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I’M MICHAEL HICHBORN, AND YOU’RE WATCHING THE AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE REPORT.
Does Planned Parenthood have a Catholic counterpart? It may sound inconceivable, but Commonwealth
Catholic Charities of Richmond, Virginia is currently under investigation for falsifying
papers to help a sixteen-year-old Guatemalan immigrant obtain an abortion.
The story goes like this: On January 17th, Joanne Natros, the Executive Director for
Commonwealth Catholic Charities told Bishop DiLorenzo that a 16-year-old immigrant being
cared for by the CCC was scheduled to receive an abortion the following day with the help
of CCC employees. Bishop DiLorenzo is reported to have said, “I forbid this to happen.”
But Ms. Natros told him there was nothing they could do about it. And tragically this
young girl’s baby was killed. On the surface it would appear four CCC employees
acted alone in opposition to the bishop and church teaching. But there are too many lingering
questions to take the story at face value. For instance, even though the four employees
betrayed the bishop, Catholic Charities, and the Catholic Church itself, and may have violated
state and federal law by fraudulently signing a consent form, it still took nearly three
months before they were fired.
Why? Even more to the point, what information was Joanne Natros acting on when she told
the bishop that there was nothing they could do to stop the abortion.
Ok. Let’s suppose he truly believed there was nothing he could do, like ... call the
police? Or actually find the young girl to talk to her? Isn’t it hard to believe that
a Catholic Bishop could do nothing to stop the *** of this preborn baby?
Why did it take him several months to even acknowledge the death of that innocent preborn
child, and even then only to give a heads up to his brother bishops? This tragedy took
place in January … but it took a report from a layperson who found out about the looming
federal investigation for Bishop DiLorenzo to address this scandal publically. And even
that was a discrace.
Steven Neill, the spokesman for the Richmond diocese said he’s very apologetic about
the whole episode. "It is very awkward. It is very embarrassing." Awkward and embarrassing.
Hardly the words to describe the violent killing of an innocent preborn baby. What happened
in Richmond was a horrible tragedy.
When a scared teenager comes to the Catholic church for help the answer can never be abortion.
With all the lingering questions and the air of secrecy we hope the investigation provides
the answers we need so that something like this can never happen again.
FOR AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, I’M MICHAEL HICHBORN.