"You can go take a flying leap!" - Bishop Paul Loverde

Bishop Would Tell Catholic Hospital to Ignore Barack Obama's FOCA Abortion Bill
Arlington, VA (LifeNews.com) --

A Catholic bishop in Virginia says he would urge Catholic hospitals to ignore the so-called Freedom of Choice Act if Barack Obama signs it into law. The FOCA bill has been the subject of controversy because it could force Catholic and other private hospitals to do abortions.

Bishop Paul Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington says he wouldn't go as far as other bishops who suggested closing Catholic hospitals but he would refuse to allow them to comply with the FOCA's abortion requirement.

Loverde doesn't have any Catholic hospitals under his purview, but he commented on what he would do if he did.

“I would say, ‘Yeah, I'm not going to close the hospital, you're going to arrest me, go right ahead. You'll have to drag me out, go right ahead. I'm not closing this hospital, we will not perform abortions, and you can go take a flying leap,'" he said.

“It will take away the right of Catholic hospitals not to do abortions, which I suspect would close them,” Loverde said.

“It’s quite a title, let me tell you,” Bishop Loverde said of the legislation's title.

“It’s a misnomer, it’s neither free nor choice, so I don't know where they got the name of the act, because it’s just crazy, because it has no freedom, and it has no choice, nobody has a choice for abortion," CNS reporting him telling an audience.

. . .

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago spoke up about the threats to Catholic health care under the bill.

“It could mean discontinuing obstetrics in our hospitals, and we may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our Catholic hospitals entirely,” Paprocki said. “It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil.”

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