Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) is a Washington, D.C.-based organization whose objective is to convince lawmakers, the popular media and Catholics that there can be an authentic "Catholic pro-choice" philosophy.

CFFC was founded in 1970 by three members of a pro-abortion group called the National Organization for Women (NOW). Its first public act was to ridicule the Catholic Church by crowning one of these women "Pope Joan I" on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.1 CFFC’s first office was located in the New York suite of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), which owns the largest chain of abortion clinics in North America.

Soon after its founding, CFFC defined its identity as "a national educational organization that supports the right to legal reproductive health care, especially family planning and abortion."2

The group has clearly stated its ultimate goal: "CFFC recommends a change in the policies held by the Holy See to support the use of condoms to prevent AIDS and other diseases; to approve the use of modern methods of contraception, including emergency contraception, to prevent unwanted pregnancy; and to support non-coercive, safe and legal abortion."3

CFFC’s vision is not limited to the full acceptance of abortion and contraception. Its other stated objectives include;

• The formulation of Catholic morality and theology by popular vote;4

• The ordination of women and married men, followed by the eventual elimination of the priesthood and the hierarchy;5

• The elimination of the Sacrament of Penance;6

• Acceptance of premarital sex and divorce;7

• Acceptance of homosexual acts and homosexual marriage; 8 and

• Acceptance of all illicit reproductive technologies.9

History has shown that the Catholic Church is strengthened by an overt attack carried out by a visible enemy. However, all organizations, including the Church, are extremely vulnerable to a long-term and persistent program of infiltration and subversion, because the visible results of such an attack take place slowly and in increments small enough to escape attention. Since it is always easier to defend against an enemy that presents a visible threat, the infiltrators escape the determined and concentrated counterattack that would defeat an external assault.

The purpose of Catholics for a Free Choice is to advocate abortion and population control in all nations. By assuming the name "Catholic," the organization can neutralize organized opposition to its initiatives, confuse less-informed Catholics, and give the media an "alternative" Catholic voice that supports contraception, sterilization and abortion.

Various bishops’ conferences have denounced CFFC. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has clearly stated that "Because of its opposition to the human rights of some of the most defenseless members of the human race, and because its purposes and activities deliberately contradict essential teachings of the Catholic faith. ... Catholics for a Free Choice merits no recognition or support as a Catholic organization."10

On May 10, 2000, the USCCB used exceptionally strong language to condemn CFFC, identifying it as an "arm of the abortion lobby" and publicizing the fact that "It is funded by a number of powerful and wealthy private foundations, mostly American, to promote abortion as a method of population control." The Bishops’ statement concluded by saying that "Catholics for a Free Choice merits no recognition or support as a Catholic organization."

The Permanent Episcopal Conference of Uruguay has also stated that "We find ourselves obligated to strongly reiterate that the organization `Catholics for a Free Choice’ hasn’t any formal affiliation with the Catholic Church and expressly contradicts the Church’s genuine teachings."11

Despite its name, CFFC continually demonstrates that it is truly an anti-Catholic organization, in that it despises the Church and Her leaders. CFFC’s directors have referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "oppressive" and "evil."12 CFFC’s animus towards the Church is exceeded only by its hatred of the papacy and the episcopacy. Writers for CFFC have referred to the Holy Father and the bishops as "arrogant," "blind," "bullies," "coercive," "cruel," "dumb," "fanatical," "hard-hearted," "hypocritical," "liars," "mean," "nasty," "pathological," "pig-headed," "prattlers," "ruthless," "sanctimonious," "self-righteous," "tyrannical," "unethical," "unhinged," "unjust," "virulent," and "vituperative," and even "betrayers of Christ" and "the seed of Satan," among many other epithets.13

CFFC has repudiated most of the basic tenets of Catholicism in its drive to reconstruct the Church. CFFC Board member Rosemary Radford Ruether has said that "What is required is the total reconstruction of God, Christ, human nature, and society,"14 and another CFFC writer has called for "... the reworking of central religious myths and doctrines and the reinterpretation of revealed truth."15 CFFC’s writers have denied that Christ redeemed mankind,16 have disavowed the perpetual virginity of Our Lady17, and have claimed that the doctrine of Papal infallibility is "a naïve dream."18

Nor do members of the CFFC leadership participate in the Sacraments of the Church, according to one of its former Board members.19 Instead, they embrace an assortment of New Age rituals and practices. Its members have practiced devotion to the feminist idol Sophia,20 have extolled the bloody pagan god Ba’al,21 and have even composed poems honoring Lucifer.22

Since its inception, Catholics for a Free Choice has launched numerous public initiatives designed to advance its ultimate objective of forcing the Catholic Church to accept contraception and abortion.

The most significant of these campaigns are described below.

     a. The "See Change" Campaign

In March 1999, CFFC launched its "See Change" campaign, whose purported objective was to influence the United Nations to downgrade the status of the Holy See from permanent observer status to that of a non-governmental organization (NGO), like CFFC itself. The unstated intent of the See Change Campaign, which is ongoing, is purely tactical and political. Its purposes are to isolate and intimidate the Holy See’s delegates to the United Nations and to frighten away its allies.23 Time and time again, the Holy See has stood with many developing countries at United Nations conferences, opposing population control programs that include abortion, contraception and sterilization and that are promoted through deceit, trickery, intimidation and manipulation of language. Through its See Change Campaign, CFFC aims to further increase the Holy See’s isolation at the United Nations and decrease its influence, thereby advancing CFFC’s agenda.

     b. The "Condoms 4 Life" Campaign.

This CFFC initiative, launched in early 2002, states that "Catholic bishops preach sanctity of life. But their ban on condoms contributes to the tragedy of AIDS and death around the world."24 CFFC erected many roadside billboards and panels stating "Catholic People Care - Do The Bishops? Banning Condoms Kills" in prominent locations in more than a dozen nations, including Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the United States and Canada. CFFC describes this "education effort" as the "first phase of a sustained mobilizing effort to change the Vatican’s policy against availability and access to condoms."25

     c. The Justice Campaign.

CFFC has supported the "Justice Campaign" since its beginnings in 1986.26 The goal of the Justice Campaign is to mandate United States government funding of all abortions for poor women. CFFC said that it "... helped to lead the 1993 campaign against the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal Medicaid funding of abortions." CFFC has also filed numerous amicus curiae briefs in federal cases in support of forced taxpayer funding of abortion. CFFC has also vigorously denounced the Mexico City Policy, which bans United States funding of groups that perform or promote abortions in developing nations.

     d. The MergerWatch Campaign.

CFFC works closely with the MergerWatch Campaign, which monitors the mergers taking place between Catholic and secular hospitals. CFFC insists that, regarding all issues regarding sexual morality (primarily contraception, "emergency contraception," sterilization, abortion and end-of-life issues), that Catholic doctrine must always yield to secular beliefs. CFFC has been tracking these mergers since the early 1980s, and complains that "Reproductive health care is severely limited by Catholic hospitals and when Catholic hospitals merge with non-Catholic facilities."

     e. The "Guardian Angel" Campaign.

Demonstrating that it would use any forum to advance its views, CFFC stated that it would distribute thousands of condoms to young people attending the World Youth Day gathering in Toronto in July 2002. Its operatives, dressed as angels, would dispense condoms with the inscription "Don’t leave it up to your guardian angel" imprinted upon them. Bishop Reginald Cawcutt of Cape Town, spokesman for the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, commented on the futility of such activities when he said that "The Church disapproves of trying to combat the spread of AIDS by the wholesale doling out of condoms to teen?agers. This is as likely to promote promiscuity as anything else. It shows seriously muddled thinking. The Church strongly supports and promotes — as it has for 2,000 years — value?based education and prevention programs. They are the only things that ultimately work."

     f. The "We Are Church" Referendum.

In 1996, CFFC strongly promoted the failed "We Are Church" Referendum, which called for ordination of women as priests and deacons; lay participation in the selection of bishops and pastors; making priestly celibacy optional and reinstating married priests to active ministry; promoting so-called "homosexual rights;" allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to return to all of the Sacraments; and placing "primacy of conscience" over the Magisterium of the Catholic Church regarding decision-making on issues of sexual morality.

     g. Support for Partial-Birth Abortions.

During the 1993 National Republican Party Convention in the United States, CFFC publicly attacked the American bishops for opposing partial-birth abortions. This inhumane procedure, committed in the second and third trimester of pregnancy, involves delivering all of the unborn child except its head, and then puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument and sucking out its brain. CFFC’s support of this ghastly form of killing demonstrates that no abortion is unacceptable to it.

     h. Latin American Activities.

CFFC spends a large percentage of its funds in heavily Roman Catholic Latin America. Its affiliate Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir [CDD, or "Catholics for the Right to Decide"] says that "Only a feminist perspective can begin to restore the relevance, particularly to the bodies of women, of the violent imposition of Catholic moral doctrine." CDD was instrumental in establishing the coordinating committee for the promotion of abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has also published several books, including Mujeres e Iglesia: Sexualidad y Aborto en América Latina [Women and the Church: Sexuality and Abortion in Latin America]. The authors of this anthology closely follow in the footsteps of American pro-abortionists, attacking the Catholic Church and promoting contraception, sterilization, abortion and lesbianism.

CFFC is also working to undermine the faith of Latin Americans in the United States. In August 1991, CFFC launched its "Hispanic Project," which is designed to reach Hispanic organizations in the United States and "educate" Hispanics on "reproductive health care." The following year, CFFC followed up with its "Latina Initiative" in order "to provide information on reproductive health care and public policy to Hispanic organizations in the U.S."

CFFC has also published a Spanish-language comic book and has distributed it in Latin America. It is entitled "Y Maria fue Consultada para ser Madre de Dios" ["Mary Was Asked if She Wanted to be God’s Mother"]. It depicts a young mother asking the Virgin Mary what she can do about her unwanted pregnancy. The comic book claims that, since God gave Mary the choice to say `yes’ or `no’ to becoming the Mother of God, every woman should have the choice of aborting a preborn child.

Finally, CFFC has produced a video in Spanish entitled "Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir" ["Catholics for the Right to Decide"], in which it distorts the teaching of the Church on human sexuality, abortion and contraception.

From its founding to the present time, CFFC has associated itself with the most extreme pro-abortion and anti-Catholic organizations in the world.

CFFC was founded by three members of the National Organization for Women, one of the most radical pro-abortion groups in the world. CFFC’s first office was located in the New York suite of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), which owns the largest chain of abortion clinics in North America, and which has been responsible for committing more than three million abortions in the United States since 1970.

It is a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), an umbrella group that seeks to lend a religious veneer of respectability to abortion, and which undermines pro-life efforts in mainline Protestant denominations.

Catholics for a Free Choice has also cooperated closely with secular pro-abortion groups such as the International Women’s Health Coalition, the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the National Abortion Federation and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL). It has also worked with other major groups that dissent from Catholic teaching and doctrine, including Catholics Speak Out, Chicago Catholic Women, the Institute of Women Today, the Loretto Women’s Network, the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER), European Network/Church on the Move, and the Women’s Ordination Conference.

CFFC derives more than 95 percent of its income from population control foundations, which have given it more than $28 million since 1978. Lately, this support has grown to more than $4 million annually, and much of this income is grants given to support CFFC’s activities in Latin America in support of "reproductive rights," including the legalization of abortion and the widespread availability of sterilization and contraception.

These foundations obviously see Catholics for a Free Choice as a force that can introduce population control and family planning in pro-life Latin American countries under the guise of a Catholic organization.

Some of the foundations supporting CFFC’s activities are listed below.

• The Weeden Foundation, which describes CFFC as "the leading Catholic-based critic of the Church’s contraception and abortion positions;"

• The Ford Foundation, which has given more than $6 million to CFFC for, among other purposes, "continued support for public education and dissemination of Catholic pro?choice values [in Mexico and Brazil]" and "promoting public discussion among Catholics in Mexico on sexual and reproductive health."

• The General Service Foundation, which gives money to CFFC in order "to raise awareness of Catholic support for reproductive health care and to counter the Catholic Church’s attempts to undermine reproductive freedom" and "for the organization’s work to counter efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to limit legal access to reproductive health care [in Latin America];"

• The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, which funds CFFC "for [a] program to educate American Catholics about [the] wide diversity of opinion that exists within [the] Church on [the] issue of reproductive freedom, and to provide Catholic citizens with a rational alternative to Church doctrine" and "for continued support of CFFC’s research on the Catholic Right, mergers of Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals, and a new initiative challenging the Vatican’s obstruction of the United Nation’s delivery of reproductive health care internationally;"

• The Turner Foundation, established by Ted Turner, who has referred to Christianity as "a religion for losers," and who has advocated a one-child policy for the entire world;

• The Sunnen Foundation has given more than $1 million to CFFC. The Sunnen Foundation funded the litigation that led to the Supreme Court of the United States legalizing abortion. It also helped fund a 1979 newspaper ad that blamed the Catholic Church’s teaching on birth control for world hunger. Sunnen’s director has called the Catholic Church "detrimental to the world," and has demanded that the Church be forced by law to change Her teachings on abortion.

Catholics for a Free Choice has demonstrated by its history, philosophy and actions that it is Catholic in name only.

Since its founding, it has vigorously attacked and undermined the dogma, teachings and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, seeking to legalize abortion and contraception throughout the world by confusing the faithful. It has caused incalculable damage to Catholics by leading them into sin with its rationalizations and misrepresentations.

The threat posed by CFFC cannot be overemphasized. Because it poses as a Catholic organization and is backed by millions of dollars of foundation money, its impact is greatly increased, especially in developing nations where the media is receptive to its message.

There are only two sure defenses against CFFC: (1) Exposing its radical agenda to the world, and (2) constant preaching and teaching on authentic Catholic doctrine regarding sexual ethics.