By JOSEPH MATT
Your Eminence:
God has blessed you with a great gift and has chosen you for a position given to very few people in His Church — a Catholic cardinal and archbishop of New York. This incredible office carries much responsibility and a great deal of public witness to the Catholic faith. Your actions have a direct effect on millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In other words, your actions and word carry a lot of power. The Catholic community and millions of murdered babies are crying out for your leadership. You are in a position to make a significant impact on a life and death issue.
Your recent comments fronted by your spokesman regarding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s recent signing of The Reproductive Health Act — one of the most barbaric and heinous abortion laws to this date — are both anemic and hollow, lacking the forcefulness that is required from a prince of the Church on an issue that strikes at our society’s moral core.
Let’s examine your words as given to us by your spokesman:
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Full statement (in bold italics) by Cardinal Dolan’s spokesman, with my comments interspersed:
“I will not discuss any individual. Anything that follows is a statement of some general principles, and should not be considered to be a comment on any specific person.”
Okay, we will pretend we don’t know who you are talking about.
“First, excommunication should not be used as a weapon. Too often, I fear, those who call for someone’s excommunication do so out of anger or frustration.”
First of all, excommunication is a weapon, as is anything described as a means of opposing or fighting an adversary or an opponent. Gov. Andrew Cuomo by his own words and scandalous actions is an adversary and opponent of the Catholic Church.
It is also a weapon against scandal and it is a weapon that calls upon a sinner to repentance to show clarity and fidelity to the Church. It also shows the consequences of not abiding by the laws of the Catholic Church.
And yes, Your Eminence, we are angry and frustrated. Anybody with a pulse should be outraged by this latest assault on the most innocent of life. Shouldn’t we be? For almost fifty years now abortion has been legal in the United States and we have gotten the same lip service from our politicians and even the leaders within our churches. The sixty million plus abortions to this day are evidence enough that when it comes to solving the scourge of abortion, talk is cheap.
Now that the final threshold in the abortion battle has crossed to outright infanticide we are still hearing the same platitudes. Your Eminence, mere words and platitudes have not served the unborn or faithful Catholics well over the last 50 years. This requires a time of action. Hollow words of concern and righteous indignation serve no purpose at this point in time.
“Second, notable canon lawyers have said that, under canon law, excommunication is not an appropriate response to a politician who supports or votes for legislation advancing abortion.”
Canon law does not grant or restrict your authority. This is not the time to hide behind a canon lawyer. There are plenty of competent canon lawyers who could argue the legality of excommunication under various canons.
Your Eminence, where are you going to draw the line? If infanticide is not a boundary, then nothing is. All of the Catholics complicit in the crimes of Nazi Germany and any other regime guilty of genocide would embrace your sorry explanation.
Even your fellow bishops, Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, and Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany, N.Y. — who should be applauded, by the way — are calling for Cuomo’s excommunication and are not hiding behind canon law.
“Third, from a pastoral perspective, if a pastor — and a bishop is certainly a pastor of a diocese — knows of a grave situation involving a parishioner, it is his duty to address that issue personally and directly with the parishioner. That was the approach of Cardinal O’Connor and Cardinal Egan (both of whom I served), and it is Cardinal Dolan’s approach as well.”
Yes, that is a fair point (initially); you have mentioned on many occasions you have privately conferred with Gov. Cuomo on the matter of abortion — fine. According to you, he has been warned many times personally that his actions are not in conformity with the Church.
But the governor continues to flaunt his flippant attitude about his Catholic faith — embracing it when politically convenient and publicly endorsing any legislation supporting abortion continually creating public scandal — his infanticide bill being the latest. Note his January 28 statement on WMAC radio: “The Catholic Church doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose….I understand their religious view.” He added, according to LifeSiteNews: “I’m not here to represent a religion.”
How many more babies have to die before you realize the pastoral approach is not working?
“Fourth, and finally, from a strategic perspective, I do not believe that excommunication would be effective as many politicians would welcome it as a sign of their refusal to be ‘bullied by the Church’; thinking it would therefore give them a political advantage. (See, for example, the case of [San Diego] Bishop Leo Maher and Lucy Killea).”
Stop caring what politicians think. Excommunication is not some political tool used to manipulate politicians. We are dealing with a man’s soul and a public scandal that affects members of the Body of Christ. It is a tool that informs the person affected they are no longer in the Church. It is tool that has been around since the apostles who were not afraid to use it.
Also it is a matter of justice. Justice to the unborn, Justice to the scandal involving the members of the Body of Christ, and Justice to our Creator. Proverbs 21:15: “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.”
Our country is now on pace to rival the Third Reich when it comes to atrocities against life. We have reached a point in time that a “Catholic” governor can brag about his role in procuring legislation that will kill babies up until their “scheduled” birthday — and such an accomplishment is celebrated in public display as its supporters trip over themselves in self-congratulation.
Have we become so immune to the bitter reality of abortion that the blatant violation of the Fifth Commandment no longer triggers outrage? Think of when the poison infiltrates the blood, or the scissors pierce the head, or the tool crushes the skull, and the innocent defenseless child cries out to Heaven before his or her heart finally gives out. What excuse will we have for not taking action?
Wouldn’t Christ expect us to use every tool given to us to help prevent this atrocity? If that were one of us in the womb, what would we want?
In 1984 then New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Andrew’s father, gave a landmark speech at the University of Notre Dame, saying, as part of his rambling oration: “We cannot justify our aspiration to goodness simply on the basis of the vigor of our demand for an elusive and questionable civil law declaring what we already know, that abortion is wrong….Approval or rejection of legal restrictions on abortion should not be the exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty.” News reports characterized his speech as approving a “personally opposed” approach.
To this day, this has been the gold standard for “Catholic” politicians who are disciples of abortion rights.
Today the Catholic Church is reaping the consequences of all talk and no action. Thirty-five years later that mantra is still serving the “Catholic” politician baby killers well, providing cover from a Church whose timid clergy “looked the other way,” fearful to use any of their authority over the public scandalous behavior of its wayward members. This non-“offensive” approach has brought us to the point today where we have encoded in law legal infanticide — thanks to the son of this former governor who proclaims the same “personally opposed” doctrine that has allowed for decades of progressively worse assaults against the unborn.
Tell us, Your Eminence, how the words and actions of the cardinal from New York differ from the creed of our Catholic brethren who personally oppose abortion but do not want to impose their religious beliefs upon anybody? Better yet, Your Eminence, explain it to the unborn.
God called you to be a shepherd. If there ever was a defining moment in your vocation would not this be it? What more noteworthy offense against God in the present time — than the outright slaughter of innocent children?
Take action Your Eminence! Words have no power against infanticide.
Until there is repentance, this promoter of baby-killing is an adversary of the Catholic Church and any sane society. Stand up and be the cardinal Christ demands of you.
Excommunicate him, Your Eminence!
Joseph Matt
Publisher, The Wanderer
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