Planned Parenthood Abortions Skyrocket

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 8 — Abortions increased more than 1,000% in Bucks County, Pa., in the year 2000, after a Planned Parenthood facility there began performing the procedure, the news service reported.

The facility is in Warminster Township. While the number of abortions in the county increased from 60 to 685, the number of county residents having abortions rose only 26%, from 1,138 to 1,438, according to the state's Department of Health Statistics.

But the increase was in dramatic contrast with the rest of Pennsylvania, which experienced only a 3.3% increase in the number of reported abortions over the previous year. There were 35,630 abortions, which is the third lowest annual number recorded.

Forty-five percent of the abortions were done on women who have had one or more previous abortions, the same percentage as in 1999. That figure disturbed Francis Viglietta of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, who called the repeat abortions “birth control, plain and simple,” and not the “‘hard cases’ that we hear about.”

Viglietta said Pennsylvania should promote healthy alternatives to abortion, including a state program that promotes adoption.

Nuns Support Jewish Use of Former Convent

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 8 — The provincial superior of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth has weighed in on a controversy pitting a congregation of Reform Jews against a tony neighborhood of Abington Township, north of Philadelphia, the news service reported.

Sister Celine Warnilo joined Pennsylvania Attorney General and the American Civil Liberties union in supporting Congregation Kol Ami's bid to use the sisters’ former convent as a synagogue and school.

Neighbors and officials are suing to block the congregation's plans, which they argue would bring excessive noise and traffic to the residential cul-de-sac, the wire service reported.

But Sister Warnilo said the sisters would like to “see God continue to be praised” in the old convent. Said the nun, “It is our desire to see this continue to be a holy place, and Kol Ami will do that.”

Details of Subway Priest's Life Keep Surfacing

THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 8 — He kept keys and handles for driving subways in his room, but how often he actually drove trains remains the stuff of motormen's debates.

Two years after his death at 83, Jesuit Father Francis Cosgrove, a former pastor on Manhattan's upper East Side, was recalled in a Times article as a Spencer Tracy-like priest who spoke or read a dozen languages and was self-taught on old methods of sea navigation.

Father Cosgrove served as a chaplain for New York City Transit for more than 30 years. Joe Cunningham, a subway historian and author who knew Father Cosgrove, said the priest received motorman training and was legally qualified to drive the subway trains. But Joseph Hofmann, senior vice president for subways, who also knew the priest, said his visits to the motorman's cab were not officially authorized, though tolerated.

The New York daily reported that Father Cosgrove once visited a token-booth clerk and relieved him when the clerk had to go to the bathroom. A parishioner who came by was too confused to ask why his pastor was selling tokens and simply said, “Oh, hello Father.”

Later in the day, Father Cosgrove ran into a motorman he knew and persuaded him to let him drive the train. The same parishioner happened to be in a subway station when the train pulled in, and he saw Father Cosgrove beaming as he sailed by. The priest waved, and the man waved back, his mouth open. “Oh, hello Father,” he said again.