Posted on 06/28/2008 4:47:29 AM PDT by kellynla
In officiating at the June 17 “marriage” of the same lesbian couple he had joined in dubious wedlock four years ago, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom beat Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the punch. But Villaraigosa, like Newsom a potential contender for the Democratic nomination for governor, was not to be bested. On June 23, Villaraigosa united Hollywood producer Bruce Cohen with his five-year-long male companion, art consultant Gabriel Catone. And, the previous week, the Los Angeles mayor voiced his warm support for legalized same-sex marriage.
"The California electorate is coming into a new age realizing that [gay] marriage is an institution that supports family values, and it's certainly one I support," Villaraigosa said, according to the June 24 Los Angeles Times. "I certainly respect people of faith who disagree. I also respect the law, and I'm sworn to uphold the law."
Villaraigosa calls himself a person of faith – the Catholic faith. But that his respect for the law includes support for something as contrary to his faith as same-sex marriage is, perhaps, not surprising. Villaraigosa also supports legalized abortion and, last year, was given Planned Parenthood’s “Hero Award” for his role in the defeat of Proposition 85, the Parents’ Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative. In October 2002, Villaraigosa spoke at the grand opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Boyle Heights.
In a 2001 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Villaraigosa said he attended Mass only about a dozen times a year (at Holy Family in Pasadena) and that his religion was “more about my spirituality and faith than adherence to rigid theological concepts.” Indeed, he said, "I'm strongly, strongly pro-choice," and noted that he is troubled by "some of the church's teachings on sexuality with respect to gays and lesbians."
But if he ignores some of his Church’s “rigid theological concepts,” Villaraigosa has not been shunned by Church leaders – at least, in Los Angeles. In 2005, Cardinal Roger Mahony led an “interfaith service” at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in honor of Villaraigosa's inauguration as L.A. mayor. The cardinal joined a procession from the cathedral to City Hall on inauguration day, and gave the invocation at the inaugural. Last December, Mahony and Villaraigosa marched together in an Our Lady of Guadalupe Day procession that began at the corner of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Ford Boulevard and ended at East Los Angeles City College Stadium, where the cardinal and his auxiliary bishops celebrated Mass.
Villaraigosa also spoke at commencement ceremonies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 2006, a college that calls itself “a Catholic university rooted in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions.”
Villaraigosa was not the only Los Angeles-area politician to display his support for same-sex marriage. Last week, LA city council president Eric Garcetti “wheeled an upright piano onto the south lawn of City Hall so he could preside over a wedding between two of his former staffers,” reported the Times.
Will Cardinal Roger “Amenesty” Mahony keep giving Holy Communion to Villagarosa???
ping
In other words, he wants to have it both ways. Much like the people who scream about keeping government out of the bedroom, then demand that government march right in there to sanction same-sex "marriages."
First and foremost this mutt is a marxist/democRAT. He is also a CINO (Catholic in name only!!
I wonder if California was put “under the ban” so that all priests had to stop giving communion in the entire state...to EVERYONE...what effect that would have on the politics in California?
A question for Catholics:
Do bishops like this make you sick?
Ya know for someone who is in VA, I wouldn't go posting uncomplimentary remarks about California & California Catholics if I were you...whole encyclopedias could be written about the immoralities of Virginians & Virginia...starting with adultery in the "A's"
the old adage “people who live in glass houses...” comes to mind. Try cleaning up your own state before you even begin to criticize others'.
Class dismissed!
“Doesn’t the pope have the power to “promote” these bishops to a nice empty cubicle in Rome? Couldn’t he then choose other bishops with a back bone?”
Yes
Catholic Cardinals in the U.S., with a few exceptions, have essentially broken away from essential Church Doctrine, much like King Henry VIII.
“Do bishops like this make you sick?”
Yes.
And I have written to Mahony and others on more than one occasion on more than one issue.
Like I’ve said before, we can only hope & pray that Pope Benedict starts replacing these bishops.
Those people have a lot of influence in Washington.
That's why I always do my taxes in the bedroom.
You missed my point...I know that there are many good Catholics in California...I referring to history when the Church when attempting to admonish nobility gone amiss would put a region under the ban. This would force the citizenry to put pressure on their rulers to come to heel. That’s what I was talking about...I meant no attack on the innocent per se or on good Californians!
I didn't “miss your point”...you just made a poor attempt at trying to make a “point” and because you obviously don't know how the Church operates; you still are.
Putting a “region under the ban” is ridiculous.
The Church is going to punish an entire Catholic regional population because of the mistakes of a few in the hierarchy.
Stick to what you know and let us Catholics deal with our own problems.
Actually I moved from NY State to Virginia but hey you couldn’t know that. Come to think of it, the Catholic church should enact the ban on the churches in Virginia and in all of America!...and all God fearing protestant churches should close their doors!
All church provided services and hospitals should also cease until such time as the immorality of the politicians who are are corrupting this nation be put down by the God fearing people of this nation. We are a representative republic and there-fore each voter is that much more accountable for his own voting
behavior then were the serfs ruled by nobles or errant kings of olden times. And yet even the serfs who feared the loss of succor the Church of old provided could rise up against a noble should he stray too far.
The immoral think in this nation that the sway of power lies with them and that they can try to obliterate the light of Christ from this nation, they can succeed if we let them. Yet as we saw what happened when religious folk came out of the wood-work to put Bush back in office over fears of a national gay marriage acceptance and hate speech legislation amongst other issues, Christian morality is not yet dead in this nation. The Moral persons of this nation have to “set their faces like flints” and pugnaciously put down the immoral leaders of this nation and not be “hoity toity” about it!
Would any of these CINO politicians get into office if Catholics didn’t vote for them? The voting pattern of far too many Catholics in California put these people in office. I hope this new Pope takes action against the Cardinal as well as priests and their parishioners and politicians that continue to support the culture of death.
more ridiculous ideas about what the Catholic Church should do...do me a favor and quit bothering me with your inane ideas about what the Catholic Church should do...
BTW, where do you go to church...or do you?
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