PORTLAND (OR)
Religion News Service
By William Lobdell
Religion News Service
In 1994, then-Archbishop of Portland William Levada offered a simple answer for why the Oregon archdiocese shouldn't have been ordered to pay the costs of raising a child fathered by a church worker at a parish.
In her relationship with Arturo Uribe, then a seminarian and now a priest in Whittier, Calif., the child's mother had engaged ''in unprotected intercourse . . . when [she] should have known that could result in pregnancy,'' the church maintained in its answer to the lawsuit.
The legal proceeding got little attention at the time. And the fact that the church - which considers birth control a sin - seemed to be arguing that the woman should have protected herself from pregnancy provoked no comment. Until last month.
That's when the woman, Stephanie Collopy, went back into court asking for additional child support. A Los Angeles Times article reported the church's earlier response. Now liberal and conservative Roman Catholics around the United States are decrying the archdiocese's legal strategy, saying it was counter to church teaching.