"I have never seen such an instrument for ecumenism as Operation Rescue is," says Catholic priest Patrick Malone, head of St. Mary Catholic Parish just outside Wichita.

Malone's observance points out one of the most difficult choices of our time.

While the founders of Operation Rescue may have intended only to save the lives of the helpless children that are destroyed through abortion, they have disobeyed a key Scripture, and now find themselves serving an entirely different purpose.

Malone explained that Operation Rescue "has a very strong evangelical flavor nationwide, but the experience here has been that the operations break down barriers that have separated churches as we stand for the common cause of the unborn child."

Recognizing that the movement offers a tremendous opportunity to sweep millions of Protestants under the guidance of the papacy, Catholic leaders are now encouraging Roman Catholics to join Operation Rescue and shape its future direction.

It's already working. Said Malone, "People I've demonstrated with, attended rallies with and spent time in jail with the evangelicals and others apologized again and again to me" for the views they had held of the Catholic Church.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Operation Rescue activists recently traveled to Rome to try to persuade Pope John Paul II to take a personal role, and help them by punishing U.S. Catholic politicians who support abortion. Already, they look to the pope for leadership.

Fighting for the lives of helpless children is a cause we can all get emotional about and certainly one that should be fought. But the Scriptures say "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." For when we join hand in hand with those who worship idols, to fight an important moral cause, we soon find ourselves embarrassed to suggest that their idolatry might be wrong.

Instead, we see them as brothers and sisters in Christ, and just look the other way as they bow to their images and participate in the idolatrous wafer-worship of the Mass.

Thus, this "unequal yoking" may produce a powerful political force, but it destroys Christian witness.

Malone is encouraging his fellow Catholics to join Operation Rescue. Obviously, he does not fear that they will receive a powerful witness from evangelicals urging Catholics to stop their idolatry.

Instead, he finds Catholicism being honored and uplifted.