Last week, after Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley said the support of church members for Democrats "borders on scandal" because of the party's support for keeping abortion legal, most of the state's leading Catholic Democrats responded with silence.
John Walsh, chairman of the Democratic Party, declined to comment, as did Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and nearly all of the state's Democratic Catholic congressmen, on both sides of the abortion issue.
Ah, but the exceptions:
- [House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi] said he makes decisions based on what he thinks would be best for the Commonwealth, not "just following what my religious leader tells me to do."
- City Councilor-at-large Michael Flaherty, in an interview, quoted the prophet Micah: "We are called to act with justice, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with God," he said. "Instead of hearing about the church plans to exclude groups of people from God's table, I would rather hear how the church could be a place where we are all truly welcome."
- John Tobin, another city councilor, said, "I don't fault the cardinal. . . . I'm sure he feels a lot of frustration. But there are Catholics and Catholic politicians who feel frustrated with the church sometimes."
- "I don't recall in my lifetime any leader of the Catholic church making such a bold partisan statement," said Philip Johnston, a former state Democratic Party chairman who is also Catholic. "I think it's very regrettable."
I think the above quotes are pretty regrettable.
