Alaska’s Catholic Daughters split with Alaska Right to Life
Alaska’s Catholic Daughters of the Americas group announced Feb. 22 that it, too, is cutting ties with Alaska Right to Life.
The move by St. Pius X Court No. 1866, which covers the entire Anchorage Archdiocese and is the only Catholic Daughters court in the state, follows the lead of the Knights of Columbus, whose statewide deputy, Tom Malone, in January told councils in the Anchorage Archdiocese not to allow Alaska Right to Life to speak at Knight functions and not to make financial contributions to the anti-abortion group.
The Catholic Daughters court adopted Malone’s directive at a Feb. 9 meeting and informed the Anchor of the decision Feb. 22.
The parting of ways is the result of Alaska Right to Life’s actions before and during a memorial service for the unborn that Anchorage Knights of Columbus organized.
The Knights had invited Alaska Right to Life to participate in the Jan. 22 service, as they do every year. But the invitation to speak was withdrawn when the president of Alaska Right to Life, Ed Wassell, informed the Knights that his board planned to use the occasion to call on Archbishop Schwietz to halt a controversial pregnancy procedure at Providence Alaska Medical Center.
Alaska Right to Life considers the procedure, sometimes called "early induction of labor for fetuses with anomalies incompatible with life," to be abortion, according to Wassell. The group has publicly accused the Anchorage hospital of performing abortion, which is strictly forbidden in Catholic facilities, and regularly pickets the hospital. In letters and private meetings, Alaska Right to Life has repeatedly asked Archbishop Schwietz to put a stop to the procedure.
The archbishop and Providence leadership deny the allegations. The hospital has a team that includes neonatal specialists, an ethicist and a chaplain who go over each request for early induction to ensure that Catholic principles are upheld. The president of the authoritative National Catholic Bioethics Center of Boston told the Anchor last month that the hospital’s updated guidelines on early induction conform to Catholic moral teachings.
When the Knights of Columbus declined Alaska Right to Life’s plan to challenge the archbishop during the Jan. 22 memorial service, the organization distributed a statement at the event instead.
The flier, on Alaska Right to Life letterhead, refers to the "outrageous policy of Providence Hospital performing late-term abortion" and accuses Archbishop Schwietz of "tolerating" abortion. It calls the archbishop’s failure to halt the procedure a "grotesque inconsistency and blindness" and announces that Alaska Right to Life "cannot join in any ceremony that includes the archbishop or his diocesan representatives."
Seven of the 13 members of the Alaska Right to Life board are Catholic. Last month Wassell said the vote to speak out at the prayer service was unanimous, which the Anchor reported in its Feb. 11 issue. But Wassell corrected himself last week, saying that not all 13 members had voted on the resolution and that one member who was present when the vote was taken had abstained.
A week after the memorial service, Knights councils in the Anchorage Archdiocese received word from state deputy Malone that they are not to associate with or give money to Alaska Right to Life until further notice.
The Catholic Daughters court followed suit a short time later.
In response to an interview request, Wassell e-mailed the following statement to the Anchor: "Alaska Right to Life is saddened that the Knights of Columbus and Catholic Daughters, two fine pro-life organizations, will not join it in asking the archbishop to stop this horrific procedure at Providence."
The St. Pius X Court of Catholic Daughters has about 130 members. They donate about $3,600 per year to various charities, according to the group’s current leader, or regent, Marcy Adkins of Anchorage.
Adkins said Alaska Right to Life has been a regular recipient of the court’s charity, and she added that she hopes the disagreement is resolved amicably because the Daughters share so many "common goals" with the organization.
Malone, the top Knight in Alaska, echoed that sentiment.
"We certainly hope it’s not a permanent split," he said. "But unlike Alaska Right to Life, we are a Catholic organization. They certainly don’t have to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church, but we do, and we will."
There are 20 Knights of Columbus councils statewide, but the cessation of interaction with Alaska Right to Life affects only the 16 councils in the Anchorage Archdiocese. A little over 1,000 Knights live in the archdiocese, with another 600 spread between the Fairbanks and Juneau dioceses.
Statewide, the Knights of Columbus distributed $104,081 to charities last year, according to Malone. He did not know how much money Knights in the Anchorage Archdiocese had given to Alaska Right to Life.
Catholic Daughters of the Americas was founded in New York in 1903 by a group of Knights of Columbus as "a charitable, benevolent and patriotic sorority for Catholic women," according to its Web site.
Today the organization has nearly 95,000 members in 1,400 courts in the United States and abroad.