This is the first issue of COMMENTARY, a newsletter which will discuss issues and programs of interest to the Catholic community. This issue will describe the Conference and its priority issues facing the 1980 regular session of the Florida Legislature.

   The Florida Catholic Conference was established by the Catholic Bishops of Florida in 1969 to (1) take an active and cooperative role in health, education and welfare activities that promote the material and moral well-being of the people of Florida and (2) provide an easily accessible channel of communication between the Catholic Church in Florida and other churches and secular agencies, including government, in all matters affecting the common good and general welfare.

   The bishops of the five dioceses in Florida constitute the Board of Directors of the Conference. At the present time, they are Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy, Archdiocese of Miami; Bishop Thomas J. Grady, Diocese of Orlando; Bishop Rene H. Gracida, Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee; Bishop W. Thomas Larkin, Diocese of St. Petersburg; Bishop John J. Snyder, Diocese of St. Augustine; Bishop John J. Nevins and Bishop Agustín A. Román, Auxiliary Bishops of the Archdiocese of Miami. Archbishop McCarthy is the President of the Conference. Thomas A. Horkan, Jr. serves as its Executive Director.

   The Conference is organized in four standing commissions:

1.  The Social Development Commission, whose concerns include poverty, rural life, family affairs, youth, the elderly, welfare, criminal justice and refugee resettlement;

2.  The Education Commission, whose concerns include parochial schools, federal aid programs, relationships with the public school system, the accreditation of parochial elementary schools and religious education;

3.  The State Pro-Life Coordinating Committee, which is concerned primarily with the life of the unborn child and the alleviation of the abortion situation in society, including educational and public information efforts, pastoral concerns for people who have problems in connection with abortions and the public policy aspects of the issue;

4. The Health Affairs Advisory Commission, which is concerned with medico-moral issues which affect health care in Florida, including euthanasia, sterilization, state health planning and regulation.

   There are various other task forces and ad hoc committees which are established from time to time.

The Church's Concern for Public Policy Issues

   Generally, the Florida Catholic Conference supports legislation which affirms the right to life, strengthens families, improves the moral climate and protects religious freedom, relieves the burden of the poor, aged, and disabled, contributes to the reform of the criminal justice system, assumes the rights of parents in the education of their children, addresses the needs of the migrant farmworker and refugee families, and provides for all children in need.

   Among the priorities for the 1980

1.  Life and Death

     A.  We support a joint memorial calling for a constitutional convention to propose an amendment to the United States Constitution, limited to the subject of the protection of human life, including the unborn. The U.S. Supreme Court has unilaterally established abortion as a fundamental right, stripping away the prior legal protection furnished to the unborn child. Congressional attempts to prohibit the expenditure of federal funds for abortion are now in the process of being thwarted by the court. Yet Congressional leadership continues to bottle up in committee proposed Human Life Amendments. This joint memorial is the most viable means of forcing action on this critical issue (HM 122Barrett).

     B.  We support other bills to afford constitutionally permitted protection for unborn human life and to protect the other victims of abortion, including minor girls and their families and unsuspecting adult women, such as:

           (a) reinstating the criminal penalties for the failure of physicians or clinics to report abortions to the state;

           (b) requiring respectful disposition of the remains of unborn children killed in abortions;

           (c) reestablishing and enforcing health standards for abortion clinics;

           (d) prohibiting the use of tax monies for abortion to as great an extent as possible.

     C.  There are presently no direct proposals for euthanasia or mercy killing. However, bills have been filed which may relate to or lead to such proposals.

           (a) H.B. 463 (Fox and Rosen) is an adaptation of the California Natural Death Act. it is so complex and restrictive, that its original California proponent seeks its repeal and proposes other more liberal provisions in its place. The Euthanasia Society long ago proposed that legislatures start regulating the treatment of dying patients so that they could gradually develop an affirmative euthanasia program, and events in California fit this agenda. The Conference strongly opposes H.B. 463.

            (b) The problems involved in brain death, and the prolongation of respiration and circulation by mechanical means long after the complete death of the entire brain concern many segments of our society. We are concerned with the terminology and provisions in any bills that might seek to address this subject. S.B. 293 (McKnight) has been rewritten as a committee substitute, with improved terminology.

     D.  The Conference opposes capital punishment and supports proposals to either eliminate it or limit its application. In particular:

           (a) We support limiting the discretion of the trial judge when the jury's recommendation rejects the death penalty;

           (b) we support the elimination of the death penalty when the accused is a minor;

           (c) we oppose bills which would provide for the development of lethal injections as a means of administering the death penalty.

2. Social Concerns

    The Conference supports:

    A.  A bill which would include well defined and limited group homes under the category of "single family residence" in local zoning ordinances. This proposal is part of the deinstitutionalization of the aged, the retarded and others.

    B.  H.B. 386 mandating legislative review of the status of dependent children who are in foster care, and who are adoptable. Florida continues to have an unreasonably high number of adoptable though hard-to-place children who remain in the custody of the state.

    C.  Proposals to require school breakfast programs in those public schools that have a significant number of economically deprived children.

    D.  Legislation to promote the dignity and needs of the agricultural workers in Florida, including improved working conditions; enforcement of health and safety regulations; labor laws and greater access to vocational and higher education.

    E.  Proposals to strengthen pornography laws.

   There are annual proposals to mandate sex education or family life education programs in the public school system. The Conference has opposed these because they have been inadequate, conflict with the rights of parents as well as those of children, and have tended toward the imposition of an unethical value system on children. Any such proposal must effectively (1) present the ethical/moral dimensions of human sexuality; (2) avoid presentation of one sectarian or secular philosophy, but instead must respect the free exercise of religion of all children in the classes; and (3) respect the basic right of parents to impart to their children their heritage and a value system. Human sexuality is intimately related to religious and moral values; the state many not adopt one set of such values and indoctrinate it into each child.