‘Pro-Life’ Priest: Pedophilia Doesn’t Kill Anyone But Abortion Does
Darren.Woon
Reverend Richard Bucci, a priest in Rhode Island, claimed that more children have been killed by abortion than have been abused in response to the state’s abortion rights bill, according to CBS News.
The 72-year-old priest listed and banned all 44 members of the legislature who voted for the Reproductive Privacy Act from receiving communion at his parish in a flier. Those individuals were also banned from acting as witnesses to marriage, serving as godparents, and performing readings at wedding and funerals.
In an interview Sunday, Bucci doubled down on his statements, saying, “Pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone and this [abortion] does.”
State Representative Carol Hagan McEntee, a Democrat who championed the law to extend the statue of limitations for child sex abuse survivors, responded.
“When he says that pedophilia doesn’t kill people, well, he clearly doesn’t understand,” she told CBS News. “He should’ve come to the statehouse and listened to the testimonies because there are a lot of victims who are no longer with us. The injured voices that I heard -- they’ve stolen their childhoods. They’ve practically destroyed their lives. And the ones we still hear from are the lucky ones because they’re the ones who are still alive; they didn’t die of an overdose or suicide. You know, there’s plenty of those that never made it long enough to come forward.”
McEntee has had a long, difficult relationship with Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick, Rhode Island, where Bucci now presides. She and her older sister, Ann Hagan Web, attended Sacred Heart School. Ann alleges that she was repeatedly sexually molested by a priest there, who is now deceased, for about seven years, beginning when she was 5 years old.
“I just think it’s concerning that this is the church that is taking issues with this, out of all the churches in Rhode Island,” McEntee said. “Personally, I feel this is a continued attack by him on me and my family because of what happened to my sister. And he’s come up with this latest way.”
After the flier was made public, McEntee’s colleague, Rep. Julie Casimiro, released a fiery Facebook post, where she suggested that the General Assembly should respond to Father Bucci’s list of lawmakers not welcome in his parish by posting “a list of pedophile priests not welcome at the State House. That is a much longer list.”
