NEW JERSEY NEWSPAPER LECTURES BISHOPS ON ABORTION

It seems that 'separation of church and state'  only applies when secularists are trying to silence the Church.  But they apparently feel qualified to lecture our Bishops on Church matters.

The editorial board of The Times of Trenton has published an editorial lecturing bishops who have voiced opposition to the University of Notre Dame’s decision to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree. “We’re all for prayer, but we’re troubled by the Catholic Church’s increasing insistence that political figures been seen solely through the prism of the abortion issue,” That's because there is nothing more important than defending life.  the editorial notes, citing Father Richard McBrien at one point. “No university endorses or embraces all of a public figure’s views when it confers an honorary degree. Yet about a quarter of the nation’s 200 bishops have publicly denounced or questioned Notre Dame in recent weeks on the matter of President Obama. It should have been all of them. The bishops may want to tread lightly here.   Are they suggesting that we should be 'timid' when defending life?   Their judgment is not infallible.”  True enough, but the Bishops are right about this.

from the Catechism:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae," "by the very commission of the offense," and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.