"It is not a liberal cause to support abortion:
It is anti-life and anti-church."

Archbishop Curtiss Criticizes Democratic Party's Abortion Platform

Archbishop Eldon F. Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska, said the Democratic Party's support of abortion goes against the party's traditional role in providing a "voice for the voiceless."

The Democratic platform approved at the party's August convention in Los Angeles declares the party's support for "the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade and regardless of ability to pay."

Archbishop Curtiss called it a "strange reversal of roles these days for people who call themselves liberals to be supporters of abortion while those who are opposed to abortion are called conservatives."

"It's not a liberal cause that is being supported but an elitist anti-Catholic one," he wrote. "There is no place for discrimination against pre-born or partially-born babies in the Catholic Church." The archbishop made the comments in an August 18 issue of the diocese's newspaper, The Catholic Voice.

Archbishop Curtiss reiterated the Church's teaching that Catholics who support "direct abortion as a viable option for ending a pregnancy" are participating in the "objective evil of abortion" and are aiding the "enemies of the church's teaching regarding human life ethics."

The Omaha prelate, in addition, expressed dismay that the Clinton Administration and the Supreme Court justices "refuse to let states ban partial-birth abortion."

The archbishop said that dissenting from the Church's teaching that human life is sacred from conception to natural death is "a serious breach for Catholics and a cause of scandal for people who become aware of it." He said he will challenge any Catholic in his archdiocese "who claims to be a member of the church and at the same time supports abortion."

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Opposition to Abortion a Priority

"The Church is consistently pro-human life from conception until natural death. This is the reason that we oppose the death penalty as well as euthanasia and abortion. However, Catholic teaching does not weigh opposition to capital punishment the same way it weighs opposition to abortion."The thousands of innocent pre-born babies killed every year by abortion constitute a greater evil than the execution of a few convicted felons by the state, not only because of the sheer number of deaths but because of the gravity of the act itself."Therefore opposition to abortion must be a priority for Catholics who support the Church's teaching about the sacredness of all human life."

Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss