CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CALLS FOR HATE CRIME INVESTIGATION OF THREATS AGAINST ACUSHNET CHURCH

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE (781) 251-9739
               CATHOLICACTIONLEAGUE@GMAIL.COM

THREATS AGAINST CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ACUSHNET

    A Catholic parish in the Diocese of Fall River has become the object of threats of violence, and vandalism, because of a sign posted on church property supporting the traditional definition of marriage. Yesterday, Saint Francis Xavier Parish in the town of Acushnet displayed a message on the church's billboard reading "Two men are friends, not spouses."

    In an interview this morning with Boston's FOX 25 News, Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services for Saint Francis Xavier, said the church has received a number of menacing, obscenity laced phone calls, including one threatening to burn the church down. A sign describing the church's message as "hate" was nailed to the church's fence, while additional hostile signs were laid against the fence, and rainbow balloons were attached to it. All references to same gender marriage were removed from the parish's billboard this morning.

    Intimidating or interfering with someone in the exercise of their constitutional rights --- such as freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion --- is a crime in Massachusetts (Chapter 265, Section 37 of the General Laws). Since 1990, it has been a hate crime (Chapter 434 of the Acts of 1990).

    The Catholic Action League characterized the episode as "compelling evidence clearly demonstrating which side in the conflict over same sex marriage engages in hate tactics."

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Anna Maria College ---founded by the Sisters of Saint Anne --- for its decision to disinvite the Bishop of Worcester, the Most Reverend Robert J. McManus, to the school's May 19th commencement ceremonies. During a meeting with the bishop on May 3rd, college president Jack Calareso and board of trustees chairwoman Sister Yvette Bellerose asked McManus to withdraw from the graduation exercises, claiming his presence would be "a distraction." This followed the bishop's instruction to the college to cancel its award of an honorary degree to Victoria Kennedy, and withdraw its invitation to Kennedy to serve as the principal commencement speaker. Mrs. Kennedy is a supporter of legal abortion and same gender marriage.

The Catholic Action League called the college's request for the bishop to withdraw "shameful, cowardly and treacherous."

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "For the first time in American history, a Catholic bishop has been disinvited to a Catholic college in his own diocese because he attempted to preserve that institution's Catholic identity. Apparently, demands of fidelity to Catholic moral teaching are a source of embarrassment to the cultural conformists who govern Anna Maria College. It seems they would prefer an affluent celebrity who repudiates the right to life over an orthodox prelate who defends that right.

    "The bishop has been deemed 'a distraction,' no doubt from the college's core values of institutional fundraising and favorable media coverage. The message which the leadership of Anna Maria college is sending, with unmistakable clarity, to its students is that Catholic morality is not merely irrelevant, but unacceptably controversial, and efforts by the Catholic hierarchy to uphold it in Catholic institutions are intrusive, wrongheaded, and inappropriate.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE  (781) 251-9739
               CATHOLICACTIONLEAGUE@GMAIL.COM

BILLY COSTA TRIVIALIZES SEXUAL ABUSE

One of our supporters, Patrick Sheridan, was very diligent in compiling a list of sponsors for the Matty in the Morning show on Kiss 108 FM, where co-host Billy Costa made a tasteless and offensive remark about sexual abuse in the Church. We thank and commend Patrick for his timely and forceful response to this insult to our Faith.

From Patrick's e-mail:

Billy Costa is the co-host of the morning talk show Matty in the Morning on Kiss 108 FM. He is also the host of the show TV Diner on NECN, and The High School Quiz Show on WGBH-TV Channel 2. On a regular basis he makes the joke, "I was an altar boy, but I am a little hurt that the priests did not find me attractive". Matt Seigal, the host of the show, encourages the joke. I suggest we contact Channel 2 and suggest he may not be an appropriate host for a high school quiz show. I also suggest we contact the sponsors of the other shows.

Channel 2 WGBH-TV
To contact by phone, please call (617) 300-5400, Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm; or write to WGBH-TV, One Guest Street, Boston, MA 02135.

Patrick Sheridan called Channel 2 and said:

"Hi, I am a history teacher and I really enjoy watching The High School Quiz Show, but the host of the show, Billy Costa, is on a morning show making crude comments about Catholic priests and rude comments about the death about Whitney Houston. I do not feel it is appropriate for the host of a high school game show to be making such comments"

Here are the sponsors for the Matty in the Morning show:

Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club
2907 Main Street
Brewster, MA 02631
PHONE (508) 896-9000

Panera Bread
1855 S. Ingram Mill Rd.
Springfield, MO 65804
PHONE (800) 685-0385, FAX (417) 890-5397
E-MAIL: comments@panera-boston.com

Whole Foods Market
Regional Office
125 Cambridgepark Drive Suite 5
Cambridge, MA 02140
PHONE (617) 492-5500

Here are the sponsors of TV Diner:

Herb Chambers
259 McGrath Highway
Somerville, MA 02145
PHONE (617) 666-8333 FAX (617) 666-8448

Please contact these sponsors. Let them know that they are sponsoring a show that is making crude comments about the Catholic Church. If you are only able to contact one, please contact the resort, as they are currently making reservations for the summer.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE,  (781) 251-9739
               CATHOLICACTIONLEAGUE@GMAIL.COM

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE APPLAUDS BISHOP OF WORCESTER FOR LEADERSHIP IN VICTORIA KENNEDY CONTROVERSY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today applauded the Bishop of Worcester, the Most Reverend Robert J. McManus, for his decision to instruct Anna Maria College in Paxton to withdraw its invitation to Victoria Kennedy to speak at the school's commencement this spring. (Boston Globe news article)

The Catholic Action League called the Bishop's intervention "a courageous decision which was entirely warranted."

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "Catholic institutions must not provide platforms or honors to those who repudiate fundamental Catholic moral teachings about the sanctity of innocent human life, the integrity of marriage, or the impermissibility of contraceptive use. As a culturally conforming Catholic who rejects the truths of the Catholic religion, Victoria Kennedy would have been an inappropriate role model for Anna Maria graduates. Her presence would have sent the message that wealth, status, and celebrity are more important than fidelity to Christian morality.

   "The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council defined abortion and infanticide as 'abominable crimes.' Since Roe v. Wade, more than fifty-four million American children have been killed through surgical abortion alone. The number killed by chemical abortifacients is known only to God. Those who believe that these numbers are not enough, and that the killing must continue, are manifestly unfit to to speak at any Catholic institution.''

Your Views
The Patriot Ledger
400 Crown Colony Drive
Quincy, MA 02169

To the Editor:

  JoAnn Fitzpatrick's column on religious resistance to the Obama contraceptive mandate was a cacophony of inaccuracies, invidious stereotypes, spleen venting complaints, and simmering resentments (COMPLETE DISCONNECT, February 18-19, 2012).

  In her rancor towards the Catholic Church over moral issues --- so typical of the bourgeois Catholics of the 1960's --- Fitzpatrick dismisses the significant threat to religious liberty contained in the President's decision to require contraceptive, abortifacient, and sterilization coverage in health insurance plans.

  In an unprecedented expansion of state power, the federal government --- by an executive branch regulation --- will coerce Catholic employers into subsidizing, through their insurance carriers, practices abhorrent to their consciences. That is why Baptists, Evangelicals, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Jews, have joined Catholics in opposing this bureaucratic aggression against the First Amendment.

Letters to the Editor
Boston Herald
P.O. Box 55843
Boston, MA 02205-5843

To the Editor:

    Margery Eagan's fulminating column on Catholic opposition to the Obama contraceptive mandate was a mixture of hypocrisy and inaccuracy (A HARD PILL FOR BISHOPS TO SWALLOW, 2/9/2012).

    Eagan invokes the consciences of dissenters while opposing conscience rights for faithful Catholics. She pretends to be a Catholic while citing the anti-Catholic hate group Catholics for Free Choice.

    Eagan cannot even get her facts straight. Contrary to Eagan's assertion, Obama's proposed mandate had nothing to do with the reception of federal funds. Eagan's ludicrous suggestion that Catholic teaching on birth control was not a defined dogma only underscores how ill-equipped she is to comment on Catholic issues.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(781) 251-9739

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
               (781) 251-9739
               CATHOLICACTIONLEAGUE@GMAIL.COM 

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES
OBAMA SWITCH ON BIRTH CONTROL COVERAGE

   The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized President Obama's plan to transfer the cost of contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations from religious employers to their insurance companies.

    The Catholic Action League characterized the move as "an election year tactic, not a public policy compromise, intended to divide Catholic opposition, rather than protect Catholic consciences."

    Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "Under this cosmetic change, there is nothing to prevent insurance companies from passing on the costs of birth control coverage to their customers through higher premiums --- to the very same religious institutions which have fundamental moral objections to subsidizing abortion and contraception. Instead of paying directly and formally for abortifacients, contraceptives and sterilizations, Catholic schools, charities and hospitals will still fund the same devices, procedures and chemicals, only they will do so indirectly and unofficially.

    "The Obama Administration was blindsided by opposition to their contraceptive mandate from liberal Catholics who supported Barack Obama in 2008. This change in the mandate is an attempt to provide plausible deniability to Catholic swing voters who form part of the President's political base. The bottom line for Catholic institutions will remain the same however. Catholics will pay for birth control."

February 3, 2012

Boston Globe interviews C.J. Doyle: “The initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration,’’ said C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.’’ Link to full article

Letters to the Editor
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

To the Editor:

    It is difficult to take seriously Joan Vennochi's criticism of Catholic bishops for their opposition to the Obama mandate for contraceptive coverage in health insurance (Catholic Church's unfair attack against Obama, 2/2/2012).

    Vennochi flails at the Church, but carefully avoids a candid consideration of the key issue, which is, that Catholics understand abortion, including abortifacient contraception, to be a legalised form of mass murder. Whether it necessitates litigation, political mobilization, or civil disobedience, Catholics are not going to stand by and see their own institutions forced to subsidize the killing of the innocent.

    As for Vennochi, it requires an egregious level of intellectual dishonesty to characterize the refusal to participate in murder as imposing one's religion on others, a threadbare argument which suggests a certain lack of originality among those who persist in using it.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts

MEDIA UPDATE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
               (781) 251-9739
               Catholicactionleague@gmail.com 

    This has been a busy week for the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, in terms of media coverage.

    On Tuesday, January 31st, League Executive Director C. J. Doyle had a long interview with Paul Likoudis, News Editor of the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer. Doyle discussed the impact of the gubernatorial administration of Mitt Romney on the issues of homosexual adoption, so-called emergency contraception, and same-gender civil marriage. The interview is scheduled to be published in the February 9th edition of The Wanderer.

    On Wednesday, February 1st, Doyle was interviewed by David Riley of Gatehouse Media, which now owns The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, The Enterprise of Brockton, and dozens of local weeklies. Riley asked Doyle about the decision of the Archdiocese of Boston to group parishes into clusters called pastoral collaboratives. The story should run in various Gatehouse publications next week.

    Also, on Wednesday, Doyle was interviewed by Steve Jordahl of Family News in Focus Radio Network on the Obama contraceptive mandate, the withdrawal of government grants from Catholic charitable organizations because of their refusal to recognize homosexual unions, and a possible solution in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The interview is scheduled to be broadcast tomorrow.

    Finally, C. J. Doyle was interviewed Wednesday by the Washington Bureau of The Boston Globe on the role of Governor Mitt Romney in the passage of the 2005 Emergency Contraception law in Massachusetts. Doyle's comments should appear in a Globe story either tomorrow or the following day.

Letters to the Editor
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819

To the Editor,

    One wonders why the Globe would publish a letter to the editor containing an assertion so utterly unsupportable as Carlotta Tyler's absurd claim that the Catholic Church demonized women (SUNDAY FORUM, Inquisition's impact on women overlooked, 1/29/2012).

    It was Catholic just war doctrine which ended the use of organized rape as an instrument of warfare, and Catholic moral teaching which prohibited the infanticide of females through exposure. Catholic culture created chivalry, while the Catholic religion elevated women to the status of saints, martyrs, mystics, and doctors of the Church.

    Modern social science reminds us that one of the chief causes of female poverty is divorce, which the Catholic Church --- uniquely, among faith communities --- has consistently opposed for two thousand years.

    If Ms.Tyler is outraged over the persecution of witches, she ought to focus on post-Reformation Scotland, and colonial Massachusetts, not Catholic Christendom.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE (781) 251-9739,  catholicactionleague@gmail.com 

RESPONSE TO "HATE CRIME IN DORCHESTER"

    On January 26th, less than 24 hours after writing to Martha Coakley, a representative of the Civil Rights Division of the Attorney General's office contacted the League to discuss the details of the church vandalism at Saint Margaret's in Dorchester. Over the past twenty two years, the Catholic Action League and its predecessor organization --- the Massachusetts Chapter of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights --- have raised the issue of hate crimes and civil rights violations with each of Martha Coakley's three predecessors, Attorneys General Tom Reilly, Scott Harshbarger, and James Shannon. The usual response was to ignore our concerns, claim they didn't have jurisdiction, or contrive disingenuous excuses not to act. This is the first time that the League has received a prompt response and what appears to be a good faith willingness to listen.

    Also, on January 26th, League Executive Director C. J. Doyle was interviewed by Lana Jones of WBZ Radio in Boston on the League's call for a hate crime investigation of the destruction of the statue of the Sacred Heart in Dorchester. The interview was broadcast several times during the course of the afternoon. On January 27th, Doyle was interviewed by The Dorchester Reporter. The online story can be found at www.dotnews.com/public-safety. 

    Incredibly, Boston Police now report that a witness to the incident came forward with information, but police officers failed to obtain contact information for that person, and are now searching for the witness! One cannot blame public authorities for a failure to act vigorously, however, if the Archdiocese of Boston itself does not treat this as a serious matter. Although the Pastor of Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, (located at Saint Margaret's in Dorchester), Father John J. Ahern, was interviewed several times by various Boston television stations, neither the Archdiocesan website, communications office, or online edition of its official newspaper --- The Pilot --- has seen fit to mention this hate crime against Catholics.

   The Catholic Action League will keep its members informed as this case develops.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE (781) 251-9739

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CALLS FOR HATE CRIME PROSECUTION IN DORCHESTER CHURCH VANDALISM

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today called upon Bay State Attorney General Martha Coakley to undertake a hate crime investigation following the vandalism of a religious statue in the Dorchester district of Boston.

A statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in front of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, at Saint Margaret's Church, was decapitated and knocked off its pedestal in the early hours of Sunday morning, January 22nd.

The Catholic Action League called the vandalism a "malevolent act of destruction .... directed at an institution that has served the spiritual, charitable, and educational needs of the Dorchester and South Boston communities for more than a century."

In his January 25 letter to the Attorney General, Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "It is unlikely that this vandalism was a mere juvenile prank. The damage done to the statue required considerable application of force, probably accompanied by some weapon or instrument. Nor was the statue in some obscure location frequented by delinquent teenagers. The statue was in public sight at one of the busiest intersections in the City of Boston, the corner of Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue. The person or persons responsible undertook a significant risk of identification and apprehension to carry out their crime."

The Honorable Martha Coakley
Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Office of the Attorney General
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA  02108 -1518

Dear Madam Attorney General:

    Sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, January 22nd, a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in front of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, at Saint Margaret's Church in Dorchester, was decapitated and knocked off its pedestal. This malevolent act of destruction was directed at an institution that has served the spiritual, charitable, and educational needs of the Dorchester and South Boston communities for more than a century.

    It is unlikely that this vandalism was a mere juvenile prank. The damage done to the statue required considerable application of force, probably accompanied by some weapon or instrument. Nor was the statue in some obscure location frequented by delinquent teenagers. The statue was in public sight at one of the busiest intersections in the City of Boston, the corner of Columbia Road and Dorchester Avenue. The person or persons responsible undertook a significant risk of identification and apprehension to carry out their crime.

    I urge you to treat this incident as a potential hate crime and use the resources of your office to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE (781) 251-9739

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CONDEMNS
OBAMA BIRTH CONTROL MANDATE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned the decision by the administration of President Barack Obama to enforce its mandate for contraceptive coverage in all employer sponsored health insurance plans, without a meaningful religious exemption for faith-based entities. Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services, announced yesterday that this new regulation, stemming from health care legislation enacted in 2010, would go into effect on August 1, 2012, with a one year extension for religious affiliated organizations.

The new rule requires coverage not only for contraceptives, but for sterilizations, and for specific abortifacients such as Ella and Plan B. The Catholic bishops of the United States had lobbied President Obama to broaden the narrow religious exemption contained in the current regulation, which limits its application to sectarian institutions which principally serve and employ members of their own denomination.

The Catholic Action League characterized the decision as "an expression of unmitigated contempt for the rights, consciences, and sensibilities of Catholics."

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: "If this unprecedented aggression against the religious freedom rights of Catholics is allowed to stand, then virtually all Catholic institutions --- colleges, universities, secondary schools, hospitals, charities, social service providers, fraternal orders, and advocacy organizations --- will be forced to pay for procedures, devices, and chemicals abhorrent to the consciences of Catholics."

"All hormonal contraceptives, including the ordinary birth control pill, are abortifacient, as they can prevent implantation on the uterine wall after conception. The result is the chemical abortion of a human embryo. Consequently, Catholic institutions, employers and consumers will not only be coerced into violating Divine and natural law, but will be required to participate, financially, in the killing of innocent human life."

"This decision underscores the totalitarian instincts of secular liberalism, which would sacrifice the hallowed, constitutionally protected guarantees of religious liberty to newly contrived so-called 'reproductive rights', and would reduce the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the freedom to worship on Sunday morning. Ironically, the same Democratic Party which gave America its first Catholic cabinet officer, its first Catholic Supreme Court justice, and its first Catholic President, is now the vehicle for this assault on Catholic freedom of conscience."

"Blame cannot be focused exclusively on President Obama and the self identified Catholic, Secretary Sebelius however. This debacle is the inevitable consequence of forty years of silence by the American Catholic hierarchy and clergy on the subject of contraception, forty years of tolerating dissent, and forty years of failing to catechize Catholics on church teaching. Most American Catholics have never heard a homily on contraception. Most CCD students, parochial school students, and Catholic university students have never had Humanae Vitae explained to them."

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2012

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE (781) 251-9739

    Please pray for the repose of the soul of Thomas F. Reynolds of Lincoln, Massachusetts, who died Saturday at the age of 67. A pious and orthodox Catholic, Tom Reynolds was a longtime member of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, who was always generous in contributing his time to support Catholic causes.

    The son of Irish immigrants, Tom Reynolds was born and raised in Boston, in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. He was a graduate of St. Andrew's School, Cathedral High School, and Boston State College.

    An entire generation of Bay State police officers will remember him as the Chief Civil Service Examiner for the Massachusetts Division of Personnel Administration. He went on to work for the Massachusetts State Treasury, where he served as an assistant to its legendary Chief Investigator, Eugene F. Kiely, Jr. Prior to working for the Commonwealth, he taught in the Boston Public Schools.

    Funeral arrangements are pending.

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.

Letters (published on January 16)
Boston Herald
P.O. Box 55843
Boston, MA  02205-5843

To the Editor:

    Margery Eagan's compulsion to distort Catholic teaching erupted again with the conference of sexual abuse survivors in Boston (Holier-than-thou Rick's got to go, 1/8/2012). This time, however, Eagan's inaccuracies suggest mendacity more than ignorance.

    While Catholics are always free to disagree about issues which require prudential judgments --- such as which conflicts meet just war standards --- Catholics may never embrace practices forbidden by absolute prohibitions, such as abortion and contraception. Eagan's attempt to muddy that distinction with moral equivalence points to a lack of intellectual integrity, the frequent companion of a bad conscience.

Sincerely,