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CWL LEADER LASHES OUT AT BISHOP OVER FEMINIST MARCH

TORONTO, July 5 (LSN.ca) - Betty Anne Brown, Catholic Women's League (CWL) Ontario president, wrote a scathing letter to Bishop Nicola De Angelis, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto and Spiritual Advisor for the Ontario CWL over his public disapproval of the radical feminist March of Women 2000. The bishop's disapproval was expressed in a letter by him responsed to a CWL package containing the agenda and background information on the upcoming Provincial CWL Convention. The package, sent out by Brown included the letters of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and individual bishops supporting the March, but excluded comments by the bishops who oppose it. The bishop said in his letter, "in all fairness, I would suggest that you circulate as well the official statements of other Bishops" opposed to the March.

In her letter to the bishop, Brown says, "I am sorry that you promulgated your opinion without passing it by me first." And apparently in response to the bishop's invitation to the CWL to disassociate from the march, Brown tersely reminded Bishop De Angelis that "we are an autonomous women's organization in which males do not have a vote on policy."

Brown affirms in her letter that "we are and always have been pro-life," but goes on to use the pejorative term "anti-abortion people" to describe pro-lifers. Brown conveys the false impression that pro-lifers have tried to assert that the CWL is not pro-life. In fact, it is precisely because the CWL is a Catholic organization and pro-life that the CWL executive's endorsement of the pro-abortion March has caused such controversy, mostly among grassroots CWL members who have overwhelming disapproved of the march endorsement. Brown attacks "anti-abortion people," accusing them of being "jealous of our influence and the fact that we are listened to by governments. It is they who are trying to discredit us. We will not fall to their smear campaigns."

In LifeSite's original April 3 coverage of the march controversy it was noted that a letter sent by Brown warned local CWL presidents that if they ordered kits from the March of Women organization they should remove the "document outlining the national demands for the March" and other materials since they identify one of the key demands of the march as (according to the CWL letter) being "the right to free, public abortion services." The letter argued that the CWL executive did not support this demand of the march. However, the action to remove the demands of the march prevented CWL members from being fully informed of the nature of the march they were being encouraged to join.

See LifeSite's special page on the women's march at
http://www.lifesite.net/clc/womens_march/

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