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"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.

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.