Tuesday, November 20, 2007
ACCURATE RENDITION OF THE ZEITGEIST OR PIE IN THE SKY ?
In an opinion piece for BeyondChron, San Francisco's Alternative Online Daily, Tommi Avicolli-Mecca, speaking from the gay perspective, offers the following:
Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley may have thought he was going to intimidate the Catholic Democratic politicians in his state with his comments criticizing their party’s support for keeping abortions legal.
He was wrong. The collective reaction from the state’s Catholic Democratic leadership on both sides of the abortion issue was a big yawn. Even the usually outspoken Senator Edward M. Kennedy didn’t bother to respond.
Apparently, the Democratic Party isn’t worried about Catholic voters turning against its candidates over their liberal stance on abortion. The influence of the church has waned a lot since the days when Cardinals and Archbishops could change legislators’ votes simply by speaking out against a piece of legislation.
I remember those times, and not very fondly. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia was probably the number-one reason for the defeat of the City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love’s first gay rights bill in 1974. A church spokesman’s testimony against the bill ensured that it would never make it out of the Rules Committee and onto the floor of City Council for a vote.
Fortunately, the church doesn’t have as much influence with legislators as it did back then, at least not in the area of abortion and gay rights. O’Malley’s comments no doubt arise out of a sense of frustration with the diminishing political influence of his church.
Continue reading...
Is he right? Have we Catholics in America tuned out our bishops because of their miserable oversight of pervert priests? Or do we listen to them in spite of our skepticism when they are speaking Catholic truths? Just what moral authority do the American bishops have left in 2007?
