CPAC featured guest gives strong defense of Alabama embryo ruling that imperils IVF

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland on in-vitro fertilization: “We must help them understand the intricacies of what science has done in playing God, and having children, embryos, embryonic children frozen and too easily disposed of”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From a February 23, 2024, stream of CPAC

BISHOP JOSEPH E. STRICKLAND (CPAC FEATURED GUEST): When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, that was a wonderful day, but we are still far from stamping out the killing of our children.

Make no mistake that every one of us — and I humbly and sorrowfully include myself — every one of us has the blood of children on our hands. For there is always more we can do to make abortion not only illegal, but unthinkable. I have to address, as a Catholic pastor, a topic that is of today, of this moment. The Catholic Church proclaimed a document in 1987 under the papacy of Pope Saint John Paul the Second. John Paul the Great.

A document, Donum Vitae. I encourage you, at this moment, this critical moment, I encourage all of us who know the sanctity of life to read this significant document, and I'll read a few words from it. The possible recognition by positive law and the political authorities of techniques of artificial transmission of life, for example, in-vitro fertilization and experimentation connected with it would widen the breach already opened by the legalization of abortion. Brothers and sisters, we must be strong in the sanctity of life and all of its repercussions. I know that today's controversies, many of us are not well-versed, but we must be.

And we must guide our great politicians, those who we hope will serve this nation into a brighter future. We must guide them in the ethics of the sanctity of life. We can't expect those busy people who are doing their best to fight the battle that we must face. We can't expect them to do it alone. We must help them to be informed that the controversies that are presently in the news right now, this decision by Alabama's court was correct.

According to our Catholic faith, we must stand strong and instruct these good men and women that are calling to lead us, and we need them to lead us. We must help them understand the intricacies of what science has done in playing God, and having children, embryos, embryonic children frozen and too easily disposed of. When the Alabama court says, no, we cannot dispose of these human beings, let us guide our politicians to know that truth.

Our Sunday Visitor reported on Strickland visiting CPAC:

Pope Francis removed Bishop Strickland from the pastoral governance of his diocese Nov. 11, without giving a public reason for his removal. However, speculation about his future in the diocese mounted after the bishop’s online posts accusing the pontiff of “undermining the deposit of faith.” The pope’s decision followed Bishop Strickland’s address to an Oct. 31 gathering in Rome, where he read from a letter by a “dear friend” that accused Pope Francis of being a “usurper of Peter’s chair” and then commented that Pope Francis was himself supporting an “attack on the sacred.”

“We are honored to have this courageous Catholic leader take this important role during @CPAC,” Matt Schlapp, CPAC’s chairman and the co-chair of Catholics for Trump in 2020, said in a Jan. 26 post on X, formerly Twitter.

Schlapp was accused last year of sexually assaulting a male campaign aide for Herschel Walker’s failed bid for a Georgia Senate seat in 2022. Schlapp has denied those allegations through his attorney.

Bishop Strickland did not immediately respond to requests for comment from OSV News, but forwarded them to a media representative. OSV News is awaiting a response to questions emailed Jan. 30.

CPAC, once a collection of conservative elected officials, policymakers and commentators of varying ideologies and ideas, has grown increasingly controversial and consolidated into a group of staunch allies and supporters of former President Donald Trump, who frequently speaks at the conference himself.