"In July 1964, several liberal [Catholic] theologians received invitations to the Kennedy family compound..."



...for a discussion of how a Catholic politician should handle the abortion issue."


Result?

"The skillful operatives of the Kennedy family would round up the votes to end restrictions on abortion and eventually to provide public subsidies.

"The Jesuit theologians would provide protective cover for this effort, ensuring that Catholic colleges, universities, and theological journals gave a sympathetic reading to the politicians' public statements.

"For two days the theologians huddled in the Cape Cod resort town as guests of the Kennedys ... (page 81)."

Adapted / extrapolated from this source: Philip F. Lawler's 2008 release, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture.


"The participants in that Hyannisport meeting composed a Who's Who of liberal theologians, most of them Jesuits.

"Father Robert Drinan was there, as was Father Charles Curran (the leader in the dissent against Humanae Vitae ; his writings on moral issues were later condemned by the Vatican).

"Father Joseph Fuchs, a Jesuit professor at Rome's Gregorian University, was on hand; so were the Jesuits Richard McCormick, Albert Jonsen, and Giles Milhaven.

"(Milhaven was later instrumental in the early public work of Catholics for a Free Choice; McCormick would become the Rose Kennedy professor of the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at Georgetown University, and spend years teaching theology at Notre Dame.

"Thus the basic lines of pro - choice rhetoric were sketched out by Catholic theologians, at the residence of America's most famous Catholic family, nine years before the Roe v. Wade decision.

"The late President Kennedy had already laid out the foundation for the arguement that a Catholic politician must not attempt to enact his private religious views; now his brothers were prepared to take the next step forward.

"They were ready to explain that they were personally opposed to abortion, but ......(pages 81 - 82)."