Contact: Eric Alcock, President, Vote Life, Canada!, 709-773-0700

MEDIA ADVISORY, October 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) meets next week for its annual Plenary Assembly and Vote Life, Canada! is pleading with them to call an emergency session to address the ongoing scandal and devastation caused in Canada by renegade Catholic priests and politicians.

"Just last week," says Eric Alcock, President of Vote Life, Canada! "Catholics in Canada were scandalized by the television appearance of Father Raymond Gravel, Catholic priest/politician, who once again unabashedly expressed his support for both homosexuality and abortion."

Alcock explained that although the Vatican forbids priests from political office, Gravel's Bishop granted him permission and even though still a priest he has suffered no known discipline for his public endorsements of grave sinful behaviour.

"If so called Catholic priests may publicly flout the weightiest Church teachings with impunity what hope is there," asks Alcock, "that pro-abortion politicians will take seriously the directives of their Catholic faith to uphold the common good of society? It is these very politicians whose pro-abortion leadership of Canada over the past 38 years has directly led to legalized child-killing and the deaths of over three million unborn children."

Alcock considers this latest outrage to be "insufferable and Bishops ought to act immediately to rectify this epidemic of rebellion. The Plenary Assembly is a perfect opportunity to undertake an emergency corrective."

Alcock strongly recommends the Canadian Bishops follow the lead of St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke who insists the consistent position of the church has been that both priests and bishops are morally obligated to deny Holy Communion to wayward Catholics, particularly politicians. Burke is one of the sharpest legal minds in the Catholic Church and a sitting member of the Vatican's highest judicial authority. Just this past week a national association of 600 priests & deacons publicly endorsed Burke's campaign to have fellow US Bishops create new guidelines for Holy Communion at the upcoming annual conference.

"Burke's insistence that such guidelines protect the sacredness of the Eucharist, safeguard the salvation of the individual's soul as well as protect the Catholic faithful from scandal are echoed in the Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops issued by Vote Life, Canada! in June past," noted Alcock.

"Only when the Bishops of Canada provide spiritual leadership of a genuinely Catholic caliber will this nation be ready to re-institute legal protections for the Unborn." Alcock urged, "Let that leadership start next week."