`Affirm Life' By JOHN BURGER

The retired bishop and Franciscan friar charged with violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) law have asked for a trial by jury and asked a federal judge to affirm the right to life of unborn children. The request was made Nov. 20 in response to a complaint leveled against them by Attorney General Janet Reno and Mary Jo White, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Bishop George E. Lynch and Brother Fidelis Moscinski, C.F.R., both of the Bronx, face fines of $15,000 each for blocking the entrance to the Women's Medical Pavilion in Dobbs Ferry May 13 (CNY, Nov. 9).

Attorney John J. Broderick of Syosset, one of the lawyers representing the two, told CNY that the FACE law is "unconstitutional" and said the charges should be dismissed.

Deval L. Patrick, assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, and Martin J. Siegel, assistant U.S. Attorney, asked the court in the Oct. 27 complaint to grant a permanent injunction to keep the "defendants, their agents, and all individuals acting in concert" with them from blocking the clinic entrance or from coming within 15 feet of the premises of the clinic, where abortions are performed. The injunction also would prevent the defendants from "harassing, threatening, and/or intimidating any person attempting to obtain or provide reproductive health services."

Bishop Lynch, a Bronx native who is a retired auxiliary bishop of Raleigh, N.C., and Brother Moscinski, a Franciscan of the Renewal who is studying for the priesthood, explained in a sixpage response that because persons are made in the image and likeness of God they inherently possess fundamental human rights, especially the right to life.

"The purpose of civil law is to ensure that these rights are respected and protected in order that a person can achieve the purpose for which he or she was created," the response stated. "But when civil laws either implicitly or explicitly deny these basic human rights, they contravene the natural law and thus, by that very fact, cease to be laws. This applies to the FACE law and the Roe vs. Wade decision because both laws deny the right to life of unborn children," it read.

The defendants admitted in their answer to the government's complaint that they have "engaged in numerous peaceful, nonviolent and prayerful demonstrations to save babies" at the Dobbs Ferry clinic and that they have ignored several orders of protection meant to keep them away from the clinic entrance. But they denied having a "long history of interfering with reproductive care" at the clinic. Since May 13, when Bishop Lynch and Brother Moscinski were arrested for blocking the parking lot entrance to the clinic, Brother Moscinski has been praying and picketing there regularly, but has not blocked the entrance.

The parties are due back at the U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan Friday, Dec. 1, for a pretrial conference.

Broderick and A. Lawrence Washburn Jr., also representing the defendants, further charged that Dr. Steven Kaali, the clinic's owner, has operated the clinic under the name "Women's Medical Pavilion" for "many years without the filing of a required certificate of doing business under said name."