LOS ANGELES, October 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an extraordinary move, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, prepared taped messages in Spanish and English which were to be played on Sunday, Oct. 1, at all 288 parishes in the archdiocese. In the message, Cardinal Mahony urged Catholics to vote yes on Proposition 85 and to pray for its passage every day until the November elections.
Proposition 85, the Parents’ Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative, would amend the state constitution to require that at least one parent of a minor girl be notified before undergoing an abortion.
“As you may know, under current California law a minor girl under the age of 18 cannot leave school to go on a field trip, she cannot get a flu shot, a tooth pulled, or even an aspirin from the school nurse without one of her parents being notified,” the cardinal said in the taped message. “Yet that same child—a girl as young as 12 years old—can be taken by a complete stranger to an abortion center, put under general anesthesia, and undergo a surgical or chemical abortion without her parents’ knowledge or consent.”
Cardinal Mahony asked priests at all parishes of the Los Angeles Archdiocese to play his taped “Yes on 85” message at all Masses on last Sunday “designated as Respect Life Sunday”.ÂÂ If the tape could not be played on Oct. 1, the Cardinal asked that it be played on another Sunday during the month of October, which is “Respect Life Month.”
A transcript of the Cardinal’s message is available on the website of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: www.la-archdiocese.org/news/story.php?newsid=799