LETTER TO THE EDITOR

APRIL 10, 2022 — Published April 15

The People’s Forum
Telegram & Gazette
100 Front Street, Floor 5
Worcester, MA 01608-1440
letters@telegram.com

To the Editor:

When a Catholic bishop, quite reasonably, tries to uphold Catholic beliefs in a Catholic school, the Telegram & Gazette punishes him with an invidious, cheap shot, editorial cartoon, (Don Landgren cartoon, 4/8/2022).

The media used to tell Catholics that we should not impose our values on the rest of society. Apparently, now, we are not even allowed to maintain them in our own institutions.

Members of the Massachusetts media seem to have no compunction about inserting themselves, into an internal church matter, to demand conformity to their values.

Is there any other religion which is treated this way?

The Landgren cartoon perfectly illustrates the mixture of arrogance, bigotry and hypocrisy which characterizes media attitudes towards Catholicism. It should remind faithful Catholics of the treatment which they should expect when they refuse to submit to secular ideology.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
PO Box 112
Boston, MA 02131
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

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PRESS STATEMENT

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2022

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

HERETICS AT HOLY CROSS CALL BISHOP “IGNORANT AND BIGOTED”

Angered by the April 3rd statement by Worcester Bishop Robert McManus—which questioned whether homosexual pride flags and Black Lives Matter banners were consistent with the Catholic identity of the Jesuit administered Nativity School—hundreds of students, alumni, employees, administrators and faculty members at the College of the Holy Cross have signed a petition demanding that the bishop be disinvited to the college’s commencement exercises in May.

The petition claims “...the Bishop’s statements demonstrate ignorant and bigoted sentiments which fail to align with the long-held values that guide our community.”

Among the signatories to this defamatory indictment are the College’s Director of Admissions, the Director of Government Relations, the Director of Distinguished Fellowships and Graduate Studies, and the Chairman of the Political Science Department.

Perhaps the most controversial signatory is the notorious heretic, Tat-siong Benny Liew, a Professor of New Testament Studies at Holy Cross. In 2018, he was rebuked by the Bishop for his vile, depraved and blasphemous assertions that Our Blessed Lord and Savior—the Second Person of the Holy Trinity—experienced impure and unnatural desires. Liew was never disciplined for this sacrilege.

On April 11th, reporter Joe Bukuras of the Catholic News Agency contacted the Catholic Action League to request a comment on the petition. League Executive Director C.J. Doyle issued the following statement:

“More than three dozen professors and administrators at the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross, along with hundreds of students, are now proclaiming that Catholic opposition to flags which affirm the mortal sin of same sex relations, ‘is ignorant and bigoted,’ and that anyone who holds such traditional Catholic beliefs—including the Bishop of Worcester—must be excluded, in the name of inclusion, from participating in the public life of the college.”

“This petition opens a whole new dimension in the concept of chutzpah. Persons holding leadership positions in a Catholic institution — while openly opposing Catholic beliefs —actually believe themselves entitled to publicly rebuke the local bishop for affirming what Catholics have always believed. The audacity is astonishing.”

“It is obvious that the signatories of this petition reject the inspired words of Sacred Scripture, the explicit provisions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and 2,000 years of Catholic moral teachings, all of which condemn same sex relations as contrary to Divine and natural law.”

“This petition makes clear that large numbers of those who work, teach or study at Holy Cross are post-Christian, bourgeois cultural conformists, subservient to elite secular opinion, who believe that traditional Catholicism must be marginalized in a nominally Catholic institution. In other words, they are obstinate heretics.”

Portions of the League’s statement were included in an April 11th Catholic News Agency story on the petition, which was also published by Catholic World Report.

Doyle was also interviewed by the Church Militant Evening News on April 12th. The League’s previous April 7th Press Statement on the controversy was published in the online edition of the Boston Broadside. Quotes from that statement were also included in an April 11th story in the National Catholic Reporter.

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NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2022

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE:
REMOVE SAINT PATRICK’S NAME FROM SOUTH BOSTON PARADE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today called upon the organizers of South Boston’s Evacuation Day/Saint Patrick’s Day Parade—the Allied War Veterans Council—to remove the name of Ireland’s patron saint from the event.

The League is requesting that the Veterans dedicate the parade, exclusively, to the civil, Evacuation Day Holiday, which celebrates the flight of the British Army from Boston on March 17, 1776.

In 2015, homosexual groups, which reject and oppose Catholic values, were admitted, under their own banners, into a parade named in honor a Catholic saint.

The League characterized the parade as “an Irish themed secular carnival, devoid of Catholic content, and thoroughly disconnected from Saint Patrick and the Faith which he brought to Ireland.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle commented: “Saint Patrick was a Catholic archbishop and is a Catholic saint. The celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day was instituted to commemorate the apostle who evangelized and Christianized Ireland.”

“It is unclear how you honor Saint Patrick by providing a platform to groups which not only repudiate the moral beliefs of Saint Patrick’s religion, but castigate those beliefs as bigotry, prejudice, hatred and homophobia.”

“Saint Patrick delivered Ireland from pagan, pre-Christian practices. The post-Christian South Boston parade now celebrates those practices. As presently constituted, the parade sacrilegiously exploits and culturally misappropriates the venerable name of our patron saint.”

“The parade is an insult to Saint Patrick and an affront to faithful Catholics. It demeans, coarsens and trivializes the feast of a Catholic saint. Organizers should have the simple decency to remove Saint Patrick’s name from the tawdry anti-Catholic spectacle on Broadway in South Boston.”

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SAINT PATRICK’S DAY GREETINGS FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE

THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2022

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

Perhaps nowhere else in Christendom can an entire nation and its vast diaspora of descendants trace their Catholic Faith and culture — and their prospects for eternal salvation — to a single saint. Our debt of gratitude to Saint Patrick is beyond measure.

Saint Patrick (+461) is the Apostle of Ireland and was the first bishop and archbishop of Armagh. He is also the principal patron saint of the Archdiocese of Boston. Sent by Pope Saint Celestine I, Patrick, in a single lifetime, transformed the people of Ireland from bondsmen of death dealing Druids to disciples of the Author of Life.

As a consequence, a small island upon whose soil no Roman Legionary ever trod, would help form the character of Christendom by its leadership in the two great civilizational movements of the early Middle Ages—the preservation of the learning of Classical Antiquity, and the evangelization of Europe, known to history as the Conversion of the Barbarians.

The feast of Saint Patrick is not "a municipal festival," as Judge Hiller B. Zobel erroneously asserted during the Saint Patrick's Day parade case twenty-eight years ago. Nor is it merely a communal celebration of ethnic pride, as one low wattage, nominally Catholic, ex-state senator tried to tell us.

We commemorate the feast of our patron saint because he brought the Catholic Faith to Ireland, delivering that nation, and us, from the darkness of paganism, and showing us the fountains "that rise in the heart of Our Savior above."

Only two Catholic organizations in Massachusetts in the last quarter of a century, the Immaculate Heart of Mary School and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, have publicly defended the venerable name of our patron saint from sacrilegious exploitation and coarse trivialization by the enemies of Catholicity. The silence of our bishops, priests, deacons, and religious is a terrible betrayal, which speaks to cowardice, the loss of Faith, the desire for human respect, and the malign influence of effeminacy in the ranks of the Church.

As the contemporary forces of paganism continue their assault against the Christian character of March 17th, and attempt to deform and de-Christianize our feast day, let us never forget that Saint Patrick’s Day is a Catholic holy day in honor of a Catholic Saint. Sancte Patrice, Ora pro nobis.

O God, You deigned to send Blessed Patrick, Your Confessor and Bishop, to preach Your glory to the Gentiles; grant by his merits and intercession, that those things which You command us to do, we may be enabled to accomplish by Your mercy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
— Collect of the Feast of Saint Patrick from the Missal and Breviary of Saint Pius V

There are only two writings of Saint Patrick extant. The first is his Confession, while the other is his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. The latter bears a prophetic relevance to the modern crisis of abortion. In it, our patron saint exhorts Catholics to avoid all fraternization with those who participate in the willful murder of the innocent: "Therefore I ask most of all that all the holy and humble of heart should not fawn on such people, nor even share food or drink with them, nor accept their alms, until such time as they make satisfaction to God in severe penance and shedding of tears..." He goes on to warn that "The Most High does not accept the gifts of evildoers."

When you see our modern priests, prelates, and Catholic schools giving, unlawfully, awards, honors or platforms to politicians who promote the mass killing of the unborn, please remind them of the words of Saint Patrick!

Sadly, the name of our patron saint will be misappropriated by partisans of the Culture of Death when they gather on March 21st for a so-called "Saint Patrick’s Day Breakfast." The proponents of child killing will include U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Bay State Attorney General Maura Healey, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, and Boston Mayor (and soon to be U.S. Labor Secretary) Marty Walsh.

Tragically and inexplicably, their vile imposture will be dignified by the unseemly participation of the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

Once again, we are happy to present the good Sisters of Immaculate Heart of Mary School, who lightheartedly memorialized their departure from the South Boston parade with this melody to the air of "The Leaving of Liverpool," entitled "The Leaving of Boston."

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PRESS STATEMENT

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2022

Contact: C. J. Doyle
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC MEMORIAL TO HONOR PRO-ABORTION MARTY WALSH

On April 1st, Boston’s elite Catholic Memorial School—founded by the Irish Christian Brothers—will present its Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice Medal to a member of Joe Biden’s Cabinet, the pro-abortion U.S. Secretary of Labor, Martin J. Walsh.

Throughout his twenty-five year political career, Marty Walsh has categorically rejected and relentlessly opposed Catholic belief in the sanctity of innocent human life, the immutable character of marriage, the impermissibility of contraceptive use, the “grave depravity” of same sex relations and the right of parents to be the primary educators of their own children.

As a Massachusetts State Representative, Walsh repudiated the natural law understanding of gender.

As Mayor of Boston, Walsh brutally deprived Irish Catholics of their constitutional right, under the religious freedom guarantees of the First Amendment, to celebrate their patron saint in a manner consistent with their sincerely held moral and religious beliefs.

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts received requests for comment, on the honor to Walsh, from reporter Tom Joyce of the New Boston Post, on March 9th, and from producer Paul Murano of Church Militant on March 15th.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following statement:

“The decision of Catholic Memorial to confer an award on Marty Walsh—a militant proponent of abortion—is a grave scandal, and a treacherous betrayal of immemorial Catholic teaching about the sanctity of innocent human life from conception to natural death. It is a cruel abandonment of the helpless unborn and a callous insult to the faithful Catholics of the pro-life movement.”

“This decision is also a flagrant violation of the explicit provisions of the 2004 directive from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics in Political Life, which states: The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.

“The message Catholic Memorial is sending to its students is toxic. By this award, CM is telling its students that support for the mass murder of the unborn is morally acceptable, that those who advocate such killings are respectable members of the Catholic community, and that those who reject Catholic principles, to conform to the dominant secular culture, are role models to be emulated.”

“No rational person can be reasonably expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when an elite Catholic educational institution confers an award, named after a future saint, on a politician who wanted to make Boston a sanctuary city for abortions. Faithful Catholics should not have to fight a two front war, against both a culture of death in secular society, and against a culture of betrayal in their own Church.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022

Contact: William Cotter
(774) 287-0751
editor@orboston.org

CATHOLIC MEMORIAL SCHOOL HONORS BIDEN CABINET MEMBER MARTY WALSH

The Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition, an alliance of eight Bay State pro-life organizations, is denouncing Catholic Memorial School for its decision to confer an award on U. S. Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, a militant proponent of legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion.

On April 1st, Catholic Memorial will present the Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice Medal to Walsh in ceremonies during the school’s Spring Gala fundraising banquet.

Catholic Memorial—established in 1957 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers—is an elite Catholic secondary and middle school in the West Roxbury district of Boston. Edmund Rice, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996, was the 19th century Founder of the Christian Brothers of Ireland.

Marty Walsh’s opposition to Catholic morality is notorious, impenitent, wide-ranging and longstanding.

• In February of 2016, Walsh, then the Mayor of Boston, received the Men For Choice Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.
• In November of 2016, Mayor Walsh said he wanted to make Boston a kind of sanctuary city for abortions, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
• In March of 2017, Walsh led a rally on Boston Common to oppose the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
• In June of 2017, Walsh named a square in the city’s South End after the infamous abortionist and National Planned Parenthood Chairman, Kenneth Edelin.
• In October of 2019, Walsh, the first Massachusetts mayor ever endorsed by Planned Parenthood, led a group of six Bay State mayors in a demonstration in front of the Massachusetts State House, calling for passage of the radical, pro-infanticide ROE Act.

Prior to becoming Mayor, Walsh, as a state legislator, supported “transgender” rights, the deformity of marriage, the imposition of buffer zones around abortion clinics, and the distribution of condoms to minors in public schools.

As Mayor, Walsh used threats, bullying and extortion to compel the admission of homosexual groups to Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

As Labor Secretary, Walsh is a ranking official in the most pro-abortion Administration in American history.

The 2004 directive from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics in Political Life, states: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

Perennial Catholic teaching on abortion was articulated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which stated: “...abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”

Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition spokesman William Cotter, the President of Operation Rescue Boston, made the following comment: “The award to Marty Walsh is a shameful betrayal of core Catholic moral beliefs and an overt violation of the prohibitions contained in Catholics in Political Life. It demonstrates a depraved indifference to the slaughter of 63 million unborn children since Roe v. Wade.”

“The corrupting message which Catholic Memorial is sending to its students is that political power and professional attainment are to be valued over moral integrity and religious fidelity. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, must speak out against this scandalous breach of trust by a school entrusted with the formation of future leaders of the Catholic community.”

The Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition, founded in 2017, brings together Operation Rescue Boston; Mass Resistance; the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortions; the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund; the Boston Church Militant Resistance Chapter; the Boston Chapter of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants; American University Women for Life; and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.

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PRAYER REQUEST

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2022

Contact: C. J. Doyle
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE CHRISTIANS OF UKRAINE!

Please pray for the Christian people of Ukraine, who are suffering from an invasion from three directions, from a nuclear armed neighbor which has three and half times their population, ten times their defense budget, and five times their conventional military strength.

Ukraine is one of the most Christian countries in the world, with over 85% of its people professing Christian beliefs—a percentage higher than that of the United States. More than two thirds of Ukrainians belong to various branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The second largest religious group are Catholics, who comprise more than 11% of the country.

Ukraine has the largest Catholic minority of any Eastern Orthodox nation. While only two percent of Ukrainians (mostly Poles) belong to the Latin Rite Church, more than nine percent of Ukrainians belong to the Byzantine Rite, Greek Catholic Church, which has been united with Rome since the Union of Brest in 1596.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church is the largest of the twenty three Eastern Rite, or Uniate Churches, who are in communion with the Apostolic See, making it the second largest church in Catholicism.

There is, also, an Oriental Orthodox minority, as Ukraine is home to the world’s fifth largest community of the Armenian diaspora. Another three percent of the population is Protestant.

Earlier today, the region around Lviv, a Catholic majority city, and the major archiepiscopal see of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, was the target of Russian air and missile attacks. In the nation’s capital, Kiev, civilians are huddling in subways and underground parking garages for protection.

Russia has a long history of persecuting Catholicism, both before and after the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet government, under Joseph Stalin, attempted to liquidate the Ukrainian Catholic Church, forcibly incorporating it into the state run Russian Orthodox Church in 1946. A century before, in 1839, a 75% Uniate majority in what is now Belarus, had their church suppressed and forced into submission to Russian Orthodoxy by Czar Nicholas I.

Two centuries of Russian oppression of the Catholics of Poland and Lithuania is well known.

Ominously, for Catholics and Ukrainian patriots, Vladimir Putin, on January 31st, accused Ukraine of “blatant interference,” with the Russian Orthodox Church. In his speech of February 21st, denying Ukrainian nationhood, Putin claimed that Ukrainians were plotting violence against the Russian Orthodox Church and promoting schism in Russian Orthodoxy as state policy.

As many, if not most, Ukrainian Catholic church buildings, and other properties, were recovered, in recent years, following their illegal, Soviet sponsored seizure by the Russian Orthodox, Putin’s words about “schism,” bode ill for the security of Ukrainian Catholics.

The Holy See has called upon Christians to pray and fast on Ash Wednesday for peace in Ukraine.

May Almighty God help and protect these poor people!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

Saint Josaphat, pray for us!

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NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Contact: C. J. Doyle
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

HATE CRIMES REPORT UNDERCOUNTS ATTACKS ON CATHOLICS

On Friday, February 18th, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security released its annual report, Hate Crimes in Massachusetts, for the calendar year 2020.

The report listed, by category, 385 such incidents in the Bay State in 2020, a slight uptick from 376 in 2019. Of these, 60, or 15.7%, were related to an anti-religious bias. The U.S. Department of Justice, using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting System, gives a higher figure of 69 for hate crimes in Massachusetts based on religion.

In the state report, only two incidents of hate crimes against Catholics were listed, both in the category of Vandalism/Damage/Destruction of Property, accounting for a statistically negligible 0.5% of all hate crimes.

According to information compiled by the Catholic Action League, however, there were, at least, eight incidents—all widely reported in the news media—of arson, theft and vandalism directed against Catholic churches and religious iconography in the Bay State in 2020.

This means that 75% of anti-Catholics incidents were either unreported or uncounted, as the actual figure of hate crimes against Catholics is, at least, four times higher than that presented in the report, accounting for 2% of all incidents statewide.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C.J. Doyle made the following comment: “As state hate crime statistics are compiled from data provided by local police departments across the Commonwealth, the likely culprit in this undercounting of anti-Catholic incidents is the Catholic Church itself, which has a long history of not reporting church vandalisms to local authorities.”

“In July, 2020, the Boston Police Department told the Catholic Action League that two incidents of statue desecration at Saint Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Dorchester—which received extensive media coverage—were never reported to them.”

“Media accounts indicate that this failure, by local pastors, to report attacks on Catholic churches, is ongoing. The response of the Archdiocese of Boston to the vandalism and attempted arson of Catholic churches has been anemic, calling one perpetrator a ‘troubled soul.’ Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, has failed to denounce these hate crimes or demand that offenders be prosecuted and incarcerated.“

“Hate crimes against Catholics are continuing and multiplying. There were, at least, ten such incidents in Massachusetts in 2021, a 25% increase over 2020. In the last decade, these attacks have increased from approximately one a year to nearly one a month.”

“The Catholic Church must emulate other religious communities by reporting these attacks, and demanding accountability from police, prosecutors and elected officials.”

In the Commonwealth, a hate crime is not a stand alone offense. It is defined as “Any criminal act to which a bias motive is evident as a contributing factor.” Hate crime incidents have been recorded in Massachusetts since the Legislature enacted Chapter 434 of the Acts of 1990, the Hate Crimes Reporting Law, (Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 22C, Section 32.)

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Arson, Theft and Vandalism Directed Against Catholic Churches and Religious Iconography in Massachusetts—2020

1) April 13-14, 2020—Holy Family Parish, Rockland—Rocks were thrown overnight, breaking two stained glass windows in the church, and two windows in the rectory.

2) July 11, 2020—Saint Peter’s Parish, Dorchester—The head and hands of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary were charred after plastic flowers in the statue’s hands were ignited in an arson fire.

3) July 11-12, 2020—Saint Margaret’s Parish, Dorchester—Overnight, a trash barrel was emptied and thrown over the head of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

4) July 15-16, 2020—Saint Margaret’s Parish, Dorchester—In a repeat of the previous incident, a trash barrel was emptied and thrown over the head of the same statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

5) July 16, 2020—McAuley Nazareth Home for Boys, Leicester—A five foot granite statue of the Blessed Virgin was stolen from a grotto, and later recovered by Leicester Police on July 26th.

6) August 1-2, 2020—Sacred Heart Parish,Weymouth—Two Molotov cocktails were hurled against the front doors of the church, causing fire damage to the front entranceway, and smoke damage inside.

7) September 29, 2020—Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, Fall River—A cinder block was hurled through a window of the cathedral.

8) December 26, 2020—Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, Fall River—Projectiles were shot or hurled through four stained glass windows in the cathedral, causing approximately $25,000 worth of damage to each window.

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MEMBER ADVISORY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Contact: C. J. Doyle
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

ROBERT W. BOEHM, RIP

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Robert W. Boehm, a longtime member of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, who died on January 17th, after a brief illness. Bob, who received the Last Rites just before his death, was 78 years old. He had been, for many years, a resident of Bedford, New Hampshire.

Born in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1943, Bob graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1966. He went on to serve his country as an aviator, in the United States Marine Corps, during the war in Vietnam.

In the struggle to save that nation from the murderous tyranny of Communism, Bob flew an extraordinary 99 missions as a Forward Air Controller, in a slow, unarmed, low flying, single engined aircraft. (In World War II, in the Eighth Army Air Force, the individual limit for airmen was 25 combat missions.)

After the war, Bob served thirty years as a commercial pilot with Delta Airlines.

A pious, traditional Catholic with an intense devotion to Our Blessed Lady, Bob Boehm was a Member, since 2004, of the Third Order of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and was an active participant in the Saint Benedict Center’s Saint Philomena Rosary Apostolate.

Brother Andre Marie, the Prior of Saint Benedict Center, said Bob was “a good man, a staunch Catholic, an exemplary Slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a good friend.”

Bob is survived by his wife of 54 years, Michaele, and his two daughters, and his four grandchildren.

A Requiem Mass will be celebrated for Bob Boehm on Friday, February 4th at 10 am at Saint Stanislaus Church, at 5 Green Street, in Nashua. Bob will be waked at the Lambert Funeral Home, at 1799 Elm Street, in Manchester, on Thursday, February 3rd, from 4 pm to 7 pm.

We, at the Catholic Action League, wish to extend our sincere condolences to Michaele and to Bob’s entire family on this sad occasion of their grievous loss.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from sins. — 2 Maccabees 12:4

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NEWS UPDATE

MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2022

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

DEATH PENALTY FOR VAX REFUSAL—

—SEGREGATION AT BC HIGH—

—THE LEAGUE IN THE NEWS

Vax or Die  Since last year, persons with religious, ethical or medical objections to mandatory vaccination have suffered the loss of jobs, livelihoods, health insurance coverage, educational and professional opportunities and, for some graduate students, future academic careers. Now, a Massachusetts man, suffering from advanced cardiac disease, is facing the loss of his life for refusing to accept Covid vaccination.

David J. Ferguson, Jr., 31, of the Town of Hopedale in Worcester County, has been removed from a waiting list for heart transplants by Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, because of his decision to decline vaccination. Ferguson is the father of two children and is expecting a third. He was diagnosed with arrhythmia four years ago.

According to his father, also named David Ferguson, “He needs a heart to live, and they are coercing him into making a decision that is against his will, his intellect, his judgment, his core belief. It is not right to do so.”

As a temporary measure, Ferguson, after seven hours of heart surgery, has been fitted with a left ventricular mechanical pump, to assist his heart. It may prolong his life for up to five years, but his ability to live a normal existence will be severely restricted.

While appalling, the decision by the world renowned Brigham & Women’s Hospital to consign this man to a likely death, for refusing to conform to an arbitrary and inflexible bureaucratic protocol, is not surprising. It is not an institution defined by respect for the sanctity of life.

Brigham & Women’s is a major perpetrator of both surgical and medical abortions in the Bay State. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 493 pre-born children were killed by Brigham & Women’s in 2020.

BC High Segregates  Both the Catholic News Agency and LifeSiteNews have now published articles detailing the unwarranted, punitive and ludicrously extreme policy of Jesuit administered Boston College High School, which forces unvaccinated students to eat lunch in the school gymnasium behind plexiglass barriers.

Segregating students by vaccination status is opposed by the U.S. Center for Disease Control. The Archdiocese of Boston does not require unvaccinated students to be segregated and has expressly forbidden mandatory vaccination in Catholic schools.

More disturbingly, the school’s unvaccinated students are prohibited from participating in sports and extracurricular activities, key factors in determining college admissions and scholarships.

Concerned parents have rightly petitioned the school’s Board of Trustees, complaining that “students will regard their classmates as potential biohazards.” In a letter to the principal, Adam Lewis, the Catholic Action League said that “depriving some students of full participation in the educational experience of high school, based on their vaccination status, may be regarded, reasonably, as coercive pressure to accept vaccination. This is a practice prohibited by Catholic teaching.”

The League in the News  The letter to the editor from the Catholic Action League, defending Father Michael Fitzpatrick, the Pastor of Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, was published, in its entirety, by the Cape Cod Times, on January 20th. Father Fitzpatrick, who is supported by his parishioners, had been silenced by Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha for questioning vaccine reception by Catholics.

The January print edition of New England’s only reliably conservative broadsheet newspaper, The Boston Broadside, published the League’s December News Update on public officials, citing the words of the Pope, to deny Catholics religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate. The Broadside also published the League’s letter to the editor on the hypocrisy of Catholic Memorial School in invoking the famously pro-life Saint Mother Teresa, while honoring pro-abortion politicians.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JANUARY 15, 2022 — Published January 20

Letters,
Cape Cod Times
319 Main Street
Hyannis, MA 02601
letters@capecodonline

To the Editor:

Fall River Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha may have overstepped his authority in silencing Father Michael Fitzpatrick, the Pastor of Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis, for his criticism of Covid-19 vaccines, (Anti-vaccine priest in Hyannis is censured by the Catholic bishop of Fall River, 1/13/2022).

It is beyond the competence of any Catholic prelate to determine the “efficacy” of a medical treatment. As for its moral legitimacy, although Pope Francis has urged Catholics to accept the vaccine, the same Vatican document which states that vaccine reception is morally licit, insists that vaccination must be voluntary.

This indicates, clearly, that those who have medical or ethical reservations about the vaccine—such as Catholics concerned about the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine production or testing—must not be coerced.

Nor does the Pope’s endorsement of the vaccine nullify traditional Catholic teaching about the exercise of a properly formed conscience.

The Catholic Church expects faithful Catholics to defend the sanctity of innocent human life in an often hostile public square. One would think that the hierarchy would be accommodating to the conscientious concerns of such Catholics.

Sadly, this is not the case. When it comes to relations between the Catholic people and the Catholic bishops, loyalty, it would seem, is a one way street.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
PO Box 112
Boston, MA 02131
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JANUARY 10, 2022

The People’s Forum
Telegram & Gazette
100 Front Street, Floor 5
Worcester, MA 01608-1440
letters@telegram.com

To the Editor:

The call by Pope Francis for couples to raise children, rather than adopt pets, provided an opportunity for columnist Carli Pierson to ventilate a long list of grievances against the Catholic Church, (Pope’s comments on not having kids simplistic, Telegram & Gazette, 1/10/2022).

The absurd implication of Pierson’s illogical argument is that someone can be a Catholic while rejecting the perennial moral teachings of the Catholic Faith, such as those pertaining to the sanctity of life and the character of marriage.

Pierson invokes “God’s loving kindness and mercy,” while forgetting that Our Savior told us “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

Culturally conforming psuedo–Catholics, like Pierson, do not want an Apostolic Faith which will convert the world. They want an easy and comfortable religion, which will submit to the world.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
PO Box 112
Boston, MA 02131
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

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MEMBER ADVISORY

TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2022

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

GERALD MAZZARELLA, RIP

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is mourning the loss of one of its longtime members, Gerald Mazzarella, a lifelong resident of East Boston, who died on January 1st, after a long illness. Jerry was 77 years old.

During a career of forty-one years, Jerry Mazzarella, a gifted and dedicated high school teacher, educated and motivated thousands of students in the Boston Public Schools.

A pious traditional Catholic, Jerry was committed to the practice of his Faith, the pursuit of wisdom, and the defense of eternal truths. Impelled by an apostolic zeal for souls, and animated by a fervent desire to impart the good, the true and the beautiful to others, Jerry created and designed a wondrous and edifying Catholic website, Confraternity of the Holy Trinity Through Jesus and Mary, also known as the Home Monastery.

For many years, Jerry was a faithful member of the Third Order of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Richmond, New Hampshire.

A loving and devoted husband and father, Jerry leaves behind his wife of 42 years, Colbe Corcoran Mazzarella. Many in the pro-life movement know Colbe as the organizer of the Stations of the Cross for Life in Boston, and as the recurring guest host on the program Life Matters, on the Boston Neighborhood Network.

Jerry is also survived by eight children and their spouses, and by seventeen grandchildren.

The Mazzarella family requests prayers for the repose of his soul.

The Catholic Action League wishes to extend its sincere condolences to Colbe and to her entire family on this sad occasion of their grievous loss.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated for Jerry on Thursday, January 6th, at St. Joseph-St. Lazarus Church, on 59 Ashley Street in East Boston. Jerry Mazzarella will be laid to rest in Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden.

He will be waked from 5PM to 8 PM on Wednesday, January 5th, at the Ruggiero Family Memorial Home, at 971 Saratoga Street in East Boston. Friends will also be able to pay their respects at the Ruggiero Home, on the morning of the Funeral Mass, at 8:30 AM.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from sins. — 2 Maccabees 12:4