Abortion Bishop Finally Stops Killing - Well, Not Quite

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Some fifteen months after the other foot-dragging German bishops finally obeyed a papal order to stop issuing abortion counseling vouchers that women were using to kill their babies, the last holdout, Bishop Franz Kamphaus of Limburg, has relented and will follow suit. Sometime in the near future, at least.

       But it took a second order from the Vatican - or, more precisely, a stern request. It came in the form of a letter signed by the Pope himself. Acording to Catholic News Service (CNS) the letter states that "while he [the Pope] respected Bishop Kamphaus' conflict of conscience over the issue, ‘for the sake of the clarity and unity of the witness for life of the Catholic Church’ he [the Pope] was requiring the diocese to follow the German bishops’ decision to leave the program."

        For the sake of "clarity and unity of the witness for life"? How about for the sake of God’s law, or for the sake of the innocent unborn whom Kamphaus was helping to murder for years.

        Now, I don’t know who writes these rather diplomatic letters for the Pope, although it seems certain that he does not sit at his desk and pen them personally. But whoever wrote the letter seems unaware of how perfectly insane this situation is.

        Consider: A defiant bishop has spent the last fifteen months issuing vouchers that women used to kill one baby after another. These were vouchers for cold-blooded murder. Quite simply, Kamphaus deliberately acted as an accomplice to the murder of innumerable innocent children. Indeed, the Pope himself referred to the issuance of these vouchers by the German bishops as a "despicable crime."

       Nor can Kamphaus’ participation in murder be justified by the claim that at least the counseling he offered might have persuaded women not to abort. Baloney. He still issued the abortion vouchers.

       What would the law say about a man who tried to counsel his friend not to kill his wife, failed to persuade him, and then said "OK, here’s a gun"? The law would say that the man who counseled his friend not to kill was an accomplice to murder because he supplied the gun. Kamphaus supplied the means women needed to kill their children under German law. He is an accomplice to murder. It is that simple.

       Yet this very diplomatic letter to the murderous Kamphaus - for that is what he is - states that "the Pope" respected the bishop’s "conflict of conscience over the issue." Oh yes, and Kamphaus must stop issuing abortion vouchers "as quickly as possible," the letter said. As quickly as possible? Still an avenue for delay after so many years of assisting in the murder of children?

       So, this is what we have, dear reader: We have a Vatican apparatus now governed by men who respect "a conflict of conscience" in someone who helps women kill their children, but which does not respect the conscience of a Marian priest from Canada, Fr. Nicholas Gruner, who declines to stop speaking the truth about Fatima.

               Help kill babies, and you get a diplomatic letter. Preach Fatima, and you get "suspended." Welcome to the "renewal" of Vatican II.