Book

Behind Enemy Lines

The work of an uncompromising "apostle for life" has prompted ferocious opposition, even sometimes from within the Church.

By Michael S. Rose

Faithful for Life: the Autobiography of Father Paul Marx, Human Life International, 1997

Review 2

Father Paul Marx, OSB

Review 1

At a 1995 press conference in Montreal, Father Marx--with Rabbi Yehuda Levin at his side--responded to the familiar charges that Human Life International is an anti-Semitic organization.

Recuperating yet again from what has become a chronic rejection by members of America's Catholic hierarchy, Human Life International (HLI) has recently issued the autobiography of its founder, Fr. Paul Marx, O.S.B. Entitled Faithful for Life, the book focuses not so much on Fr. Marx's upbringing and priestly career as on the worldwide pro-life movement and the resistance it has encountered, as seen through the eyes of one of its most ardent and active proponents.

Human Life International recently hosted its 1997 World Conference for Love, Life and the Family in St. Paul, Minnesota. That city's Archbishop Harry J. Flynn created quite a stir a few days prior to the conference by reneging on his commitment to celebrate Mass with Fr. Marx at St. Paul Cathedral. Archbishop Flynn explained his sudden reversal by saying that believes Father Marx had made some "anti-Semitic" remarks--comments concerning American secular Jews who have betrayed their Judaism by their involvement in the abortion industry. Flynn made his decision to withdraw only after an ecumenical group called the Interfaith Council brought some excerpts from Fr. Marx's writings to his attention.

The archbishop's absence, however, was only part of a larger plan of opposition to the HLI meeting, orchestrated by the Fight the Right Coalition (FRC), which twice disrupted the conference proceedings, and also "demonstrated" on the steps of St. Paul Cathedral by offering vulgar gestures, same-sex kissing, nudity, and signs which read, "My body, my choice, my fist!"

HLI subsequently produced a transcript of a panel discussion sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum at which Michelle Gross of the FRC revealed: "Our coalition has formed a number of activities to take on [HLI] in the streets and we also began to do some behind-the-scenes organizing." Speaking to the fact that Archbishop Flynn decided against celebrating Mass with Fr. Marx, she continued:

As Father Marx makes clear in his autobiography, the Flynn incident is typical of the ongoing saga of HLI's relationship with the world. Wherever Father Marx has traveled to preach his pro-life message (especially in North America), he has invariably met with vicious propaganda campaigns perpetrated by the likes of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the National Organization for Women, and has been rejected by local Catholics, including bishops and priests, all the while being welcomed by the thousands of pro-life and pro-family activists who promote HLI's message that being pro-life is not limited to a single-issue but permeates one's entire lifestyle.

Archbishop Flynn's false accusation of Fr. Marx's anti-Semitism was not the first of its kind. Commenting on this in Faithful for Life, Fr. Marx writes:

The unfounded accusations against Father Marx and HLI are not limited to charges of anti-Semitism. Because HLI adopts an across-the-board approach to life issues--working against abortion, contraception, sterilization, euthanasia, population control, and explicit sex education, while promoting chastity, natural family planning, home schooling, and theological orthodoxy--Father Marx's organization has roused opposition from many quarters. Often that opposition has been fueled by false accusations, including complaints that HLI is anti-woman, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, racially prejudiced, divisive, and disrespectful of bishops.

In answer to charges made by Planned Parenthood that HLI is racist Father Marx (who has given talks denouncing racism in 49 states and 91 countries) provides some revealing statistics on the American abortion industry. For instance: 24, 202,000 white women and 12,203,760 women who are members of racial minorities have undergone surgical abortions since the late 1960s. "Because there are currently about 46,000,000 minority people living in the United States," he points out, "the latter abortion figure indicates that more than one-fifth of our country's minority population has been wiped out by surgical abortion."

In the United States between 1980 and1996, 25 percent of all pregnancies involving white women ended in surgical abortion, while 40.1 percent of minority women's pregnancies were aborted. Thus a pregnant minority woman was 57 percent more likely to abort than a white woman. The average number of abortions obtained by minority women each year is 526,500, which is 33.8 percent of the nation's total. Further, the 11 US cities which account for more than 70 percent of the overall minority populations had 52.74 abortionists per million persons, and the 11 US. cities where the minority population is under 10 percent had only 15.75 abortionists per million persons. Surveying all these statistics Marx comments: "This tremendous disparity represents nothing less than a systematic pattern--which can be called genocidal--directed against minorities by abortionists and other abortion advocates." Who then is peddling racism: HLI, which fights abortion, or Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion provider, which plants facilities in minority neighborhoods?

When one insists on telling the truth, he will not go unscathed by the American media and other proponents of libertine American culture. HLI's Catholic opponents have been less predictable. HLI's vigorous pro-life orthodoxy has incurred disfavor with not a few in Catholic episcopal circles. While many characterize HLI's reporting of proven religious irregularities as "bishop-bashing," Father Marx makes the point that "to say and do nothing while the faithful are misled by obvious infractions and toleration of false teachings is highly irresponsible."

One of HLI's more widely publicized critiques of the American Catholic hierarchy concerns the bishops' dealings with sex education. At their semi-annual meeting in 1990, the US. bishops approved a set of guidelines for Catholic-school "sex education" bearing the title, Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Lifelong Learning. Father Marx writes that the document, masterminded by authors and publishers of sex-ed literature, "flagrantly disregards parental rights, wavers on the need for moral/spiritual formation, and presents a fatally confused and muddled concept of human sexuality with 'New Age' overtones."

In Faithful for Life Father Marx also describes in detail the undercover work he has done throughout his career in order to document the workings of the pro-abortion movement. In January of 1971, for instance, Father Marx, having received permission from his Benedictine superior to wear civilian clothes, managed to attend a three-day symposium at the International Hotel (now the Wyndham) near the Los Angeles International airport. The program, entitled "Therapeutic Abortion: A Symposium on Implementation," drew approximately 500 persons and featured prominent doctors, heads of hospitals, Planned Parenthood officials, lawyers and judges, health-insurance executives, Protestant ministers, and Senator Robert Packwood. The central purpose of the meeting was the question of how to implement abortion on demand in the United States--how to coach society to accept it as normal, how to change state laws, how to fight abortion opponents, and how to influence the US Supreme Court.

Father Marx, incognito as "Dr. Marx," received permission to tape the entire symposium, and did so. Thus he is able to relate details of meetings which conflict with the official published document released to the public by symposium organizers.

Oregon's Senator Packwood (who is now retired in disgrace as the result of sexual activities which he chronicled with his own pen) who was unable to attend as scheduled, telephoned and delivered a 45-minute speech followed by a question and answer session. Father Marx writes: "With remarkable frankness, he literally coached the symposium on how to override restrictive abortion laws by challenging or breaking the law and/or bringing court action." The senator admitted openly to the symposium audience that he had been wining and dining Supreme Court justices in his home, using the opportunity to discuss abortion with them. He also confessed that he had been urging the Defense Department to allow and promote legal abortions for female military personnel.

Counseling the crowd, Packwood expressed his horror that the Family Planning and Population Act, which had allocated $382 million for for family planning services and research activities in the 1973 fiscal year, forbade using the funds for abortion. He suggested: "If a national grant were made to Chicago's Planned Parenthood, for example, they could use the money for other purposes and expenses, while using the current monies to promote abortion." Further, he proposed various health legislation which could funnel money to be used for abortion purposes.

Father Marx, as a Benedictine priest, writes from a remarkable perspective. He has been persecuted on each step of his journey through the pro-life struggle, even by his own order, for being too confrontational. (In 1980 the Benedictines of St. Johnís University abruptly dismissed Father Marx from his position at the Human Life Center for his "extreme" views.) But "extremism" here only means that he is unwilling to compromise with his opponents; he is always ready to speak the truth in toto, including much that some of his fellow American Catholic leaders cannot bear to hear.

For example, HLI is one of the few organizations, Catholic or otherwise, that explicitly maintains (supported by careful research) that contraception leads to abortion. This is something the typical American does not want to discuss. Father Marx writes that in 95 percent of the 600 parishes at which he has preached, people have told him that he is the first priest they have ever heard speak of contraception or sterilization from the pulpit. Despite the fact that the 1990 US. census report claims that 47.6 percent of American women and 20.8 percent of men have been sterilized by age 45, most clerics refuse to broach this issue with their congregations. Dismayed, Father Marx points to the admissions of many abortionists. Dr. Malcolm Pitts, former medical director for Planned Parenthood, openly admits that "as people turn to contraception there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate." An English abortionist, Dr. Judith Bury, wrote in 1981 that "there is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate."

In connection with his study of family sociology (he holds a PhD.in the field) Father Marx has studied the history of contraception in various cultures and concluded:

There are lighter moments, too, throughout the autobiography--such as when Father Marx describes his rigorous travel schedule, flying from country to country each month. "For these flights, I always tried to be on time," he writes. "On one occasion, however, I was late, the plane was waiting, and I was the last one to board. As I confronted the hostile faces turned toward this dumb and tardy priest, I quipped, 'The last shall be first and the first shall be last,' and tension disappeared." Interestingly enough, Father Marx survived one plane crash near Rolla, North Dakota, and he missed his scheduled flight on the ill-fated Pan Am flight 103, which went on to explode over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing everyone on board.

Despite the false accusations and persecution the Benedictine priest has suffered at the hands of members of his own faith, and even his own religious community, Pope John Paul II has told Father Marx that he is doing the greatest work on earth, and has called him "an apostle for life." For anyone who wishes to know what has transpired in the international pro-life movement over the last 30 years, Father Marx provides an excellent, revealing chronicle.

Michael S. Rose is editor of St. Catherine Review and St. Joseph Messenger in Cincinnati, Ohio.