John Paul II is furious. In March he sent a letter to all heads of state, including Clinton, warning that the Cairo conference could mean ““a serious setback for humanity.’’ He later repeated his warning in a scathing address to Dr. Nafis Sadik, the secretary-general of the conference. The pope is fighting, he recently said, ““a United Nations plan to destroy the family.''
White House officials don’t want or anticipate an emotional clash. The president will ““listen respectfully but he doesn’t expect a full-scale debate,’’ says an administration official involved in the planning. ““He’s not a missionary on the subject [of abortion], but he ran on it and he will defend the positions we took.’’ During the campaign, Clinton took the position that abortion should be ““safe, legal – and rare.’’ Since then, his administration has vigorously pursued the first two points. Earlier this month the Department of Health and Human Services cleared the way for production of the French abortion pill, RU486. And last week Clinton signed legislation that outlawed demonstrations at abortion clinics.
Clinton’s actions have not escaped Vatican notice. ““Certainly the pope is worried; everyone here worries when a head of state pronounces himself against life,’’ says Bishop Elio Sgreccia, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family. ““It’s pro-life versus pro-death,’’ he says. The council spelled out the Vatican’s position in a recent 66-page document that criticizes the ““contraceptive imperialism’’ of the wealthy nations. Among other things, the document dismissed terms such as ““population bomb’’ as false slogans, and condemned the Cairo document’s approval of abortion as a form of birth control.
If there is a man in the middle of all this it is Raymond Flynn, the United States ambassador to the Vatican. A friend of Bill’s as well as a loyal Roman Catholic, Flynn set up a phone conversation between the pope and the president last March to discuss the issues that divide them. ““I’m fighting for a respectful tone,’’ says Flynn. ““I’m hoping it will be a discussion on other aspects of the [Cairo] document that they can agree on.’’ Specifically, Flynn believes that Clinton shares two of the pope’s criticisms of the U.N. draft document: its preoccupation with curbing population growth rather than stimulating economic development and its emphasis on individual freedom at the expense of family solidarity.
But the pope’s real battle is with the United Nations conference itself. Throughout the preconference meetings, which have been directed by Planned Parenthood officials, the Vati-can has been virtually alone in its objections. At a recent session in New York, the pope’s representative was mildly rebuked – to loud applause – by the president of the IPPF, who is chairing the preconference hearings. ““The pope has every right to speak out,’’ declares Ambassador Flynn. ““And the U.N. has an obligation to take him seriously.’’ But with the Cairo conference only three months away, it is clear that this is one audience the pope cannot control.
