A fellow blogger has posted an interesting piece on the Kennedys and their support of abortion rights despite their Catholicism. He cites a Wall Street Journal article, and references a 1964 meeting in Hyannisport, Mass. where several well-know Jesuit theologians “coached” the Kennedys on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience”. One of the Jesuits identified was Fr. Joseph Fuchs, a moral theologian who taught me moral theology in Rome in the 1970s.
I never knew Fr. Fuchs to support abortion rights. It was rumored his lectures were monitored closely by the Vatican. He did talk about how difficult it is, in his opinion, to thwart the radical and powerful grace of baptism. He was of the opinion that if we believe that baptism is a fundamental, radical and powerful turning from evil toward God, (in other words, complete conversion by the power of Christ in the Spirit), then it takes an awful lot to turn us back toward condemnation and eternal death. More simply, a baptized person would have a much harder time committing mortal sin than is commonly believed. Whether Fuch’s theology lends itself to abortion rights advocacy is a good question.
I am not sure if the other Jesuit theologians mentioned in the post shared that theology.
I would encourage you to log on to read Deacon Kandra’s post for yourselves. The post is entitled, “The Kennedys and abortion: where a Catholic dynasty went wrong.”
http://deacbench.blogspot.com
