QUOTABLE : Abortion Sanctions

In its July 29 issue, Our Sunday Visitor, the largest national Catholic weekly newspaper, asks New York Cardinal John J. O’Connor about the recent actions of church bishops in applying sanctions against Catholics whom they consider abortion rights advocates. Here is his answer:

“If some of my brother bishops decide to turn the teaching into action by leveling sanctions, that’s their right, that’s their jurisdiction in their own areas of cognizance. I have said repeatedly I have had no plans to do this. But at the same time I have enunciated clearly the conditions for church sanctions: that one must treat church teachings with contempt--for example, that one must know what one is doing and so on. To say that I have no plans to levy any church sanctions is quite different from saying that I would be afraid or unwilling to do so if I felt that was my responsibility.”