Maybe We Can Import a Few of Them for The USCCB

Spain: Bishops willing to 'take to the streets' in support of human life

Madrid, Jan 7, 2009 / 09:29 pm (CNA).- The spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of Spain, Bishop Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, said this week the bishops of that country are willing to support new public protests if the current government continues to insist on liberalizing abortion laws that are being debated in Parliament.
“We want to support whatever we can so that lawmakers know that Catholics do not want this,” Bishop Martinez Camino explained during an interview with Europa Press. “Promoting laws that give license to kill contradicts human and Christian consciences,” he added.
He also warned that guilt for abortion falls not only on women who choose to have them, but also on “those who do not support them, those who pressure them or mistreat them.” Lawmakers didn’t escape the bishop’s warning either, especially those who are believers. Those politicians who promote “these kinds of laws” should be aware that the punishment of excommunication “is not only for the women, but also for all those whose direct collaboration was necessary to carry out an abortion,” he said.
Bishop Martinez Camino stressed also that abortion “is not a right,” and called on lawmakers to provide greater assistance and thereby ensure that there is never an excuse for taking the life of another person.
“If we have the right to take the lives of our children, we have lost all sense of what rights mean,” he added.
The liberalization of the law on abortion would “subtlety and absurdly” justify this practice as a “right,” he continued, and undermine all other personal rights. The license to kill children is “contrary to the concept of rights,” the bishop said.

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Too bad most of our Bishops aren't so willing to do so. Remember the almost complete silence at the Bishops meeting last Fall when Bishop Robert J. Hermann said: "I think any bishop here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion." The few bishops that did respond to Bishop Hermann (including Bishop Robert Finn, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Bishop Michael Sheridan & Archbishop Charles Chaput) are among the few who actually do take an active role. Most Bishops do little more than pay lip service to fighting abortion. Only a handful have actually shown up at an abortion clinic to pray. How many of them can you see actually taking to the streets?

& when it comes to excommunication, it looks like the Spanish Bishops are more concerned with the scandal that allowing pro-abortion Catholic to receive Communion would cause than with "politicizing" it. Bishop Martinez Camino made it clear that politicians who promote “these kinds of laws” face the punishment of excommunication. Our Bishops could learn a few lessons in courage from the Spanish Bishops.