From ........... Associated Press

March 10, 1989

PLANNED PARENTHOOD BLASTED

VATICAN CITY-The Vatican's senior official on families today accused Planned Parenthood of "encouraging promiscuity" and criticized feminism in a speech to the U.S. Roman Catholic hierarchy.

Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, applauded Catholics who fight against the Roe vs. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court allowing abortion.

But he charged that in the United States some forms of ministry to divorced Catholics had "degenerated into dating services." He urged caution in granting annulments, saying that in allowing women to help decide such cases "we have to be carefuI that their tender hearts do not play tricks on them."

Gagnon spoke on the third day of an extraordinary four-day meeting on the 52 million member Catholic Church in the United States. Pope John Paul II summoned 35 American prelates to the Vatican to discuss how bishops should defend Catholic teaching in the face of dissent and secularism.

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