "not that I'm going to tell you what it was about. But it was not about that."

Soon after Cardinal Bevilacqua's odd demurral came on the heels of a revealing public statement by Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, the former chairman of the US bishops' committee on liturgy. In a February 27 speech that was delivered in Texas, then duly recorded by his own diocesan paper, Bishop Trautman voiced his fear that the new Lectionary would not embrace inclusive language--and that it would be a "sad day" for the Catholic Church if the Vatican approved any other approach.

The absence of inclusive language, Bishop Trautman argued, "denies women their own identity." As authority for that statement he cited an exchange between two female university students (perhaps unfortunately identified in the diocesan newspaper as "college girls"), one of whom asked the other: "Why should I come to church when all I hear is language that excludes me?" In an implicit reference to an earlier battle between American translators and Vatican officials, the bishop went on to say: "While we all admire and welcome the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is regrettable that it does not employ inclusive language."

Bishop Trautman summed up his fears by suggesting that the new Lectionary, as approved by the Vatican, "will be called inclusive but in fact will offer only tokenism." Such a result, he lamented, would make "the Lectionary inferior to existing non-Catholic translations"

Meanwhile at the Vatican, a working group of American bishops and Vatican officials met early in March to review the proposed translations. When those meetings were concluded the chief American representative-- Archbishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa, the new chairman of the US bishops' liturgy committee--presented the results to the Administrative Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That presentation took place late in March 1997. No public statements were issued; interested Catholics were left to wonder what conclusion might have been reached. But that public silence itself may have been a clue of sort; there were no triumphant shouts, no jubilant press releases, from the proponents of inclusive language.

Eventually, the US bishops' committee on the liturgy quietly explained what had occurred. In Rome, the committee's newsletter disclosed, after reviewing a corrected version of the Lectionary, the US-Vatican working group had "unanimously approved the manuscript which uses a moderate degree of horizontal inclusive language which was acceptable to all parties." After hearing the report from Archbishop Hanus, the newsletter continued, the Administrative Committee unanimously recommended

consideration of such a submission" by the full body of US bishops at their June 1997 meeting.

Because the entire process leading up to the introduction of the new Lectionary has been shrouded in secrecy, Catholics in the United States will not know exactly what sort of language the new draft contains until after their bishops approve it. But the phrase used in the newsletter of the bishops' liturgical committee seems to suggest that Bishop Trautman's fears could be confirmed.

When the translators of liturgical texts first encountered significant opposition to the use of inclusive language, they made a compromise in the form of a distinction. While accepting the argument that they could not use inclusive language in explicit references to God ("vertical inclusive language"), they clung to the notion that new translations should always use inclusive language in references to mankind ("horizontal inclusive language").

By that logic, "horizontal inclusive language" could be said to mean a "moderate" use of inclusive language. But the bishops' committee suggests that the new Lectionary will use "a moderate degree of horizontal inclusive language. " That phrase which would suggest a moderate use of moderate inclusive language--or, as Bishop Trautman might put it, perhaps the new Lectionary "will be called inclusive but in fact will offer only tokenism."

In May, as the US Senate moved toward a vote on a new legislative bid to ban partial-birth abortions, no one doubted the outcome of the vote; pro-life forces were confidently expecting that the bill would be approved, as it had earlier been approved by the House of Representatives. Still, a crucial question remained unsettled: would support for the bill be strong enough to overcome the expected presidential veto? The answer to that question will not be certain until all the actors in this drama carry out their roles in the script. The Senate must pass the bill, President Clinton must veto it (as he has promised to do), and the House of Representatives-- which has already approved the legislation by a veto-proof margin-- must cast its own vote to override. The final showdown, then, will come no sooner than this summer.

Last year, an identical bill followed the same path, and ultimately died on the Senate floor when pro-life legislators could not muster the two-thirds majority they needed to override Clinton's veto. But since that time, two important developments have shifted the balance of political power. First, the November 1996 elections produced a new Congress, in which--particularly in the House of Representatives--pro-lifers found more certain allies. Second, a leading lobbyist for the abortion industry subverted his own cause by admitting that he had "lied through my teeth" in his defense of the partial-birth procedure.

In last summer's contentious debate, abortion advocates had argued that the partial-birth abortion technique was used only rarely, in cases which involved serious fetal deformity or a threat to the mother's life. Pro-lifers protested that in fact the procedure was performed thousands of times each year, and many women sought these late-term abortions for reasons of convenience alone. But in the face of blanket denials from the abortion lobby, the pro-lifers found it difficult to advance their case. But now Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, conceded that the pro-life arguments had been on target--that he and his colleagues had deliberately misled both the public and the Congress.

In March, pro-lifers in Massachusetts uncovered another act of deception, apparently organized by the abortion lobby. IN 1996 and again in 1997, Maureen Britell of Sandwich, Massachusetts, testified in Congress against the partial-birth abortion ban. Britell, who describes herself as a Catholic, claimed that a partial-birth abortion in 1994 saved her life. Her case was cited repeatedly by pro-abortion politicians, including President Clinton, as evidence of alleged dangers in the legislation.

But first there were inconsistencies in the Britell story, and then that story began to change. Maureen Britell described an early induced delivery. During that operation, she said, doctors informed her that the placenta was lodged in place, so they cut the umbilical cord. Her unborn daughter, who was severely deformed, soon died. That is certainly a harrowing procedure, but it is not a partial-birth abortion as defined by the Congressional bill.

And why did doctors hastily end the baby's life? In September 1996 Britell said that the procedure was necessary because she "stood the chance of bleeding to death." In sworn testimony five months later she was less specific, saying only that the doctors sought "to avoid serious health consequences." But by March 1997, she was ready to tell the Cape Cod Times: "My life wasn't in danger, but my emotional and mental health was."

Britell's story raised a number of questions: Why did no doctor come forward to verify her account of the procedure? Who was the mysterious "parish priest" from whom she claimed to have received counsel to have the abortion? If it is true, as she claimed, that she "used to picket at abortion clinics," why did pro-life activists in her area say they had never seen her? But above all, why did her changing story always conform to neatly to the rhetorical needs of the abortion lobby--first emphasizing a threat to the mother's life in 1996, when abortionists argued (inaccurately) that the bill made no provision for such cases, and then backing off to emphasize the mother's health in 1997, as President Clinton and his allies shifted to that safer ground?

Searching for an answer to those questions, Teresa Donovan of Massachusetts Citizens for Life asked a Boston newspaper reporter how he had discovered Maureen Britell. The answer was direct: "Planned Parenthood."

If pro-lifers were frustrated by continuing media fascination for the Britell case, they had at least two reasons for rejoicing as the Senate vote approached.

In a shocking op-ed column published in the New York Times of June 4, 1996, Father Robert Drinan, SJ, had argued forcefully against the partial-birth abortion ban. Since Father Drinan teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, outraged pro-lifers protested to that city's Cardinal James Hickey, and received an assurance that they could expect a "clarification" of the priest's remarks. A long silence followed. But apparently Cardinal Hickey was able to exert his influence more effectively than Drinan's Jesuit superiors. On May 12, the Archdiocese of Washington issued a press release noting that Father Drinan "has retracted his public statements of last year."

"I withdraw those statements and any other statement that could be understood to cast doubt on the Church's firm condemnation of abortion--a doctrine that I totally support," wrote Father Drinan. Although he stopped just inches short of endorsing a ban on the partial-birth abortion technique, Drinan said that he "can understand why Church leaders are urging lawmakers to ban it. I do not want anything to impede that effort."

The case of Father Vincent Rigdon, a Washington priest serving as an Air Force chaplain, was very different from that of Father Drinan. In 1996, when the Clinton Administration issued an order forbidding chaplains from discussing the partial-birth abortion ban, Father Rigdon responded with a lawsuit. With the aid of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, he claimed that the order was an infringement on his right to religious freedom. Early in April, Judge Stanley Sporkin upheld the priest's case, explaining: "What we have here is the government's attempt to override the Constitution and the laws of the land by a directive that clearly interferes with the military chaplains' free exercise and free speech rights, as well as those of their constituents." The federal judge concluded: "There is no need for heavy-handed censorship, and any attempt to impinge on the plaintiffs' constitutional and legal rights is not acceptable."