Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Clergy Leave Knights of Columbus Over pro-choice event

May 11, 2010 PORTSMOUTH — Conflict between pro-life Catholic ideals and pro-choice advocates has hit home.

A pair of local reverends announced last weekend they would be withdrawing their membership from the local Knights of Columbus Chapter 140, a Catholic fraternal benefit society, after learning that a large pro-choice organization had rented space at a function center attached to the group.

During a Saturday afternoon service at St. James Church, the Rev. Michael Kerper made a brief prepared statement saying he and the parochial vicar, the Rev. Marcos Gonzalez, had chosen to resign from the local chapter in protest.

Kerper is pastor of Portsmouth's combined Corpus Christi Parish, which now has two churches, St. James and Immaculate Conception.

According to a statement provided to the Herald, Kerper's reasoning for leaving the Knights of Columbus was based on the group renting the Casey Function Center on Lafayette Road to a group known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, the nation's leading organization promoting public funding of abortion.

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