Catholic Church flexes political muscle in Massachusetts

South Coast Today ^ | 10.02.05 | Joseph R. LaPlante

[Coleus]

Prayers and petitions are greeting Catholics this morning across the state in the opening salvo of a drive to place on the ballot a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage.

The four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts have christened today "Protect Marriage Sunday," a kick-off signature-gathering blitz with a goal of putting 120,000 names on petitions by Thanksgiving.

"This is retail politics," said professor Christopher Duncan, chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of Dayton, which is run by the Marianist Fathers.

"You are one click or two away from candidates' pictures on the pulpit."

Pastors and politics are a union as old as the nation. American bishops and their pastors, Catholic and Protestant, have herded their flocks over the centuries to the ballot box to vote in accordance with the teaching of their churches. History is ripe with churches standing in the front ranks of social change, from the abolition movement (curiously on both sides) to child labor laws to abortion.

But this sales pitch is different, because the stakes are so high to those who believe they are doing God's work by defining marriage as between a man and a woman, supporters assert.

"This goes to the real core of society -- the family," said Edward F. Saunders Jr., executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public policy office of the Roman Catholic Church in Massachusetts. "The opposition is more vocal. ... This (same-sex marriage) is an attack on what we have come to know as the family."

Eighteen states have adopted similar defense of marriage amendments to their constitutions.

"I am absolutely for this petition drive," said Pauline Minstrell of Nantucket on Friday morning after Mass at St. Julie Billiart Church in North Dartmouth.

[Coleus]

www.VoteOnMarriage.org

[RasterMaster]

What are they going to do about their faux Catholics who are virtually unopposed year after year, Kerry and Kennedy?

[Coleus]

faux Catholics who are virtually unopposed year after year, Kerry and Kennedy? >>>>

I was thinking the same thing, I don't think this is going to go too far...But then again, MA does have one of the lowest divorce rates in the nation, so maybe traditional marriage is up there on their list of priorities.

[Aussie Dasher]

The Catholic Church could make a huge impa(x)ct by running Lard Ass out of town!

[RasterMaster]

How about "off a short pier"!

[Aussie Dasher]

A VERY short pier...I'm told he has some experience with water!

[RasterMaster]

I'll even donate the Oldsmobile to send the Skipper on his journey!

[Aussie Dasher]

Only if I can sell tickets - and the television and movie rights!

[RasterMaster]

As long as no interns, secretaries, or waitresses will be injured.

[Aussie Dasher]

Only young, attractive female ones. It's the Kennedy way!

[magisterium]

I shall be delighted to retract what I'm going to say, in the event that I'm proven wrong, but the Catholic Church "flexing its political muscle" in Massachusetts is not a very apt way to look at this. Our bishops here haven't the spine or the stamina (or possibly even enough sensus catholicus) for that.

Sure, they'll give the cause a lick-and-a-promise effort; everyone expects them to come down, in public, anyway, on the right side of this issue. And the ultra-liberal media in this state will even go so far as to spot the bishops a first-round salvo in the form of this petition drive. But that's all they'll give them, and that's all the bishops are likely to press the issue.

I've lived in this atate all my life, and I'm pretty inured to any contingencies likely to develop with the bishops' interactions with the politicos around here. After the first week of this petition drive, that's about the last you'll see of them in any real, public capacity.

Next to Rhode Island, which is just as politically corrupt as Massachusetts, we are the state with the second-largest proportion of Catholics to the general population; the two states are, in fact, the only two that have an outright majority of Catholics. How we in particular, and the heavily Catholic northeast in general, have embraced all or nearly all of the materialist, Godless agenda of the American Left over the last 40 years can best be explained by the aforementioned lack of drive by our bishops to embrace their crosses and "get with the program." I see nothing in the four Ordinaries of Massachusetts that compels me to think that the reigning mindset is going to change any time soon.

[old and tired]

Hi magisterium, I know how you feel. However, you can't deny the impact of the Catholic Church on the last presidential election. Church going Catholics were bombarded with the message to vote for life, and they did. They were bombarded, for the most part not by priests and bishops, but by other Catholic faithful. And in many cases, those Catholic faithful went to bat without the support of their pastors and bishops. Think about it. Did you see the Catholic Answers voters guide before the last presidential election? Maybe you didn't see it in Church, but saw it in the newspaper or at a friend's house, or from a mailing. How many Church going Catholics didn't see that publication? Not too many, I'd wager. And if they didn't see it, was it because they lived in an area where the church was working actively against them (like Mahoney in LA)?

It's been 30 years since Roe v Wade. Faithful Catholics have woken up to the fact that our bishops and priests are, by and large, woefully inept, and in far too many cases, downright unChristian. Today, if a pastor just leaves pro-life and pro-marriage groups alone, we take it as a kind of support. In Philly, Cardinal Rigali turned a blind eye to the voters guides. We appreciated it and got the message out to the faithful. Our parish grade school ran a mock election - about 90% of the kids went for Bush. It's not scientific, but it clearly indicates that faithful Catholics got the message. But if the Massachusetts bishops are not only willing to turn a blind eye, but actually encouraging lay Catholics to take action, who knows what impact it could have. I think the impact could be huge.

[escapefromboston]

So where can I sign this petition??? Are they going Church to Church??

[Aussie Dasher]

90% of the kids went for Bush? Now, THAT is a great sign for the future.

Once Benedict kicks out the anti-Catholic priests (& Bishops) we'll really be in business!

[DBeers]

poing!

The Natural Laws Can Not Be Denied
- Resistance Is Futile!

[DirtyHarryY2K]

Homosexual Agenda Ping.

Post #1 has a great link for those of you in Massachusetts

If you want on/off the ping list let me and little jeremiah know.

Free Republic homosexual agenda keyword search

[NYer]

I saved this story last year when the MA Supremes condoned same sex marriage. This is the scene that played out in a public school on that infamous date.

* * * * *

Gay propoganda

October 23, 2004 / NEWTON, Mass. — L. George Chedid wants his eldest son to learn about math and science and all the rest of the academic subjects that children learn in elementary school. But he draws the line at his boy learning about same-sex “marriage” — especially at the impressionable age of 7.

Chedid’s son was in first grade at Burr Elementary School in Newton, Mass., last spring when the principal announced over the intercom that the state was officially recognizing same-sex “marriages.” The school then sent several of its homosexual teachers to various classrooms — from kindergarten through fifth grade — to explain what this meant and to herald the law as a wonderful civil-rights advancement, said Chedid, an engineering professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.

“A kid at that age looks at anything the teacher says as absolute truth,” he said. “The teacher comes in and tells that 7-year-old, ‘It’s okay for Johnny to wear a skirt. It’s fine for Peter to marry Paul.’… It’s indoctrination of these kids that flies in the face of the principles and morals that I’d like to institute in my child.”

The resulting uproar in the town pitted parent against parent, with a generous use of epithets such as “bigots” and “homophobes,” Chedid said.

Chedid and his wife, both practicing Maronite Catholics, decided over the summer to put their eldest son in a nearby Catholic school. They also placed their next-youngest child, who was entering kindergarten, in Catholic school, where Chedid said they are “a lot safer from gay propaganda.”

Chedid said homosexual activists are making marriage a civil-rights matter and completely taking the religious aspect out of it.

In mid-May, forced by a Massachusetts high court, the Bay State became the first in the union to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Earlier this year, legislators passed an amendment that would ban same-sex “marriages” while legalizing civil unions. Before it can become part of the Massachusetts Constitution, however, the amendment has to pass another session of the Legislature before voters can decide the fate of the issue, which should occur in 2006.

In the meantime, same-sex “marriage” and homosexual lifestyles are coming into discussions in school settings and classrooms, parents and teachers said.

Just before the official date that same-sex couples could obtain marriage licenses, the superintendent of the Boston public school system sent a memo to his staff, urging respect for the new law and reiterating a “zero-tolerance” policy regarding any acts that could create an “intolerant” climate in the schools.

“It behooves us, whatever our position may be on this issue, to use this opportunity to help our students understand it as a vital manifestation of some of the principles that have shaped our system of government … as well as another step in our continuing efforts to create a more just society for all of our citizens,” wrote superintendent Thomas Payzant.

Opt-In, Not Opt-Out

As director of Project PARENT — Parents Advocating Responsible Education Not Turmoil — R.T. Neary has been leading the fight in Massachusetts to pass a bill that would give what he believes is justice to parents. The bill would require parents to give written consent before their child attended human sexuality classes. Current state law allows parents to “opt-out” their children: If a parent doesn’t contact school officials and ask that the child not participate, the child attends the classes. Neary’s group advocates giving parents the power to review course materials; if they object, the child is not required to take the class.

The bill stalled earlier this year, but Neary plans to bring it back to legislators in December so that it can possibly be up for a vote next year, he said.

“It’s the civil right of parents to be the prime determinants of the moral values of their youngsters,” said Neary, a public high-school teacher for more than 30 years. “And it’s been usurped by the schools.”

Neary’s statement is consistent with Catholic doctrine and principles, especially that of subsidiarity, a Catechism principle that, applied to families, requires that “larger communities should take care not to usurp the family’s prerogatives or interfere in its life.”

In his 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio (on the family in the Modern World), Pope John Paul II talked about the importance of the parents’ role in educating their children about sexual matters.

“Sex education,” wrote the Holy Father, “which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.”

One organization that doesn’t support the “opt-in” legislation — the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, which offers sex-education curriculum materials to schools — believes it’s important for sex to be discussed in the classroom.

“We believe that sexuality education is an important part of health education in general,” said Erin Rowland, the league’s spokeswoman, who added that the legalization of same-sex “marriages” in the state has not led Planned Parenthood to change its sex-education curriculum.

“And so a bill that would put a barrier and make it harder for schools to provide comprehensive sexuality education, from our point of view, is a negative. It doesn’t help public health. It doesn’t help get accurate information out there. It doesn’t help young people learn how to protect themselves (and) how to build self-esteem and have positive relationships.”

Planned Parenthood Federation of America made more than $90 million from abortion in 2002, according to STOPP International, a division of American Life League.

Schools in Massachusetts don’t need a classroom to present views on homosexual relationships. A substitute teacher in the Medfield school district, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, described an assembly last spring at Medfield High School, in which freshmen and sophomores were invited to listen to a female comedian.

The comedian, a lesbian who spoke for about a half-hour, talked about how she had to hide her homosexuality during her high-school years in Massachusetts, but was pleased that the climate had changed so much that now homosexual couples could marry — and she cited her upcoming marriage as an example, the teacher recalled.

He said her talk — which, in his estimation, was “advocacy” of her lifestyle — was “disappointing” to him as a “taxpayer, as a Catholic, as a Christian.”

Providing Alternatives

Catholic teachers who may have to deal with a curriculum that leads to discussions about homosexual topics have to walk a fine line in their jobs — while also living their faith, said Peter Cataldo, research director at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston. If, for example, a Catholic teacher has to discuss a book that deals with homosexual “marriage,” he should also present materials in opposition or that offer critiques from the standpoint of natural-law ethics, he said. That would allow the teacher to avoid cooperating in providing “immoral ideas and values to the children and, at the same time, it should also avoid using specifically religious ideas in the classroom,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts bishops are formulating an “across-the-board” response to issues that have come up surrounding the same-sex “marriage” law, said Daniel Avila, associate director for policy and research at the Massachusetts Catholic Conference.

“We think that the claim that same-sex ‘marriage’ is no different than traditional marriage and this is a constitutional right is an untruth,” Avila said. “And it will be an untruth that, when promulgated by official institutions like public schools, will do great harm to people who are seeking the truth and especially to families and parents concerned about the well-being of their children.

“They will be confronted with the claims that same-sex ‘marriage’ is a constitutional right and is a good thing,” he continued. “It will force them to come to grips with what their faith and their values mean. It will be a difficult process. Because kids will come home and say, ‘Gee, this is what everyone in school is saying, and how come we’re different?’ It will be a challenge and an opportunity, I think.”

[Maeve]

bump

[NYer]

Two words "Home schooling."

That is an idealistic statement and is not always possible.