Chaput says Gosnell verdict will 'surprise very few'

Archbishop Charles Chaput, speaking for the first time since abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted of murder, said Tuesday the verdicts in the case "will surprise very few."

Although the church opposes capital punishment, Chaput in a statement said nothing about the possibility that Gosnell could be sentenced to death for his three first-degree murder convictions.

The head of the archdiocese of Philadelphia instead focused mainly on the church's opposition to abortion.

"His convictions will surprise very few," he said. "But nothing can bring back the innocent children he killed, or make up for the vulnerable women he exploited."

Chaput also blasted what he called "the media's inadequacy in covering his case," although the Inquirer and other local news outlets have provided steady coverage of the case from the outset and offered nearly daily reports from the trial.

Antiabortion activists have sought to portray an absence of coverage of the case in the national media as proof of a media bias for abortion rights.

Saying "Gosnell is not an exception," Chaput said, "Others just like him run abortion mills throughout our country.

"We need to stop cloaking the ugliness of abortion with misnomers like 'proper medical coverage' or 'choice,'" the archbishop said. "It's violence of the most intimate sort, and it needs to end."