Still Running Off at the Keyboard

The nation's Catholic bishops decided yesterday to fire an opening salvo at the incoming Obama administration, pledging to work with the new president on issues such as immigration and healthcare but also warning that the Catholic Church will do everything it can to oppose his support for abortion rights.

Meeting a week after Democrat Barack Obama, a strong supporter of abortion rights, won a majority of the Catholic vote en route to a relatively easy victory, the bishops were clearly agitated by the prospect of eased restrictions on abortion rights over the next four years.

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Chicago warned that Catholic hospitals might have to close if, as he and other bishops fear based on legislation considered by Congress this year, a Democratic Congress and a sympathetic Obama administration decide to eliminate the right of doctors to refuse to perform abortions....

The bishops, reeling from an election in which voters seemed to disregard their counsel, have talked about abortion and politics repeatedly during their semiannual meeting here. They agreed to authorize Cardinal Francis E. George, the archbishop of Chicago and the president of the bishops' conference, to write a statement for publication that will spell out their concerns....

Also yesterday, the bishops for the first time approved a new "blessing of a child in the womb," which could be said by priests for pregnant women. The blessing was in the works for several years, but took on new significance in light of the bishops' heightened concern about abortion, given the election results.

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