Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann: Kansas Value Them Both amendment isn’t a Catholic issue

The recent commentary by Rabbi Mark H. Levin, targeting the Catholic Church and me personally to attack Kansas’ Value Them Both amendment, combined flagrant mischaracterization and anti-Catholic rhetoric.

I have the greatest respect for Judaism and the Jewish people. They know what it means to suffer religious persecution. I am opposed to all forms of antisemitism. I am proud that the Catholic Church in Kansas was a leading advocate for a resolution passed in the Legislature acknowledging the growing problem of expressions of antisemitism in the United States. In my experience, both in Kansas City and St. Louis, the vast majority of Jewish leaders and community members oppose anti-Catholicism.

Levin says that the church is imposing its religious beliefs on Kansans through its support of the Value Them Both amendment. The mere fact that a law coincides with religious beliefs does not mean it is an impermissible imposition of religion. Many laws coincide with religious beliefs.

From a Catholic perspective, abortion is not primarily a religious issue but a fundamental human rights issue. Our faith helps us understand the dignity of every human life created in the divine image as taught in the Hebrew scriptures, but reason alone is sufficient to know that it is wrong to destroy an innocent human life.

Prominent abortion rights advocate Bernard Nathanson became pro-life not because of religious dogma, but because of science. Nathanson was ethnically Jewish but for most of his life identified religiously as an atheist. He was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws and directed the largest free-standing abortion facility in the world. He presided more than 60,000 abortions, personally performing thousands of them.

Ultrasound technology, providing a window into the womb and revealing the undeniable humanity of the unborn child, and advances in fetal science compelled Nathanson to reconsider his view of abortion. He renounced his previous strident support for abortion and became a passionate pro-life advocate.

After his conversion, Nathanson acknowledged the lies and manipulation at the heart of his abortion advocacy, confessing he exaggerated statistics regarding the number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died from them. He acknowledged that he had developed what he called the “Catholic Strategy”:

▪ Appeal to anti-Catholicism by blaming the Pope, bishops or priests for abortion limits.

▪ Elevate in the media pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

▪ Support pro-abortion Catholic candidates.

▪ Promote the “Catholic Straddle”: “personally opposed” but supporting the right of women to choose abortion.

Sadly, Rabbi Levin ’s commentary is a page out of the Catholic Strategy playbook. The rabbi accuses me of trying to deprive Kansans of personal choice regarding their destinies. Yet, this is exactly what the Kansas Supreme Court did by making the outlandish claim that a right to abortion exists in the Kansas Constitution, taking abortion policy out of the hands of the people and their duly elected representatives and putting it in the hands of the court.

Several months ago, I made an appeal to every Catholic in the archdiocese to donate to a special Respect Life Fund to provide additional support for abortion alternatives, post-abortion healing ministry, the expansion of our efforts to help children in foster care, and support for the Value Them Both amendment. I am proud of the generous response of our Catholic people.

I am also very proud that the Value Them Both coalition includes many other faith-based and secular leaders and organizations, including the Lutheran Missouri Synod, the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists, James Dobson, the Family Research Council, Democrats for Life, 200-plus Kansas medical and mental health professionals, Concerned Women for America of Kansas and Kansas Family Voice.

Value Them Both is not a Catholic issue. Preserving current laws and reclaiming the authority of the people of Kansas to determine public policy on such an important societal issue is something every Kansan should be eager to support.