The Tom Wappel Address - 1 of 7

The Tom Wappel Address to Catholic Clergy Luncheon – 1 of 7
The website- cinops be gone – Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2008

This is the first in a series of letters on the verbatim remarks by Tom Wappel. Two questions: 1) How should U.S. pro-life leaders comment on this shocking story? 2) How does the staff at USCCB & bishops perceive this story? There are lessons to this Canadian story.

Toronto, Ontario, November 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Recently retired Liberal Member of Parliament Tom Wappel gave the following address to a group of Catholic clergy at a luncheon for archdiocese of Toronto clergy organized by Campaign Life Coalition, on November 19, 2008

See also “Leading Canadian Pro-Life MP Relates Shocking 20 Year Lack of Support from Catholic Clergy” http://www.lifesitenews.com/idn/2008/nov/08112512.html
To hear the actual audio of Tom Wappel’s complete talk: http://www.lifesitenews.com /idn/audio/wappel.wma

Jim, Hughes Introduction: It is my great pleasure to introduce our second guest, all the way from Ottawa, a man who has been called by the people on the other side of the House the man who is Dean of the Pro-Life movement on Parliament Hill. For 20 years, he served as well as an out-spoken pro-life Member of Parliament. We are going to miss him like crazy because he decided not to run in the last Federal Election, but without further ado – a man who had made many sacrifices for the unborn and for the issue – please give a warm welcome to Mr. Tom Wappel.

Tom Wappel: What I thought I would do is just talk a little about myself – particularly in relation to my experience with Catholic clergy. This is what I really what I want to talk about since this is a Priest for Life meeting. So, I want to talk about my experiences over 20 years- or lack thereof – with Catholic clergy in a variety of settings. And then I want to take my own advice, when I was chair of Parliamentary committees I used to tell people, “Don’t just come and complain about a piece of legislation, offer some constructive advice about how to make it better.”

I am going to go through 13 recommendations that I am going to ask you – and the hierarchy – to consider and they are recommendations that, if I were a priest and I am not so I can’t walk in those shoes – these are the kinds of things, on the life issues that I would be doing or trying to do. That might be a naïve statement and I will let you judge of that because you are the clergy.

My experience with the Catholic clergy in my political life over 20 years – for the most part, one could say would be equivalent of my experience with clergy in other denominations be it Jewish, Muslim or other Christian denominations. To me, I am a little surprised at that – I am Catholic. It was well known many years ago what my positions were. I was if I may say so publicly espousing classical Catholic doctrine with respect to life issues. So, I would have experienced that, in general, there would have been more interaction between myself & the Catholic clergy than there has been over the last 20 years.

Let me explain. In my riding, I retired one month and five days ago, not that I am counting, so in my former riding there are 6 Catholic churches and two Catholic high schools and I will those as examples. I represented the area for 20 years…

I believe I was asked to speak at those 6 Catholic churches – in 2 of the 6, and 4 of the 6 never in 20 years. There are two Catholic high schools in the riding, Cardinal Newman and Neal McNeil – in 20 years, I was asked to speak Cardinal Newman, twice and Neal McNeil – a total of zero times….
George H. Kubeck,