O'Malley heartened, worried by election

Fears a loosening on abortion access

BALTIMORE - Forty years ago, in the weeks just after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a young friar named Sean O'Malley joined thousands of other civil rights activists in a rainy vigil on the National Mall in Washington.

Today, as much of the nation celebrates the first election of an African-American as president, O'Malley is visibly moved by the moment, but also horrified by what he sees as Barack Obama's "deplorable" record on abortion rights.

"When I was in high school, I joined the NAACP and did voter registration in black neighborhoods when I wasn't old enough to vote myself, and I was there at Resurrection City after Martin Luther King was murdered, and living in the mud with thousands of people on the lawn of the Lincoln Memorial and having off-duty redneck policemen throwing canisters of tear gas at us and shouting obscenities," O'Malley, now the cardinal-archbishop of Boston, said in an interview yesterday, his eyes welling with tears.

"So, to me, the election of an Afro-American is like the Berlin Wall falling. I mean, for my generation, I suppose young people today can't appreciate that, but to me it is something very big."

But O'Malley, an ardent opponent of abortion, made it clear that he is aghast at the specter that Obama might ease access to the procedure. The cardinal made his comments on the opening day of the semiannual meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore.

"My joy, however, is tempered by the knowledge that this man has a deplorable record when it comes to prolife issues, and is possibly in the pocket of Planned Parenthood, which, in its origins, was a very racist organization to eliminate the blacks, and it's sort of ironic that he's been co-opted by them," he said.

"He is the president, and everyone wishes him well, and we will try to work with him. However, I hope he realizes that his election was not a mandate to rush ahead with a proabortion platform."

His allegations about the organization's racist history are a subject of dispute in the debate over abortion.

In several local newsletters, Planned Parenthood has denied the suggestion by abortion rights activists that it is racist. A New York State affiliate, for example, wrote this spring that "such race-baiting tactics are the most cynical form of politicking. Planned Parenthood has a proud history of social justice."

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, has been the subject of controversy because of her interest in eugenics, or selective breeding. Sanger died in 1966, and her attitudes on race have been debated by historians.

Planned Parenthood spokespeople in Washington, D.C., and Boston and the Obama office in Chicago did not return calls seeking comment on O'Malley's remarks yesterday.

The bishops are meeting one week after voters chose Obama, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, over Senator John McCain, a Republican abortion foe.

Dozens of bishops spoke out in recent weeks, urging Catholic voters to make opposition to abortion their top priority, but exit polls suggested that a majority of Catholics voted for Obama.

As a senator, Obama voted 100 percent of the time with abortion-rights organizations, according to evaluations by abortion rights groups.

The bishops are planning to discuss lessons learned from last week's election today, as commentators and bloggers are routinely declaring the bishops among the election's losers.

But yesterday, in speeches, interviews, and at a news press conference, the bishops made clear that most of them see the election as a reflection of the economic downturn, and not a referendum on abortion.

"In working for the common good of our society, racial justice is one pillar of our social doctrine," Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, who is the president of the bishops' conference, said in an opening address. However, he said, "The common good can never be adequately incarnated in a society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice. . . . Today, as was the case 150 years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good."

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, who before the election wrote, "I could never vote for a candidate - of any party for any office - who supports laws that promote or allow the death of thousands of children in the hideous crime of abortion," yesterday offered the rosiest analysis of the election, saying, "There's a possibility it could have been worse if the bishops weren't speaking out."

Although a handful of bishops have suggested that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion, most of the big-city bishops have not taken that step, and there is no indication of a major shift on that front.

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, whose archdiocese in January will become home to the first Catholic vice president, Joseph Biden, said he would not seek to deny Communion to Biden, who supports abortion rights. "I have never thought that that was the way to proceed," he said.

And O'Malley, whose archdiocese is home to two prominent abortion-rights supporting Catholics, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, said, "We do not want to make a battleground out of the Eucharist."

Both Wuerl and O'Malley said Catholics should be grappling with their own consciences to determine whether they are worthy to receive Communion.

The bishops are under pressure from all sides. Antiabortion organizations, led by the American Life League, are planning a prayer vigil outside the bishops' hotel tonight to push for a "crackdown" on Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.

"It's time the bishops set the record straight - you can't be Catholic and proabortion, no matter how many politicians masquerade otherwise," said Kathleen Walker, a spokeswoman for the American Life League.

But liberal groups are urging a different approach. Patrick Whelan, of Catholic Democrats, said the bishops should "recognize that there's no place at the table for groups that peddle hateful labels like 'proabortion politician' or advocate using the Holy Eucharist as a political weapon on behalf of the Republicans."

Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, said the bishops "now must figure out how to rebuild bridges they have burned with the incoming administration and the Democratic Party, and how to recover lost good will with the millions of Catholics who clearly do not recognize bishops' moral authority in political matters."

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.