Santorum resolute on Boston rebuke

Boston Globe ^ | July 13, 2005 | Susan Milligan,

[HostileTerritory]

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.

[HostileTerritory]

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.

[Meldrim]

"You have to understand that the Republicans have not and are not putting up pro-life conservatives"

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.

[unbalanced but fair]

I'm disappointed that the Senator felt the need to make such an ignorant comment.

Santorum can be pretty ignorant. I guess he forgot about the Church scandal in Philadelphia?

[AuH2ORepublican]

"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."

---

Excellent points. I think Senator Santorum should make sure that his comments differentiate between conservative Catholics from the Boston area (probably a majority in South Boston) and the liberal Boston elites who insist on "tolerance" of immoral behavior. Cardinal Law knew that if he gave sexually abusive priests (very few were pedophiles, since their victims were usually teenagers, not children) the punishment they deserved (expulsion from the clergy) he would be pilloried (and shunned) by Boston society, and he wouldn't be able to get invited to the best dinner parties anymore. So Law "Bostonized" his dealings with moral issues, and thus committed the almost unforgivable sin of allowing the abuse to continue. Law should be defrocked post haste.

BTW, IIRC, Studds's district did not take in Quincy until the 1992 redistricting, but your point about socially conservative Democrats in Massachusetts voting for whichever Democrat wins the primary (even if he's a pro-abort) is still valid.

[HostileTerritory]

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?

[CharlesWayneCT]

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.

[HostileTerritory]

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.

[Aquinasfan]

She was a rat plant, an actress if memory serves me correctly. She was allegedly hired by the Massport board to oust Mr. Blute... Someone on the board also tipped the Herald photographer as to where to be and when to get the pictures.

Thanks for "the rest of the story." Where'd you learn that?

[mmercier]

>> Thanks for "the rest of the story." Where'd you learn that?

Peter Blute, on WRKO, shortly after the incident.

He was trying to save his marriage, so the source may be suspect. You can likely verify this by sending him an email to : bluteandscotto@wrko.com

[MSSC6644]

This had nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with money and perversion.

But liberalism is nothing if not about money and perversion -- at least the way it's practiced today.

[Radix]

I saw this thread this morning but I did not have time to post. Your response was pretty good and so I post here to you.

Santorum is simply looking for a punching bag it seems to me. He doesn't know crap about Boston, and is just trying to raise his poll points I suspect.

Certainly there are problems with the Catholic church and pedophilia. However, The Boston Globe has been targeting that organization for decades now.

I grew up in Boston, I attended Boston Public Schools, and certain state universities. Boston is unlike most major metropilitan areas that I have seen in this country. The politics are liberal because of a number of reasons. The Kennedy 'mystique", the prevalence of liberally oriented universities and colleges, the unions, and local entrenched government. Of course the Boston Globe is IMO one of the most subversive institutions in this area, never mind the country. Well they do good sports and so they have a market in the sports fans who keep reading even as they use rooms designed for biologically imperative requirements.

The Globe has been after the church mostly since the failed social engineering involving school integration of the early seventies. The BPS are more segregated now than they ever were before busing.

The mostly white flight thanks to the Wellesley hypocrite Garrity et al destroyed the integrity of that system probably forever.

The Globe very patiently waited years to drop the wrecking ball on the Catholic church. The result has been parish closings, and a slew of Catholic school shutdowns. The overall result will be that persons will be compelled to send their children to public schools which are inadequate, and completely overrun by unions and social leftists. They are instituting already an agenda which is so pro-homosexual that it is simply outrageous in its audacity, among other things.

Boston is not a huge city by itself. The metro area on the other hand is a different matter.

I wish that I had more time, but in fact I do not. Santorum is an ass, Kennedy is a murderer, the Catholic church has problems, and the Boston Globe is simply a wolf at its door.

I find it frustrating to see things so obviously while at the same time FReepers and others who simply do not really have an understanding of the local state of affairs will hail that opportunist Santorum. Heck, I could criticize Pennsylvania for sending that wierdo Specter back to Washington again. Whats up with that? Was his brother a murdered president? Ask John Ashcroft about sympathy votes. That is what got Teddy where he is, what keeps him there is a mystery to me.
Thanks Santorum for giving that piece of human waste Fat Teddy an opportunity to make himself look better in the area. He is tearing you up right now in the Boston media, and you gave it to him.

The Catholic church is not by and large a liberal institution despite the prominent exceptions (such as Drinan) which do tend to get a lot of coverage in the liberal media. Au contraire.

BTW, I am not a Catholic, nor am I a regular reader of the Boston Globe. I learned my lessons years ago concerning that rag.

[Radix]

Delahunt "won" because a judge disrupted the Democrat primary process.

I think that Delahunt is the stupidest rep. in Congress from Mass. I could be wrong because they all keep saying dumb things almost regularly.

Delahunt winning was incredibly a good thing relatively speaking. Johnson (the Democrat loser) was and remains a serious Commie.

[Meldrim]

I doubt their voting would be dissimilar.

[Radix]

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.

[Meldrim]

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.

[Radix]

Noted.

Nothing to add.....