David Charles Trosch (29 November 1935 – 12 October 2012) was a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

from

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

, who was the subject of controversy due to his promotion of the concept of

justifiable homicide The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law is a defense to culpable homicide (criminal or negligent homicide). Generally, there is a burden to produce exculpatory evidence in the legal defense of justification. In most countries, ...

in the case of killing

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

providers. He was a supporter of anti-abortion extremist

Paul Jennings Hill Paul Jennings Hill (February 6, 1954 – September 3, 2003) was an American minister, religious extremist, and anti-abortion terrorist who murdered physician John Britton and Britton's bodyguard, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Barr ...

, who was executed in 2003 for murdering an abortion provider and his bodyguard. Trosch denied having ever met Hill although they dined and prayed together, and signed a document which attempted to justify lethal force against abortion providers.

History

The

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

-born Trosch first attained notoriety in 1993 when he tried to place an ad in the Mobile ''

Press-Register The ''Press-Register'' (known from 1997 to 2006 as the ''Mobile Register'') was a newspaper serving the southwest Alabama counties of Mobile and Baldwin. The newspaper is a descendant of one founded in 1813, making the ''Press-Register'' Alab ...

'' with a drawing, titled ″Justifiable Homicide″, depicting a man holding a gun to the back of a doctor performing an

. His episcopal superiors directed him to ″recant his stand or give up his job″. Although the ad was never published, Trosch was relieved of his parish duties and suspended by his bishop due to his ongoing public statements in defense of his views of ″justifiable homicide″ of abortion providers. David C. Trosch died on 12 October 2012 in an Alabama nursing home from an extended illness. Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of the

Archdiocese of Mobile ''Former names: Apostolic Vicariate of Alabama and the Floridas (1825-1829), Diocese of Mobile (1829-1954; 1969-1980), Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham (1954-1969).'' The Archdiocese of Mobile (Latin: ''Archidiœcesis Mobiliensis'') is a Latin Church ...

clarified at the time of Trosch's death that he had never officially censured Trosch, but that Trosch had been restricted from acting in a pastoral capacity since August 1993. Lipscomb said Trosch had "no public persona in the Church" but "was not a bad person" and "died in God's grace".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trosch, David 1935 births 2012 deaths American Roman Catholic priests Anti-abortion violence in the United States American anti-abortion activists Activists from Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile