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United Methodist Pastor Condemned For ‘Blessing’ Abortion Clinic

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Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Catholic priest and pro-life activist Frank Pavone condemned a United Methodist minister for organizing an inter-faith blessing of an Ohio abortion clinic last week, saying “God abhors” such clinics.

“We cannot claim to love God or each other by helping those who kill our brothers and sisters,” Pavone told LifeNews in an emailed statement. “Moreover, this breaks the commandment You shall not use the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

“This commandment does not only prohibit cursing by invoking God’s name,” the Priests for Life national director and National Pro-Life Religious Council president continued. “It also prohibits blessing in God’s name that which God abhors.”

United Methodist minister Laura Young organized a gathering of more than a dozen interfaith religious leaders outside a Cleveland abortion clinic Friday, where they blessed the clinic, prayed and sang, and otherwise drew attention to their support for abortion. They held signs reading “Good women have abortions” and “Pro-Faith, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice.”

Young organized the blessing through the D.C.-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, in which she serves as executive director of its Ohio chapter. The group aims to be the leading religious voice in support of abortion, or what it calls “reproductive justice.”

“Women who have had abortions are being attacked at a religious level, and the faith community has a moral obligation to heal these spiritual wounds,” Young told The Columbus Dispatch. “It is time for the progressive religious community to stop the silence and to believe out loud.”

Pavone told LifeNews the rally was a “perversion of biblical teaching.”

“Not only does this contradict Christian teaching,” he said. “But it impedes the healing of those who suffer after their abortion. After all, why ask forgiveness or feel bad about an action the Church blesses?”

“The result, however, is not that these individuals stop feeling pain,” he continued. “It is that they feel ashamed to ask for forgiveness, and feel silly for feeling sad.”

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