Archbishop Naumann challenges Sebelius' appointment, record on abortion

Valerie Schmalz, OSV contributing editor: What precipitated writing Gov. Sebelius last May to tell her not to receive Communion?

Archbishop Joseph Naumann: I had actually written the August before that, in 2007, asking her not to present herself for Communion and I did not make that public. But then she violated that in March, and so in May I had written her again and made that public. Since then to my knowledge she has not presented herself for Communion.

OSV: She violated it by going to Communion in March (2008)?

Archbishop Naumann: Yep.

OSV: What does the appointment of Gov. Sebelius to HHS mean in terms of her policies? There are a whole bunch of people, like Doug Kmiec and others, who are saying when she was governor abortion dropped by 10 percent. This letter (from Catholics for Sebelius) says, “She’s made clear she agrees with Church teaching that abortion is wrong and has lived and acted according to that belief.”

Archbishop Naumann: I think that’s very, very dishonest and not at all accurate. It’s true that abortion dropped during her term as governor but I don’t think she really had anything to do with it, although she likes to take credit for it. And in fact, during that time she vetoed measures that could have helped prevent abortion. At one time, she struck from the budget a pregnancy maintenance initiative that gave state funding to crisis pregnancy centers. Only when the legislature passed it by such an overwhelming margin that it was highly probable she would have been overridden, she allowed it to stay in the budget.

She’s on Emily’s List. During her last campaign she identified herself as one whose always been a leader in protecting a woman’s right [to abortion] and one who has tried to keep abortion safe legal and rare. Clinton I think perhaps was the one who originally developed that language and of course it's never safe for the child. What she did in the state of Kansas in terms of vetoing efforts to try to better regulate abortion clinics, certainly didn’t show a real concern for the safety of women either. And you perhaps know, although Kansas has some of the most restrictive laws on late-term abortion, no thanks to the governor, we’re kind of a center for late-term abortions because those laws are generally not enforced. And as the legislature has tried to do things to try to make them be enforced, again she has blocked those with vetoes.

She accepted money early in her political career from Dr. [George] Tiller who is a notorious abortionist in Wichita, and after that became politically not very convenient for her to do, Dr. Tiller formed a [political action committee] in which she was the principal beneficiary along with other equally staunch abortion-supporting politicians, and he put in hundreds of thousands of dollars to get her elected and re-elected. So I really think they may support Gov. Sebelius for this appointment, but they certainly can’t support her because she’s faithful in living the teaching of the Church on the life issues.

Excerpted from Our Sunday Visitor's interview with Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who counts among his flock Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.