BOSTON — The director of counseling at Catholic Charities here spends his Saturdays making sure young women get inside a Planned Parenthood clinic where abortions are performed, pro-life activists charge.

Howard M. Brown has been a volunteer escort at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston for 10 years, first at the Brookline facility and, since 1997, at a new clinic in the Allston section of Boston, the activists say. Brown previously served at clinics in Washington, D.C., and upstate New York.

Officials at Catholic Charities have not denied that their director of counseling is escorting women into the Planned Parenthood facility. But one pro-life activist said he went to Catholic Charities' Dorchester office to see for himself.

“Without a doubt, he's the same man,” said Bob Mayo, who accompanied a reporter from Massachusetts News, the newspaper that first reported on the situation Feb. 20.

Mayo has seen Brown at the Allston clinic, near Boston University, for several years and said he is a supervisor for escorts. He said that about a year ago, a sidewalk counselor overheard Brown say his name and a month ago he told someone he worked for Catholic Charities.

Brown came into the waiting room at Catholic Charities Dorchester office as Mayo and Ed Oliver, the Massachusetts News reporter, were seated there. “He refused to speak with us,” Mayo said. “He showed us the door. A couple of co-workers came over. One was very intimidating and asked us to leave.”

Mayo said he saw Brown at the abortion clinic the next day, wearing his blue “Planned Parenthood Escort” vest and the radio headset he uses to communicate with security personnel inside. About 30 people escort at the clinic, he said, trying to block pro-life signs from the view of clients and cover cameras being used by pro-lifers.

Aggressive Escort

Sheryl Fitzpatrick, who has been doing sidewalk counseling with abortion-bound women for 10 years, said Brown interfered with her last July when she was already being attacked by another clinic escort as she tried to persuade a client to save her baby.

Fitzpatrick said that as she approached the woman's truck, the escort, Toby Daly-Engel, grabbed her umbrella and pushed her away.

“I put my hand up to her in response,” Fitzpatrick said, “and told her to keep her hands off me, and when I put my hand up in a defensive motion I made contact with her body. She claimed I ran up to the truck and just punched her in the back.”

Brown then came over, pushed her and grabbed her umbrella, Fitzpatrick said.

Daly-Engel filed a formal complaint that Fitzpatrick punched her, and the pro-life woman was charged with assault and battery. When she learned that Brown was to testify against her she began to do some research. She found an old notice on Catholic Charities' Web site that a Howard Brown had been appointed director of counseling at the Greater Boston Community Service Center in Dorchester.

In a letter Jan. 3 to Joseph Doolin, president of Boston's Catholic Charities, Fitzpatrick asked if his employee was the same man as the clinic escort. She sent along photographs of Brown taken at the clinic. Doolin did not respond to the letter.

At Fitzpatrick's trial, which took place Jan. 23, Brown on cross-examination refused to answer questions about his occupation. That heightened suspicions among pro-lifers in the courtroom.

Fitzpatrick was found not guilty, in part because a videotape of part of the incident, recorded by a friend, disputed the escorts' testimony.

Disheartening

The case is disheartening to pro-life advocates in Boston who are already demoralized by the priestly sexual abuse scandal.

William Cotter, president of Operation Rescue Boston, noted that in the wake of that scandal, the arch diocese has instituted a “zero tolerance policy” requiring priests who have been alleged to have engaged in misdeeds 30 or 40 years ago to go on administrative leave until the allegations are resolved.

“According to Church teaching, children who are unborn have the same rights as children who are born,” said Cotter. “Here's a man [Brown] who is helping in the process of abortion — now, not 30 or 40 years ago.”

Calls to the Archdiocese of Boston and its Respect Life Office seeking comment were unanswered or referred to Catholic Charities.

Father Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities USA, declined to comment on the Brown case because of insufficient knowledge. “I'm sure Boston is handling it,” he said. “I'd support Boston in implementation of its policies. They're very well known and effective.”

Calls to Doolin seeking comment were unanswered, but Boston Catholic Charities issued a statement saying it respects employees' “confidentiality and right to privacy.” It did not deny that Brown works for Planned Parenthood.

Although the statement said that employees “acknowledge, upon hiring, their requirement to adhere to ethical guidelines which are based on Catholic social teaching,” a spokes-woman, Maureen March, said that a list to which the agency refers employees “basically speaks to work hours.”

“Employees of Catholic Charities are hired on the basis of their skills and relevant experience and evaluated based on their job performance,” the statement continued. “Because Catholic Charities adheres to non-discriminatory hiring practices as required by law or any corporation, we do not discriminate based on age, race, sexual orientation or religion.”

Father Hehir, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former head of Harvard Divinity School, said that Catholic Charities is “working in a complicated social setting where we're trying to implement Catholic social teaching and its wider moral teaching, which includes absolute opposition to abortion.” He said that the organization is putting “a lot of effort” into the question of its Catholic identity. “We're trying to constantly stress what it means to uphold Catholic social teaching as tied to moral teaching.”

When employees act in ways that contradict Church teachings, “you have to deal with it in the context of the Church's moral teaching, the Church's own institutional policy, and civil law,” Father Hehir said.

“The problem may be that Catholic Charities gets the bulk of its funding from the government,” said Terrence Scanlon, president of the Capital Research Center, which studies nonprofit organizations. “When they do, they probably have to abide by local laws, and that's what hurts faith-based charities. I hope Father Hehir exercises some leadership and steps in and discusses it with the Boston hierarchy.”