Catholic Activist Calls for More Oversight in 'Contracted Out' Legal Filings
by Jim Brown
August 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - Liberal and conservative Catholics alike are outraged that the man who is now chief guardian of Roman Catholic doctrine worldwide once made a legal argument advocating the use of birth control -- something the church views as "intrinsically evil."The Los Angeles Times reports that while archbishop of Portland in 1994, William Levada filed a legal argument suggesting that a woman who sued the archdiocese for child support should have used birth control. According to Levada's filing, the mother had engaged "in unprotected intercourse" with a church worker "when [she] should have known that could result in pregnancy."
William Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, says although he doubts Levada saw the document -- because it was written by an outside attorney -- the buck stops at the archbishop's door. Donohue is calling for greater oversight and accountability in the Catholic Church in America.
"You can't have people making decisions without somebody at the top at least having some type of oversight," he says. "[O]therwise it's just going to get lost in the bureaucracy. So I do think more accountability has to be done."
The Catholic League head also urges the church to own up to what happened instead of trying to pretend that it was just a mistake because "it's more than a mistake -- it's an embarrassment to the church," he says.
The legal argument, Donohue contends, should never have been approved. He suggests that the attorney who penned the wording may have been thinking, "Well, the churches may not actually like the wording I'm going to use, but I think I'm really here to win; that is to say, to save the church some money. So, therefore, I'll write it the way I want to."
If indeed that was the attorney's attitude, Donohue says it is "unfortunate" as well as "despicable." But that is what happens when you "contract out," he adds -- "and that's why things need to be kept in house; otherwise you're going to run into this problem."
In early May, Levada was appointed the Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a post previously held by current Pope Benedict XVI. The person in that position is essentially the principal defender of all the moral and theological doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and sometimes acts as chief prosecutor against members of the church who have strayed from those values. Levada has announced he will step down from his current position as archbishop of San Francisco effective August 17.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
