Posted on 07/13/2005 3:45:32 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, refused yesterday to back off on his earlier statements connecting Boston's ''liberalism" with the Roman Catholic Church pedophile scandal, saying that the city's ''sexual license" and ''sexual freedom" nurtured an environment where sexual abuse would occur.
''The basic liberal attitude in that area . . . has an impact on people's behavior," Santorum said in an interview yesterday at the Capitol.
''If you have a world view that I'm describing [about Boston] . . . that affirms alternative views of sexuality, that can lead to a lot of people taking it the wrong way," Santorum said.
Santorum, a leader among Christian conservatives, was responding to questions about remarks he made three years ago on a website called Catholic Online. In those comments, Santorum said, ''It is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm" of the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
The junior senator is chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and is considered a possible candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2008, if he wins reelection to a third Senate term next year.
''I was just saying that there's an attitude that is very open to sexual freedom that is more predominant" in Boston, Santorum said yesterday. Reminded that the sexual abuse occurred across the country, Santorum said that ''at the time [in 2002], there was an indication that there was more of a problem there" in Boston.
The senator's words sparked instant reaction from Massachusetts political leaders, who ridiculed Santorum's suggestion that priests were driven to abuse children by the city's liberal culture.
US Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, called Santorum ''a jerk" and pointed out...
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Massachusetts has plenty of church-going Catholics who vote Democrat on union issues or family heritage. They'll support the pro-life Democrat in the primary but vote for whichever Democrat wins in the end. You have to understand that the Republicans have not and are not putting up pro-life conservatives against Democrats, and that for every Gerry Studds (whose district was more Barnstable County and Quincy than Plymouth County, and who wasn't out when he was elected) you have pro-life Joe Moakley and Steven Lynch.
Even the devout Catholics got fed up with Cardinal Law blaming everyone but himself and his own priests for their crimes. You won't find a soul to defend Santorum's stupid comments in this state.
Have not? Avi Nelson? Ray Shamey? Jack Conway? etc. They run they lose. Two cycles ago Marty Meehan ran against a prolife, bronze star winner, successful businessman...and Marty walked away with it.
When Studds ran he had the Cape and Plymouth county. Only after redictricting was Delahunt able to run from Quincy.
Go to Saint Albert the Great in Weymouth if you want to see the types of knuckleheads Sanorum is talking about. The problem is that there are too many "Catholics" who lack the intellectual honesty to go the the Episcopal or Unitarian Church where they belong.
Roman Catholicism requires discipline and sacrifice. It is similar to the military in that respect. The voting patterns reveal the true faith.
Santorum can be pretty ignorant. I guess he forgot about the Church scandal in Philadelphia?
"Massachusetts has plenty of church-going Catholics who vote Democrat on union issues or family heritage. They'll support the pro-life Democrat in the primary but vote for whichever Democrat wins in the end. You have to understand that the Republicans have not and are not putting up pro-life conservatives against Democrats, and that for every Gerry Studds (whose district was more Barnstable County and Quincy than Plymouth County, and who wasn't out when he was elected) you have pro-life Joe Moakley and Steven Lynch."
There are plenty of cafeteria Catholics in this state, sure. I don't disagree.
But when you have the power of incumbency (Marty Meehan won big, how many Congressmen DON'T win big in reelections?) and the mixed messages the Republican party sends, when the Democrats are so powerful that the pro-lifers prefer to stay inside the tent with Kennedy and Frank instead of shivering out in the cold, who can be surprised at these results?
I think that we always tread down a dangerous path when we try to blame illegal behavior of individuals on some broad political movement, no matter how much that movement debases us.
The only exception would be if the movement itself condoned the illegal behavior, which in this case it largely does not.
It is easier (although not necessarily more correct) to simply blame the fact that if you only allow people who have no interest in getting married to be your priests, you are likely to get a disproportionate number of men who are not attracted to women. And since that is in opposition to their religion, you will have people who already are living with desires they know are wrong, which will make the barriers to other illicit desires lower.
I don't know if history proves I'm wrong, and this is only a recent problem, or if history would show the problem has always existed but was simply hidden because in the past there was too much stigma associated with admitting this type of abuse -- in other words, that the recent rise in abuse is due more to a more accepting society.
I am only offering possibilities, I am not Catholic and don't mean to make charges of any kind in this post.
Thanks for the reply. I agree with nearly everything. I do think that you give Cardinal Law too much credit, and that there were plenty of other reasons why he chose to ignore the sexual abuse. Law's elite in Boston was not the liberal, culturally-oriented elite so much as the Irish-Catholic political club--he was really meant to be a politician, not a cleric, and he gravitated toward that group. He also had his eye on a promotion witin the church. It seems that this motivated him to ignore old problems, project power and authority, and cultivate relationships with men who similarly wished not to rock the boat. He considered himself a prince among men and could not be bothered with small sins that had started long before he came and would continue long after he left.
Thanks for "the rest of the story." Where'd you learn that?
But liberalism is nothing if not about money and perversion -- at least the way it's practiced today.
I doubt their voting would be dissimilar.
The voting patterns in this region does seem to be rather mindless, and there is a reason it seems so.
The fact is in my view that despite the cries for the children and all the other BS spewed by the left, they by and large frankly do not give damn about posterity! Thus the mindless obeisance to the liberal agenda.
I agree that in many cases they disreguard posterity, both as in their immediate family and as regards what will become America. Quite often, if my experience is any indication, much of their "posterity" ends up behind a women's clinic in pieces.
Noted.
Nothing to add.....
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