In the gay marriage debate all the passion seems to be on the other side. People on our side are too busy caveating every argument with “I’m not anti-gay…” Here’s a rule – the side with the most caveats loses.
The New York Times was even befuddled about how absent the Catholic Church seemed on the issue of gay marriage in New York.
It was befuddling to gay-rights advocates: The Catholic Church, arguably the only institution with the authority and reach to derail same-sex marriage, seemed to shrink from the fight.
As the marriage bill hurtled toward a vote, the head of the church in New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, left town to lead a meeting of bishops in Seattle. He did not travel to Albany or deliver a major speech in the final days of the session. And when he did issue a strongly worded critique of the legislation — he called it “immoral” and an “ominous threat” — it was over the phone to an Albany-area radio show. Inside the Capitol, where a photograph of Mr. Cuomo shaking hands with Archbishop Dolan hangs in the governor’s private office, the low-key approach did not seem accidental. Mr. Cuomo had taken pains to blunt the church’s opposition.
When he learned that church leaders had objected to the language of the marriage legislation, he invited its lawyers to the Capitol to vent their frustration.
Mr. Cuomo even spoke to Archbishop Dolan about the push for same-sex marriage, emphasizing his respect and affection for the religious leader. An adviser described the governor’s message to Archbishop Dolan this way: “I have to do what I have to do. But your support over all is very important to me.”
By the time a Catholic bishop from Brooklyn traveled to Albany last week to tell undecided senators that passing same-sex marriage “is not in keeping with the will of their people,” it was clear the church had been outmaneuvered by the highly organized same-sex marriage coalition, with its sprawling field team and, especially, its Wall Street donors.
“In many ways,” acknowledged Dennis Poust, of the New York State Catholic Conference, “we were outgunned. That is a lot to overcome.”
This is heartbreaking.
This loss in New York will have reverberations throughout the entire country. And way too many Christians were too scared of being called bigots rather than standing up.
June 27, 2011 at 4:34 am
Matt, I just want to tell your readers that your brother Pat is going to be on the radio show, "Religion, Politics & the Culture", Monday from 8-9pm EDT to discuss this very issue. You were on Friday and did a great job; now it's Pat's turn. Radio in Southeast Florida: AM 1040. Internet: http://www.rpconradio.com.
Call in toll-free to 1-866-716-1040.
June 27, 2011 at 4:35 am
"And way too many Christians were too scared of being called bigots rather than standing up."
And the irony is that now the law in New York pretty much considers Catholics to be bigots–so much so that they have to carve out "religious exemptions" to allow us to continue to affirm both natural law and God's will for marriage to be restricted to heterosexual couples.
Every law normalizing gay "marriage" redefines not only marriage; it redefines religious principles in favor of traditional understandings of sexual morality as bigotry. Every one.
June 27, 2011 at 5:37 am
So many clergy are themselves gay, and tacitly support homosexual legislation with silence and inaction. That is the real elephant in the room.
I remember my former Bishop, Joseph Galante, claiming that he would, against the laws of the Church, ordain homosexuals. A friend of mine asked me why I was so upset about this, and asked why it mattered… well, this is why.
June 27, 2011 at 6:28 am
40 Years later the new springtime, indeed.
And still they drag their feet, there will be no consequences to those that voted for gay marriage in the legislature. Bishop of Rochester, Albany and despite his temper tantrum also of Brooklyn have already dismissed Archbishop Dolan's attempt any anything more substantial than a strongly worded letter.
Let us pray for the Church. For those responsible for teaching her Truth have forsaken their office and their sheep.
June 27, 2011 at 6:32 am
I communicated at length with Dennis Poust in the weeks before the vote. I expressed my extreme dissatisfaction with the Church's lobbying effort. He pretty much blew me off with a what-do-you-know attitude. Turns out I knew a lot more than he did. It's beyond dispute that the hierarchy botched this. Now we need to determine whether they did so deliberately or are simply inept.
June 27, 2011 at 10:51 am
It is very sad to see how much the Cathiloc Church is failing it's people. No wonder the church pews are empty. Where are the voices from our leadership? Gay marriage, illegal wars, abortion and the corrupt bankers and government…Why is our church leadership not speaking out? I truly wonder what Jesus would say if he returned today? There's your answer.
June 27, 2011 at 12:26 pm
The voice of the Catholic Church is being silenced by civil laws that are not the will of the people for the common good but by agenda driven politicians without the moral courage to stand for the moral and legal innocence of the sovereign person who constitutes our nation. Gay marriage is an oxymoron. Two things that cannot be. Note the word "moron" in oxymoron. Blackrep: The real elephant in the room is that the nation is being tyrannized by an absence of passion, but too much virulence, viciousness, vitriolic, rapaciousness, heartlessness, and soulless belief that the human being does not have a soul to concern ourselves with eternal life. The human soul IS life and anybody who refuses to admit the human soul for himself and for his neighbor or partner is going to hell. Gay marriage is unbridled hatred of God, unbridled hatred of mankind, virginity, our constitutional posterity, our founding principles inscribed in our Declaration of Independence. Make Gay Marriage law prove that it has a right to be TRUTH before our Creator. It is incumbent upon every citizen to demand honesty and truth for the preservation of our nation. Gay marriage is perjury in a court of law through individuals who have forfeit their citizenship and arrogated to themselves counterfeit civil rights that do not exist in creation but in the eternal abyss of the damned, and I'll be damned before I let these liars get away with imposing their evil on my children. The devil has no soul. The devil is not a human being composed of body and soul as is God and man. The devil is the personification of evil, a godless being as are his followers.
Mary De Voe
Thank you Matt and Pat Archbold for Creative Minority Report, I feel better now.
June 27, 2011 at 12:40 pm
P.S. I may be a bigot but my being a bigot or homophobic does not give any other being access to pirate my suffrage, to strongarm my consent, my privilege, my sovereignty to constitute the common good through my free will exercised at the ballot box. To do so, nullifies my sovereign personhood and my freedom and citizenship. To the idiots,the masterminds of genuine evil: Put it on the ballot and let the will of people be known BEFORE you are tried by your own rules.
Mary De Voe
June 27, 2011 at 12:46 pm
P.P.S. Even Archbishops have the civil right to vote and this is what the miscreants of gay marriage fear the most.
Mary De Voe
June 27, 2011 at 1:06 pm
I guess I find some of the comments odd here and the NYT Times article. Dolan was a lot more engaged than the Times article is letting on.Oh and that "meeting" was a pretty big one he had to attend. Goodness he and Maureen Dowd were at war over this issue in the TIMES. Have we forgotten that.
Whose to blame? Well countless Catholic that did not pass the faith on their children. BLAMING THE BISHOPS seems to be an out of wash our hands. Does anyone think those "undecided" would have acted differently if the Church had done more? Seems like the fix was in too me.
The undecided Senators made a determination. They looked at the voters in their district and perhaps correctly decided those Catholics would not punish them for their vote. Sadly I think that might be correct. If anyone thinks a Speech by Dolan in Albany would change that I think they are mistaken
June 27, 2011 at 1:47 pm
I read a lot about what Archbishop Dolan did, and I don't think it was inadequate. However, I do think that the lack of consequences for Catholics who support things like SSM and abortion adds to the momentum of those movements. It breaks my heart to think of people being denied Jesus' Real Presence, but I honestly don't see how else to get through to people. So long as people know that they can support these things and nothing will ever happen to them, they won't care about the Church's teaching on the matter. For those who are serious about their faith, denial of the Sacraments would be quite a wake-up call. Of course, that's not my decision to make. But that's my opinion, nonetheless.
June 27, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Glad we're using the NYT as our source for information on what Archbishop Dolan did/didn't do during this fight.
Blaming the bishops is a cop-out.
June 27, 2011 at 4:15 pm
The RAPE of our virgins’ souls. The Twin Trade Towers were taken down by the terrorists for seventy seven virgins’ souls. Seventy seven virgins’ souls were to be at their disposal to abuse in heaven, but the terrorists did not wait for heaven and took the seventy seven virgins’ souls at the Twin Trade Towers on 9/11.
Political terrorists, in one passage of civil law, criminalized virginity and virtue and denied unalienable civil rights, held in trust for virgins’ souls, by the state, to the virgins. Without the voice of the people, rampaging sodomites have taken down the soul of the nation. A nation without a virgin’s soul has perished. Rampaging sodomites have raped the soul of our nation to death. There is no respite for God-fearing people. The rampaging sodomites will persecute and drain the life blood from our veins, the prosperity from our wallets and demand that the victims be blamed for their rampage.
Mary De Voe
June 27, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Aren't we all to blame to some extent? Most people are afraid to speak the truth because we will be branded as bigots and homophobes. I was in a networking group and the gay activist invited everyone to attend the gay parade in NY. I made up some excuse not to go but I didn't show my true feelings. I would have been harassed had I done that. And don't say that none of you have done the same thing. Our silence or our weakness (that's a better term) implies agreement. What to do?
June 27, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Where was the Church? The Church was bitching and complaining amongst itself while the secularists were successfully evangalizing and secularizing the world. As long as Christianity is divided and Secularism is united, secularism will triumph. Sorry. But it's the truth.
June 27, 2011 at 6:04 pm
It's all partisan politics. The fiscal liberals ignore the Church's moral teachings and the social conservatives ignore the Church's social justice teachings. Everyone has their favorite issues that they want to emphasize at the expensive of ignoring the FULLNESS if the Faith. Afterall, we're humans.
June 27, 2011 at 6:10 pm
It's all about personal preferences – Catholics believe in the Real Presence; yet, they disagree on the level of reverence to be shown to the Blessed Sacrament. The kneel-haters say that people who kneel are "personalizing" the Eucharist; YET, they're ok with the communion-in-the-hand option (because somehow that's not personalizing the Eucharist). It's all about preferences and politics….in the meantime, the secularists are winning over the World. Wake-up Catholics! It's time to start evangelizing and acting like you actually believe EVERYTHING that the Magesterium teaches…I'm sure this comment will be deleted by our anti-obama partisan blog manager.
June 27, 2011 at 6:40 pm
To Anonymous above:
How can we possibly evangelize when we have a churh where Cardinals disagree with Cardinals? Until there is unity from the top on down, there is no way that we can evangelize. What shall we evangelize? Whose truth? Whose version? We are so divided and confused.
Welcome to the New Springtime of Vatican II!
BTW-you said your post will surely be deleted by our anti-obama partisan blog mangager.
Well, why shouldn't he be anti-obama? The chief promoter of abortion, aborted baby stem cell research, and now "evolving leader on gay marriage" in anti-catholic. He promotes values and laws that are in direct oppostion to Catholic values and cathechism. This is a site written from a CATHOLIC perspective.
June 27, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I cannot imagine a similar weak reaction from Cardinal O'Connor as we got from Dolan. Very disappointing. And Blackrep is right; the 800 pound gorilla in the room is that so many in the clergy are homosexually inclined and tacitly push its acceptance.
June 27, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Abp Dolan tends to work WAAAYYYY behind the scenes and almost never 'calls out' a politician publicly. That's out experience in Wisconsin, anyhow.
There was never a public comment about "Plan B" abortifacients when they were included in tax-paid 'services'; the "Catholic" Governor of the State was never called out for his maniacal/fanatic support of abortion in any form.
OTHER Bishops here (see Bp. Morlino, e.g.) are much more vocal and visible.