By Peter J. Smith
NEW YORK, February 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Frances Kissling is finally stepping down from her tenure as president of Catholics for a Free Choice. In less than two weeks, Kissling ends a 25 year milestone in a life of rabid opposition to the Catholic Church’s defense of the sanctity of life, marriage, and family.
The arch-feminist – hailed by former Notre Dame theology dean Fr. Richard McBrien as “an exceedingly intelligent and articulate Catholic who has been unfairly demonized by some who disagree with her views” – made her life’s work actively destroying legal protections for life and marriage all over the world, masquerading herself as a “Catholic” and her anti-life work as “Catholic social justice”.
Kissling began working with abortion clinics in the 1970s, and later became the first executive director and a co-founder of the National Abortion Federation. Columnist Ellen Goodman recognized her as “the philosopher of the pro-choice movement.” As a “Catholic” and leading abortion advocate, Kissling has long been a useful media reference for high-profile dissent during bishops’ conferences and papal visits.
Whenever the Catholic Church has proclaimed its historic teachings defending the inherent dignity of women and motherhood, right to life for the unborn, the aged and disabled, and the natural family and traditional marriage, Kissling has placed herself and her organization “Catholics for a Free Choice” as a rallying point of opposition for anti-life groups demanding the Church “reform” by conforming itself to their anti-life views.
Kissling orchestrated the SeeChange campaign, a pressure group challenging the sovereign status of the Holy See at the United Nations, despite its long history as an independent sovereign entity since the Medieval Ages enjoying diplomatic relations with 175 sovereign states. Kissling tried to reduce the Holy See to a non-governmental organization to limit the Catholic Church’s pro-family pro-life voice in the UN.
However, Kissling’s intransigent defiance of Catholic teachings has made it difficult for many to understand how she could possibly claim to be “Catholic” as anything other than false advertising.
In a Feb. 13 interview with Salon, Kissling described even God Himself as “a pretty offensive character.” She bemoaned, “The flood! He didn’t like how humans were behaving, so he destroyed everything except for two of each animals and humans with a flood.”
With such a distorted, angry comprehension of scripture and her own Catholic faith it is no wonder the driven Kissling became so useful to powerful militant secularist forces.