On the first anniversary yesterday of the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, feminists demonstrated on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral and in front of the office of Sen. James Buckley (C-R-N.Y.), and Cardinal Cooke reiterated his call for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion.
A pro-abortion group that calls itself Catholics for a Free Choice staged a mock investiture on the steps of the cathedral at which Patricia Fogarty McQuillan, a middle-aged parishioner at St. Jean Baptiste Church, 184 E. 76th St., was elected "Her Holiness Pope Patricia the First."
Ms. McQuillan, cheered on by several dozen feminists, then issued an "encyclical" blasting "1,900 years of blasphemous sexist oppression by the Catholic Church." She labeled Jesus a feminist and asserted that nowhere in his teaching was abortion proscribed.
A priest at St. Jean Baptiste later confirmed that Ms. McQuillan is a administrant there and called her 'very devout," though he expressed some reservations about her ideas.
Earlier, about 40 members of the National Organization for Women paraded in front of Buckley's office, 45th St. and Lexington Ave., to protest Buckley's sponsorship of a constitutional amendment against abortion. They chanted: "Compulsory childbirth is slavery for women." A young woman wearing cowboy clothes and smoking a thick cigar handed out press releases accusing the senator of speaking "for the Pope in Rome rather than. for U.S.citizens.
Meanwhile in Albany abortion foes and abortion advocates scuffled when they came together on the steps of the Capitol. Police reported one arrest.
At a press conference at the New York. foundling hospital, 68th St. and Third Ave a t which he announced several new Programs the hospital has established to help unmarried mothers and to counter child abuse, Cardinal Cooke accused the Supreme Court of "cheapening respect for human life.."
The Cardinal said that the abortion mentality," because it holds human life "in such low regard," will inevitably usher in "a euthanasia mentality." He expressed worry that "people are beginning to play God; people are deciding who will live and who will die."