WASHINGTON, DC (CWNews.com/LSN.ca)

    The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) said they never supported the pro-abortion World March of Women 2000 and added that Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was never a supporter, according to a letter printed in the National Catholic Register weekly on July 9.

    On June 25 the newspaper said that CRS, the official charity of the US bishops' conference, had endorsed the feminist event and pointed out the pro-abortion and pro-homosexual demands of the March. It noted further that the US arm of the march is being coordinated through the office of the pro-abortion National Organization for Women in Washington.

    Although support for the March on behalf of CRS was confirmed by CRS staff and by the World March web site, the CRS board, composed of its chairman, Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, and 12 other bishops reacted quickly to the story saying that CRS never supported the March.

    The bishops noted that staff at CRS were guilty of feigning support without authorization. The Register was noted in the second story that two days after the story broke the World March received an official request to remove CRS from its list of supporters. Paulist Father John Geaney, CRS' director of Church affairs, told the Register on June 26 that "Catholic Relief Services does not, has not, and will not support the March of Women."

    The Register quotes Patricia Ireland, president of National Organization for Women, advancing the abortion agenda by exploiting the apparent Catholic support of the March. Ireland explained that Catholic supporters such as CRS were important to the march because their names would provide "shock value" when the march's list of supporters was presented to Congress. A letter from Ireland on the March says that the march opposes threats to "abortion rights" and to partial-birth abortion, as well as courts questioning the constitutionality of bubble zones around abortuaries.

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