Mar 3, 2009 / 17:56 pm

Joining other pro-life leaders, Fr. Thomas Euteneuer is speaking out against a group of Catholic scholars and leaders who are supporting President Obama’s choice of Kathleen Sebelius for HHS Secretary.

Citing Sebelius’ vetoes of restrictions on late-term abortions and her relationship with the abortionist George Tiller as "troubling," the president of Human Life International says that "faithful Catholics everywhere are scandalized both by Sebelius's repeated and disingenuous invocation of her faith as justifying her pro-abortion record."

Fr. Euteneuer is also taking aim at a statement from 26 Catholic intellectuals and leaders supporting Sebelius’ selection that was published by Catholics United on March 1. The endorsement, comments Fr. Euteneuer, from "supposedly prominent 'Catholics' …shows extreme ignorance of Church teaching on abortion."

"There's another prominent Catholic they may have heard of, and his name is Pope Benedict XVI," says Fr. Euteneuer. "And he has clearly taught that endorsing, and even worse, signing into law, legislation that directly results in the destruction of innocent human life, as Governor Sebelius has done, is a formal cooperation with evil, and therefore itself a grave evil."

"One wonders what the word 'integrity' means to these self-proclaimed 'faithful Catholics'." "In the same document that they elevate their identity as 'faithful Catholics' as the reason for their endorsement of this anti-life choice, they accuse others of 'politicizing' the Catholic faith in opposition to the choice."

Explaining that Catholics United coordinated the release of the statement in support of Sebelius, the HLI president warns that the group twists the U.S. bishops’ document, Faithful Citizenship, for their own purposes.

"The American bishops should know that a group which uses the bishops' reasoning to justify their existence is endorsing a radically anti-life candidate for a key position in the battle to defend human life," says Fr. Euteneuer.

"We implore our bishops to rebuke this group, making clear that their teaching is not to be misused to forward the anti-life agenda."