Archbishop's Big Mouth Falls on Deaf Ears

Forget the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic hierarchy speaking out on moral issues. Forget the many dioceses that sponsor bingo (while the Archbishop preaches against casino gambling). Forget the fact that Catholics are supposed to eschew single issue morality. It appears that no one cares too much what Archbishop O'Malley thinks about the Democratic party.

The Globe reports:

Last week, after Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley said the support of church members for Democrats "borders on scandal" because of the party's support for keeping abortion legal, most of the state's leading Catholic Democrats responded with silence.

John Walsh, chairman of the Democratic Party, declined to comment, as did Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and nearly all of the state's Democratic Catholic congressmen, on both sides of the abortion issue. The few who did have something to say - House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, who spoke to reporters on a separate issue Thursday, and US Representative Michael E. Capu ano, whose office provided a statement when asked for comment - respectfully disagreed with the church.

As they have for years, most Catholic Democrats in Massachusetts are likely to continue to disagree with the church on abortion without worrying much about the consequences for them or their party. If Catholic voters punished their politicians for opposing church views on abortion - or gay marriage, or any other subject - the response might be quite different, political experts said last week. But they haven't.

"I think the Catholic church wishes there was more tension between them," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. "I think O'Malley's outburst is a reflection he's being ignored rather than engaged."

That does not mean that some Democrats who favor abortion rights were not upset by it.

"I don't recall in my lifetime any leader of the Catholic church making such a bold partisan statement," said Philip Johnston, a former state Democratic Party chairman who is also Catholic. "I think it's very regrettable."

Terrence C. Donilon, O'Malley's spokesman, said in a statement yesterday that the archbishop was trying to "emphasize the moral weight" of the abortion issue.

"While he addressed the position of one party, his primary concern was to call attention to the serious moral character of the issue and the attention it should receive from political leaders across the spectrum of our country," he said.

Responding to the modern world, which for most of Western Europe began in the 16th century, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church began its magisterial free fall in the mid-1800's, when the First Vatican Council, established the doctrine of papal infallibility. Pope Pius IX was pope at the time. He was infamous at the time for kidnapping a Jewish kid and bringing him up to be a Catholic priest.

Aside from an attempt at dealing with reality during the Second Vatican Council, the Church hierarchy has sided with its own authority rather than reason or reality. Archbishop O'Malley is just one in a long line of clerics who is trying to use the discredited authority of his office to assert lost relevance.

-Mb