ROME — San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has condemned the “diabolical” actions of Catholics for Choice, a dissident group that projected pro-abortion slogans on the National Basilica Thursday prior to the March for Life.

One of the slogans, projected while pro-lifers were attending Mass Thursday evening, read “Pro-choice Catholics you are not alone” and another stated “1 in 4 abortion patients is a Catholic.”

A third message read “Pro-choice Catholics” in the upright and the beams of a cross and others stated “Stop stigmatizing” and “Start listening.”

“The attempted desecration is enormous,” wrote Archbishop Cordileone on Twitter in reaction to the incident. “Diabolical. Mother Mary, pray for them, now and at the hour of death.  Amen.”

The U.S. Catholic bishops have publicly repudiated Catholics for Choice, declaring that it has no connection to the Catholic Church.

“For a number of years, 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,” wrote then-president of the Bishops’ Conference (USCCB) Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza in 2000. “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.”

On a number of occasions, the Bishops have stated publicly that CFFC “is not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church,” Fiorenza wrote.

CFFC is, practically speaking, “an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world,” he continued. “It is an advocacy group dedicated to supporting abortion. It is funded by a number of powerful and wealthy private foundations, mostly American, to promote abortion as a method of population control.”

The Catholic Church has consistently taught that taking an innocent human life in abortion is always gravely evil.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”

Abortion “is gravely contrary to the moral law,” the Catechism declares, and, therefore, a person who procures an abortion incurs ex-communication from the Church “by the very commission of the offense.”

In response to Thursday’s profanation of the National Basilica by CFC, one Catholic priest compared the group’s deceptive rhetoric to that of North Korea.

“The ‘Catholic’ in ‘Catholics for Choice’ is similar to the ‘Democratic’ in ‘Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea,” wrote Father Matthew Schneider on Twitter. “The Catholic Church has repeatedly said CFC is not a Catholic organization & the Kim family has repeatedly said no to real democracy in North Korea.”