16 U.S. senators accused of rejecting Catholic faith

Sixteen Catholic senators recently voted against an amendment that would have restored the Mexico City Policy. The policy, instituted by President Reagan in 1984, prohibited U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding organizations that perform or promote abortions in foreign countries. Catholic activist Judie Brown, president of American Life League, says she was especially disappointed by the vote of a freshman Democrat from Pennsylvania who claims to be pro-life.

"Other than Robert Casey, who is an enormous disappointment to me, I think we could have expected the pro-abortion vote from the other 15 so-called Catholic senators," says Brown. "It's no surprise to me that those 15 individuals voted against life because they've been doing so consistently for a very long period of time."

Brown says that Senator Casey (D-Pennsylvania) ran on an "alleged pro-life platform" and that she suspects that he was "deceiving the voters in Pennsylvania and is indeed as pro-abortion as his fellow pro-abortion Democrats and Republicans." She is calling on her fellow Catholics, and Christian people in general, to contact the bishops in the diocese where these senators reside and ask them to publicly condemn their vote.

In a press release, Virginia priest Tom Euteneuer, the president of Human Life International, referred to the pro-abortion Catholic senators as "the gang of 16" and "the new 'ugly Americans' practicing imperialism at its worst." Among the Catholic senators who voted against the Mexico City Policy were Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and presidential hopeful Chris Dodd of Connecticut.