Why doesn’t His Eminence also condemn the many Irish Catholic politicians who are also pro-abortion?
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has a message for Catholic politicians - such as U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty -- who see their public duties as clashing with the tenets of their faith.
Ditch the job.
The bishop is stung by the attitude of pols, like these two Democrats, who personally think abortion is wrong but who, in their government roles, support abortion rights. He told me, "We need some moral courage among our politicians. Where are the people who stand up and say, 'This is what I believe and I will live this and I will proclaim it regardless of where it leads in the electoral process'?" He'd say the same kind of thing about you and your employment. source
He does if you read the whole thing...
Catholic politicians of both parties, nationwide, have followed a similar path in abandoning the Faith for the sake of political expediency: Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Pat Leahy, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden come quickly to mind. And on a local level, of course, Congressman Patrick Kennedy and Senator Jack Reed. How these intelligent men and women will someday stand before the judgment seat of God and explain why they legitimized the death of countless innocent children in the sin of abortion is beyond me"
Read the article. He singles out Giuliani for criticism because the Giuliani campaign decided to invite him to a fund-raiser.
You know why Irish Catholics are the way they are? Inferiority complex with regard to their faith. Because of a relative lack of Catholic intellectualism in Ireland (off the top of my head I can only think of those who left their faith: Liam O'Flaherty, James Joyce, Francis Hackett, Sean O'Faolain... compared to the Catholic Intellectualism of England for example). Or take for example the IRA; a leftist socialist organization the nature of which most Irish Americans are anywhere of.
Don't get me wrong, most Irish immigrants had a great zeal for their faith, but there was nevertheless a despondency and cultural timidity which resulted in their need to prove the Protestants wrong when challenged on their loyalty to their adopted country as opposed to the Pope.
While helping them to assimilate into what was perceived to be the American system, this compromise of placing their Catholicism in subordination to their Americanism has been the ruin of the Catholic culture of the Irish American community. Instead of trying to Baptize America, they tried to Americanize Catholicism.
Italian Americans have had a similar problem, but to a lesser degree, and stemming mostly from the cultural anti-clericalism of the old country.