The Polish Conference of Bishops has issued a statement in the wake of a court ruling requiring a Catholic newspaper in Poland to issue an apology & pay a woman seeking an abortion over $10,000 after it "demonized" her over her desire to kill her unborn child. They consider the verdict "an attempt against freedom of speech and the right of the Church to moral judgement of human behavior" and stated that "Proclaiming the Gospel of life is in the mind of the Church one of its basic duties. To deny the Church this right, and what's worse to impose legal punishment for reminding the truth about the fact that nobody has authority over the life of another person, is an unacceptable limitation of the Church's mission."
Prelates critical of the verdict include...
* Archbishop Zimon who stated that "[he doesn't] understand the court's statement that abortion can be called 'killing' in the general sense, but not when referring to a particular person."
* Cardinal Dziwisz who said that "I dare say that this verdict brings back the spirit of the past, when true words had to be paid for with guilty court verdicts"
* Bishop Dydycz who stated that "the court convicted a Catholic newspaper for telling the truth about responsibility for abortion, which is killing."
A growing number of laypersons in Poland have joined the criticism, some even adding their signatures to a letter that "theoretically" means that they could also be sued.
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