YONKERS, N.Y. — Pro-life Catholics in New York's fourth-largest city are on a roll.

They flexed their political muscle in a September mayoral primary to help their candidate beat a highly favored, politically connected pro-abortion candidate.

In Yonkers, which is just outside New York City and in an area where “politics are in the hands of pro-aborts,” according to one pro-life leader, that was victory enough.

But a month before the Nov. 4 general election, the pro-abortion candidate, who had doggedly remained in the race on the Conservative and Independence lines, dropped out and threw his support behind the man who beat him.

That development, which occurred Oct. 1, boosted hopes that a candidate who not only supports the right to life but also is likely to be more attentive to the moral aspects of public education will triumph over the Democratic candidate, who is pro-abortion.

As well, the political work of the pro-life activists in Yonkers, which has a large number of Catholics among its 196,000 residents, could serve as a model for pro-lifers in other parts of the country and embolden pro-life candidates.

In the primary, Deputy Mayor Phil Amicone, a Catholic who appealed directly to pro-life voters, defeated the pro-abortion state Assemblyman Michael Spano, also a Catholic, by a margin of 43% to 38%, a difference of about 400 votes in a low-turnout election.

Spano comes from a family long prominent in local politics (his father is county clerk and his brother is a state senator) and had the endorsement of the local Republican Committee.

“If a ragtag group like ours that got into the thick of things late in the game and had no political connections could swing this election, then there's a lot more potential for pro-lifers around the country,” said Christopher Slattery, the head of six New York City pregnancy centers who spearheaded Yonkers Republicans for Life, a group that was formed in the month leading up to the Sept. 9 primary. The group joined the Catholic Coalition of Westchester and the local Knights of Columbus to make 12,000 phone calls to city voters and hand out fliers at Catholic churches.

About 70% of the city's 28,000 registered Republicans are Catholic, he said.

A Yonkers resident with four school-age children, Slattery got involved in the election after Spano began implying in campaign ads that he stood for family and faith values.

“We challenged him on his voting record,” Slattery said. “I think a lot of people are really fed up in general about politicians using the Catholic label and then going off and voting against Catholic principles. The Republican Party in New York has been corrupted by politicians who are willing to put the lives of unborn babies on the chopping block.”

Visual Help

The pro-life coalition prepared a voter's guide comparing the public positions of the two candidates on partial-birth abortion, taxpayer-funded abortion, homosexual unions, school prayer and condom distribution in public schools. Amicone gained the group's approval on each issue; Spano received a zero rating.

Spano later disputed the claims on the flier, according to a local newspaper, the Journal News. The paper also reported that he accused Amicone of appealing to “the extremists of the party, people who obviously think that women's reproductive freedom is relevant to the mayor's race.”

Neither Spano nor Amicone were available for interviews before press time.

But Stanley Tomkiel, head of the Catholic Coalition of Westchester, said the race is about more than whether a city mayor has any influence on the abortion question.

“Mike Spano had a strong pro-abortion record in the state Assembly and had been endorsed in his last election by the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion, and he comes from the Spano family, which has embraced the abortion-on-demand and homosexual-rights agendas as a policy for the Republican Party in New York,” Tomkiel said. “We felt it was a chance to send a message to the Republicans that their stance could have negative repercussions.”

John Margand, director of New York City-based Project Reach, which promotes abstinence education, said Amicone “has been pretty strong on the pro-life and family integrity issues.”

A Yonkers resident, Margand called the election “a seismic event” in which “Catholics pulled together and rallied support for the issues that concern us all as individuals and as a society. This may mark the end of complacency among Catholics, who really have been lax in many instances in exercising their civic and patriotic obligations to provide for the common good through their elected officials.”

“We have a responsibility to challenge politicians to clarify their stands on the most important issues,” Margand added, “so all voters can make informed choices.”

Tomkiel said he was pleased with the positive reaction of most Catholic clergy when members of his group distributed fliers outside of churches.

Father Leonard Villa, pastor of St. Eugene's Parish in Yonkers, said he was glad to see lay people responding to the Church's call to be active in the social and political realms.

“I think Catholics have to be much more willing to hold politicians accountable on moral questions of marriage and life that have a real impact on their faith and families,” Father Villa said. “I have reminded my parishioners many times about the need to get involved — especially about the recent documents from the Vatican and the U.S. bishops instructing Catholic politicians to let their faith inform their actions — and obliging them to be pro-life.”

Stephen Vincent is based in Wallingford, Connecticut.