The Religious Consultation
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National Catholic Reporter, August 26, 2005 'Unprotected intercourse' legal argument shocks Catholics In 1994, Archbishop William Levada, then head of the Portland, Ore., archdiocese, offered a simple answer for why a court shouldn’t order the Oregon archdiocese to pay the costs of raising a child fathered by a seminarian working in a parish. In her relationship with Arturo Uribe, now a Redemptorist priest in Whittier, Calif., the child’s mother had engaged “in unprotected intercourse ... when [she] should have known that could result in pregnancy,” the church said in its answer to the lawsuit. The legal proceeding got little attention. Until last month. That’s when the woman, Stephanie Collopy, went back to court asking for additional child support. A Los Angeles Times article reported the church’s earlier response. Now Catholics around the United States are decrying the archdiocese’s legal strategy. “On the face of it, [the argument] is simply appalling,” said Michael Novak, a conservative Catholic theologian and author. That the “unprotected intercourse” argument was offered in Levada’s name made it especially shocking to some Catholics. The former archbishop is the new prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (Levada, 69, was transferred from Portland to San Francisco in 1995, where he served until his appointment to the Vatican May 13.) William Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, based in New York, said the legal language was “simply code for, ‘What’s wrong with you, honey? Aren’t you smart enough to make sure condoms were used?’ ” And that, he notes, is counter to church teaching that using contraceptives is “intrinsically evil.” The attorney who wrote the pleading, Richard J. Kuhn, said he wrote Levada’s answer to the complaint strictly from a “common sense” legal perspective, without regard to Catholic teachings, and he doubts that Levada ever saw a copy of the pleading. According to the Portland archdiocese’s director of communication Bud Bunce, “The attorney handling the case did not speak with Archbishop Levada on this issue, and the archbishop had no input.” Theologian Fr. Richard McBrien said a bishop has ultimate responsibility for a legal argument made on behalf of his diocese. “Archbishop Levada would have -- or certainly should have -- known what his lawyers were arguing on his behalf.” In late July, the Redemptorists, who have paid child support to Collopy’s son since 1994, announced that they would provide more support. -- Religion News Service |