On a lecture tour last winter in Toledo I heard many stalwart Catholics complain about the indifference of priests in the face of the greatest war of all time, abortion. Incidentally, in that diocese there is brewing a potentially horrible sex-education program whose bibliography does not even mention Humanae Vitae or Familiaris Consortio but does include dissident theologians like Bernard Häring, Richard McCormick, and Charles E. Curran.
An Evangelical woman, Marjorie Reed, wondering out loud why priests could be so indifferent to so great an evil, invited me to accompany her into an abortion mill. She had already been jailed four times for such courageous, apostolic activity. Now, while picketing is not my bag, I have never questioned its value. The convert to pro-life, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, tells in one of his books how one picket outside an abortion chamber bothers the doctor doing the abortion, bothers the nurse handing him the tools, and even bothers the girl collecting the bloody cash.
And, so on a very cold morning, I accompanied three good Protestants to the abortorium. It was discreetly hidden away not far from a major thoroughfare. Two of our group set up a display including a garbage bag filled with “bloody” dolls and surrounded by suitable signs for the benefit of passing motorists.
Stared at by the money takers
After sadly watching several duped young women enter the killing-chamber, some of them with their boyfriends, two of us went in. My colleague immediately starting talking to some twenty insecure girls waiting for their abortions and I proceeded to the desk to announce that I was the Catholic chaplain in attendance. The consternation was total. They did not know how to act or what to say. After about five minutes, they recovered enough to lock all the doors – a set-procedure, I hear, lest pro-life people walk into the rooms. In all my life I shall never forget the devilish stares aimed at me by the two women who were registering the girls and taking the money.
A black security guard timidly watched the unusual proceedings. I asked him how he, a member of a race that itself had long been persecuted, could preside over these killings. He, too, was nonplussed. After overcoming the shock of meeting a Catholic priest in an abortion chamber, he confided that he worked there only part-time. He eventually admitted that he was a Catholic! Then I went to work on him, and he promised me that he would quit the job.
When I feigned taking pictures of a “boyfriend” and his pregnant girl, the young man threatened me. The security guard told me privately that I should not take a picture, because he could not protect me: these abortion mills, it seems, use men dressed as security guards for decoys.
In walked four policemen, totally ignoring the security decoy, two of them went after my pro-life friend talking with the girls. One stood off to survey the whole scene, and the head of the detail approached me.
“Prove that you are a priest,” he demanded.
Said I, “Prove that you are a policeman.”
He pointed to his badge. I pointed to my Roman collar. A nice fellow, perhaps even a Catholic, he said with a suppressed grin, “You won this one.” Then he conferred with his friends, apparently not quite knowing what to do with this strange Catholic priest, “chaplain” of this hideous charnel house.
The officer’s wife had had three abortions
The chief then returned to me and asked to see my identification. I showed my driver’s license and my American Express card. He wanted to know where I came from, what I was doing in Toledo, and when I would leave. When I told him I was lecturing in the city, he wanted to know where; I replied that I really did not know (which I really did not). I recall explaining that people tell me to go here and there, and I “goeth,” as the gospel has it. (Usually I remain in a city or area for four or five days or even longer, speaking several times a day in various places and leaving it to my pro-lie host to tell me where to go next.) The chief then left me for another consultation with his colleagues.
Back came the chief. He said to me, “We have never had trouble with priests or clergymen in this matter.”
Staring him down, I retorted, “That is a sad commentary on the priests and clergymen of Toledo.” He caught the point.
After a fourth conference he said,” I know what you are doing here. I know why you are here. We’ll take that girl to jail. Now, if you quietly leave, we’ll let you go; we’ll do nothing about you.” I responded that surely he would not mind if I, as chaplain, took my time.
Returning from still another conference, he asked me whether I was going to leave. He assured me, “We take no sides in these matters; we only do what we are told.”
I shot back, “That is what the Nazi doctors said at the Nuremberg trials, and we hanged them?’
He lamely said, “But they had a choice.”
I said, “You do, too.” He then asked me again whether I would leave. I assured him that I would but asked if I could first have someone take a picture of him and me in this strange place. Amazingly he hesitated a moment and politely said no.
Just then Marjorie, my Protestant pro-life friend, was handcuffed and escorted to the police car by a black officer who obviously would have put me in the coop but fast? How in the world she did I’ll never know (pro-lifers can be very crafty?), but she switched on her little hand tape recorder and recorded the whole conversation on the way to jail. It turned out the officer’s wife had had three abortions? (No wonder he was so eager to throw me in the jug too.) Three hours later Marjorie’s friends bailed her out with $50.
Cool and brave
After a prayer in the abortorium, I left to rejoin my colleagues picketing outside in the severe cold. Over a hot cup of coffee we compared notes, and I tried to answer their questions. Do bishops and priests really understand what is going on? Why is it that they rarely preach on this subject? What do the bishops really think? And so, on and on – the same questions one usually hears in every Western country.
I resolved I would try to make time to walk into at least one abortion mill in every city I visit. If the reader thinks I was cool and brave in the slaughterhouse, let me assure him that I shuddered within. But there is one thing I have learned in 22 years of fighting the anti-lifers worldwide: God is with you. In 37 years of priesthood I have never seen the hand of God in my life more clearly than when doing this work. So many others throughout the world who fight abortion, who seriously oppose the anti-life juggernaut, tell me the same. They all suffer. They are persecuted in their own way; they are considered fanatics and alarmists; they are called the thousand names that cowards hurl to hide their own apathy.
Dr. Marx is president of Human Life International
