Frances Kissling, go-to gal for media quotes about all things Catholic, has stepped down as head of Catholics for a Free Choice. Religion reporting just got a whole lot harder.

Catholics for a Free Choice is a Catholic group of abortion activists' dreams. If you hit the CFFC Web site, you'll read: "Ask Pope Benedict to Lift the Ban on Condoms!" And in a closing salvo in the group's magazine, "Conscience," Kissling asks, "Is abortion a morally neutral act? Is it, as some have said, an unambiguous moral good?" Usually a group with the word "Catholic" in its name would be clear on those kinds of questions.

But Catholics for a Free Choice is not a Catholic group; it's a "Catholic" group, one whose Catholic identity doesn't go much deeper than the name on its letterhead. In reality, it's something much closer to a liberal-Democratic group – who it comes closest to speaking for – than anything else.

As the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference has pointed out, CFFC's claims to be Catholic are bogus. In a 2000 statement – not the first – they declared: "A group calling itself Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) has been publicly supporting abortion while claiming it speaks as an authentic Catholic voice. That claim is false. In fact, the group's activity is directed to rejection and distortion of Catholic teaching about the respect and protection due to defenseless unborn human life ... (CFFC) is an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world."