A Book of American Martyrs(85)

“And when was this exchange, Mr. Stockard?”

“When? I—I’m not sure—maybe a week, ten days before . . .”

“Before the shooting?”

Stockard sat very still and did not speak until the prosecutor repeated his question and he said, in his halting voice, that trembled with indignation and anger, “Y-Yes. Before the shooting.”

Next, the prosecutor asked Stockard if he’d noticed that following the exchange Luther Dunphy began to arrive early each morning at the Women’s Center and he replied nervously that he didn’t know—he had never taken “much particular notice” of his fellow protesters for there were many protesters, as he’d tried to explain; they came to the Center, they participated in the demonstrations, then they weren’t seen again for a while—but then, they might show up again. He didn’t know any names, or if he did, they were just first names—“Not surnames.”

“Was it, on the whole, an orderly demonstration?”

“Yes! Our demonstrations are fundamentally prayer.”

“But there are some disruptions, at times?”

“When there are new protesters. Sometimes a new protester is more vocal.”

“Do protesters become upset?”

“Of course. When women seek to ‘terminate’ their pregnancies, to murder their babies in their wombs, it is certainly upsetting—it should be upsetting.”

“And so, there are ‘encounters’ at the Center? Routinely?”

“Not routinely . . .”

“But ‘encounters’ are not uncommon?”

“I would have to say—yes, not uncommon.”

“Protesters are forbidden by Ohio state law to approach the young women entering such clinics too closely, isn’t that correct?”

“That is correct. That is state law.”

“Do you abide by this ‘state law,’ Mr. Stockard?”

“It is a secular law . . .”

“As distinct from—?”

“A sacred law.”

“There are two laws, then?”

“There is certainly a sacred law, which does not change. And there is secular law, which changes with each new election.” Stockard spoke ironically.

“‘Father Stockard’—isn’t it true, you are sometimes—still—called ‘Father’?”

“N-No . . . Not often.”

“But sometimes?”

“I don’t encourage it . . .”

“Why would an individual call you ‘Father Stockard’?”

“Well, likely it would be a younger person . . . Or someone who’d known me in my parish years ago.”

“But you don’t encourage the usage?”

“No.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I am no longer a priest. I am ‘defrocked.’”

“Yet it was your own choice, you say? To be ‘defrocked’?”

“‘Defrocked’ is meant to be ironic. I applied to be released from the priesthood, and this was granted to me, after some years of effort. But I remain a Catholic, and will all of my life.”

“You were not ‘excommunicated’ from the Church.”

“Of course not! That would never be.”

“Are you a member of the American Coalition of Life Activists?”

“Y-Yes . . .”

“And you’ve signed their public statement supporting the ‘justifiable homicide’ of abortion providers?”

“I—I may have signed the statement . . .”

“You do believe in ‘justifiable homicide’ of abortion providers?”

“That would depend upon the circumstances.”

“What do you mean—‘circumstances’?”

“Homicide is ‘justifiable’ in defense of others’ lives. You are allowed to defend yourself, for instance. And you are allowed to defend others.”

“Homicide—murder—is ‘justifiable’ depending upon circumstances of your own interpretation?”

“We all believe in a higher law . . .”

“Are you a member of the secret organization Operation Rescue?”

“No.”

“Do you know anything about Operation Rescue?”

“No . . .”

“Really, no?”

“I have read some things . . .”

“Were you aware that Luther Dunphy was a member of Operation Rescue?”

“No.”

“You know, Mr. Stockard, the penalty for perjury can be years in prison. ‘Lying under oath . . .’”

“I did not know that Luther Dunphy belonged to Operation Rescue until I read about it in the newspaper.”

“You were a Catholic priest from 1974 to 1996, is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“At the start of our exchange you’d said that you had voluntarily left the Church, and not because parishioners had complained of you proselytizing for the Right-to-Life movement, and not because the bishop had ‘terminated’ you.”

“Yes . . .”

“Isn’t it the case, Mr. Stockard, that you were several times arrested in anti-abortion protests in the early and mid-1990s, in Madison, Wisconsin?—in Minneapolis-St. Paul?—in Columbus, Youngstown, and Cincinnati, as recently as spring 1999?”