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CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS

FOUNDED 1995

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Walter L. Almond
Hon. William M. Bulger
Hon. Dr. David F. Constantine
Hon. Francis X. Coppinger
Helen T. Jackson, M. D.
Philip F. Lawler
Hon. William E. Melahn

FOUNDERS

Hon. John F. Collins+
H.E. Edward J. King+
Hon. Joseph R. Nolan+
Dr. Joseph R. Stanton+

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

William Cotter
Joseph M. Cunningham
Gregory M. Dunn
Andrea Griffin Holmes
Frederick D. Long, Jr.
Susan C. Gallagher Long
John J. MacIsaac+
Michael A. McDonald

OFFICERS

Frederick M. Kelley,
Chairman of the Board

Robert P. Largess,
Vice-Chairman

William P. Monahan, Esq.
Secretary

Dr. Vincent Pattavina
Treasurer

C. Joseph Doyle
Executive Director

Joseph B. Craven, Jr.
Executive Secretary

 

 

2015 Archive


NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CONDEMNS DECISION
IN BARRETT V. FONTBONNE ACADEMY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned the decision of Norfolk County Superior Court Justice Douglas H. Wilkins in Barrett v. Fontbonne Academy, which granted summary judgment to a homosexual man who sued the Catholic school — administered by the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston — after it reversed a decision to hire him upon learning that he had contracted a civilly recognized marriage with another man.

In June, 2013, Michael Barrett of Dorchester applied for the position of Food Services Director at Fontbonne Academy in Milton. On July 9, 2013, following an interview during which Barrett responded affirmatively to a question about his support for the principle that all employees of the Catholic school should be "ministers of the mission," Barrett was offered and accepted the position for which he had applied.

Later that same day, Barrett completed a new hire form in which he listed his civil husband as an emergency contact. On July 12, 2013, Barrett was informed that he could not be hired because his homosexual relationship was incompatible with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Barrett, represented by the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAAD), brought suit against Fontbonne Academy, alleging discrimination in employment.

In finding for Barrett, Judge Wilkins — a Governor Deval Patrick appointee who served as First Assistant Attorney General under Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger — ruled that the Catholic school violated Massachusetts anti-discrimination law, was not exempt as a religious institution from that law, and enjoyed no constitutional protections in this matter.

The Catholic Action League called Judge Wilkins decision "a frontal assault on religious freedom, an appalling subordination of the First Amendment to the Massachusetts gay rights law, and a victory by homosexual activists in their campaign to coerce Christians into compliance with same sex marriage."

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: "Religious liberty is guaranteed not only by the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but even more broadly, by Article II of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution. Religious freedom consists not merely of the right to worship, but of the right of religious institutions to govern their internal affairs free of state interference."

"Judge Wilkins’s decision would compel Catholic institutions to hire those who reject and despise Catholic teaching, fatally impairing the constitutionally protected right of those institutions to carry on their mission. This is precisely the sort of ‘excessive entanglement’ of government with religion decried and prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman."

"The judge’s ruling does underscore two facts — the charade-like character of the religious exemption to the 1989 Bay State gay rights law, which we warned against at the time, and the prophetic nature of the dissenting opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas in Obergefell, which held that same gender marriage will have ‘potentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty.’"


MEMBER ADVISORY

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE MOURNS THE LOSS OF DOCTOR VINCENT PATTAVINA

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is mourning the loss of one of our long serving officers and directors, Doctor Vincent Pattavina of Braintree, who died Thursday at the age of ninety-two. Dr. Pattavina served more than fourteen years on our Board of Directors, eight of them as Treasurer of the League.

A faithful, pious, and orthodox Catholic, Vin Pattavina was a loyal and generous supporter of Catholic causes — always anxious to help — especially in matters concerning the right to life, natural marriage, traditional morality, and the defense of the Church. Intensely proud of his Sicilian heritage, he was gifted with an extraordinary erudition, which he was always willing to share, in Italian history and culture.

A practicing physician, Vincent Pattavina was born and raised in Quincy, graduating from Quincy High School in 1941. After attending Boston College and Brown University, he received his medical degree in 1949 from the Syracuse University School of Medicine. He lived in Braintree for sixty years.

Heartbroken over the decision of Italy’s Fascist government to declare war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, Vincent Pattavina joined the U. S. Navy. A veteran of both World War II and the Korean Conflict, he served thirty years in the Navy and in the U. S. Naval Reserve, retiring with the rank of Captain. He was also a licensed and instrument rated pilot.

He was married for sixty-three years to his beloved wife, the late O. Frances Pattavina, who died in 2013.

We wish to extend our sincere condolences and heartfelt sympathy to Dr. Pattavina’s family, on the occasion of their profound loss.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated tomorrow, Monday, November 16th, at 10:00 AM, at Saint Francis of Assisi Church at 856 Washington Street in Braintree, followed by Interment with Military Honors at Braintree Cemetery.

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 12:46


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

NOVEMBER 9, 2015 — Published November 11

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

To the Editor:

In its editorial on Nostra Aetate, The Boston Globe defamed Catholicism and millions of Catholics, living and dead, with such reckless falsehoods as the claims that, prior to the Second Vatican Council, bigotry against Jews was “pervasive in Catholic life,” and Jews were commonly referred to as “Christ killers,” (Healing a historic wound, 11/6/2015).

As a Catholic born in Boston a decade before Vatican II, I never heard a word spoken against Jews in my home, my neighborhood, my parish, or my parochial school. On the contrary, my grandfather, who emigrated to Boston from Ireland in 1906, always reminded me that we were all strangers in this country, all the descendants of immigrants, and that no one had cause to believe they were better than their neighbors.

To read your editorial however — which smacks of James Carroll and Jeff Jacoby — one would think that Catholics of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were not only benighted bigots, but hypocrites who spurned Christian charity to embrace this unheard of “teaching of contempt.”

Among the errors of fact in the editorial was the assertion that Masses commonly ended with prayers for the conversion of the Jews. That prayer was recited once a year, in Latin, during the Good Friday Liturgy (which was not a Mass, and not obligatory for attendance), among numerous other prayers of the faithful, including petitions for the return of Christians separated from Rome, and the conversion of non-believers. The Church prayed for the conversion of everyone.

Sincerely,

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


MEMBER ADVISORY

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE TO HOLD ANNUAL CURLEY COMMEMORATION

This Thursday, November 12, 2015 is the 57th Anniversary of the death of Massachusetts Governor and Boston Mayor James Michael Curley. The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts will hold its Annual Rosary at the Curley grave site in Old Calvary Cemetery, off Cummins Highway in Roslindale, at 12 noon. Mayor Curley’s grave is located directly behind the chapel at the top of the hill, visible from Cummins Highway. All Catholic Action League members are invited to participate.

November is the month of the Holy Souls, when the Church remembers in her prayers the faithful departed. Please pray for the repose of the souls of all deceased members of the Catholic Action League, and those of our predecessor organization, the Massachusetts Chapter of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, including those listed below:

  • Joseph L. Ahern
  • Joseph Arena
  • Helene Armeno
  • Catherine Barden
  • Mr. and Mrs. Emile J. Beauregard
  • Hon. Angelo Berlandi
  • Mrs. Gloria Brackett
  • Elisabeth Bresnahan
  • Mary Louise Burckhart
  • Rev. William C. Burckhart
  • David R. Burke
  • Leona Carlsen
  • Bertrand G. Chasse
  • Mr. and Mrs. George A. Coleman
  • Hon. and Mrs. John F. Collins
  • Martin J. Costello
  • Leo J. Coveney
  • Hon. and Mrs. James J. Craven, Jr.
  • Ann Cutress
  • Rev. Msgr. John Dillon Day
  • Robert J. Delery
  • James J. Derba
  • Paul I. Dooley
  • Francis A. Doyle, Sr.
  • Gregory and Marie Dunn
  • William S. Farrell
  • Robert J. Flanagan
  • Thomas A. Flatley
  • Thomas J. Flatley
  • Yvonne Goddard
  • Roger B. Gill
  • Charles P. Gourlis
  • Thomas Hamill
  • Edward B. Hanify, Jr.
  • Mrs. Marion Hardy
  • Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Healy
  • H. Noel Hebard
  • Rev. Cornelius J. Heery
  • Rev. Harold J. Johnson
  • Hon. James M. Kelly
  • Eugene F. Kiely, Jr.
  • H. E., Edward J. King
  • Alfred A. Lagan
  • Florence MacIsaac
  • John J. MacIsaac
  • Albert James Healy Madden
  • Richard Malone
  • Paul McCarthy
  • Andrew J. McCauley, Esq.
  • Celia McClory
  • Mrs. Mary McEnroe
  • Gino Michelutti
  • William P. Monahan, Esq.
  • Walter T. Mulry
  • Hon. James J. Nixon
  • Hon. Joseph R. Nolan
  • Dante Pattavina
  • Frances Pattavina
  • Rev. Gilbert S. Phinn
  • Janet E. Ray
  • Thomas F. Reynolds
  • Gerald M. Ridge
  • Most Rev. Lawrence J. Riley
  • John S. Ring
  • John J. Shaughnessy
  • Elinore C. Sheils
  • Francis N. Sheils
  • John W. Spillane, KHS, Esq.
  • Dr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Stanton
  • Virginia Teehan
  • Peter L. Travers, Jr.
  • Hon. John T. Tynan
  • Bro. Bartholomew Varden, CFX
  • Thomas A. Walsh
  • Thomas A. Welch
  • L. Thomas White

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

May their souls 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 12:46


NEWS ALERT

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2015

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

CATHOLIC AUTHOR EXPOSES BIGOTRY OF THE BOSTON GLOBE

The Hollywood formula film Spotlight, which celebrates The Boston Globe for its campaign to bring down the Catholic Church by revealing that hundreds of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston were molested by perverted priests — who are always carefully described as pedophiles and sexual abusers, rather than what they actually were, homosexual predators — opened today in Boston and throughout the nation.

Predictably, the intrepid reporters of Morrissey Boulevard are admiringly portrayed as doggedly seeking the truth, which is shamefully concealed by a powerful and corrupt Catholic Church. This tendentious exercise in cinematic propaganda omits a few salient facts, however.

It doesn’t tell you that the pursuit of truth was the last thing anybody at the Globe had on their mind. It doesn’t tell you that prior to the 2002 revelations, the Globe waged a thirty year war against Catholicism, maligning the Catholic Faith, its leaders, and its moral teachings, opposing the constitutional rights of Catholics, and trying to destroy the political career of anyone in public life who supported those teachings and defended those rights. Nor does the movie tell you how the Globe hired an excommunicated ex-priest to write scores of columns blaming the Church for all the crimes of history.

If you are interested in finding out the truth about The Boston Globe and its hostile coverage of Catholicism, Catholic author David F. Pierre, Jr. has written a splendid little book entitled SINS OF THE PRESS: The Untold Story of the Boston Globe’s Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church.

Dave Pierre not only documents the Globe’s longstanding, vitriolic and pervasive institutional animus against the Church, but exposes the fact that the Globe, for decades, promoted the very same behaviors, pathologies, and, in some cases, individuals, which it later condemned the Catholic Church for tolerating. Pierre also recounts all the distortions, misrepresentations, calculated omissions, and outright deceptions perpetrated by the Globe in its campaign to discredit the moral authority and destroy the public influence of its historic adversary, the Catholic Church.

SINS OF THE PRESS is thoroughly researched, meticulously documented, well organized, hard hitting, and eminently readable. Although short (about 170 pages), it is an impressive piece of scholarship and a valuable contribution to American Catholic history.

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is pleased to give it our wholehearted endorsement. As an organization committed to combating anti-Catholicism, the League also wishes to extend its thanks to Dave Pierre for his tireless work in constructing this detailed historical narrative and record of hypocrisy and anti-Catholic bigotry in New England’s most powerful media institution.

If you wish to read SINS OF THE PRESS, you may acquire a copy by going to http://www.amazon.com/Sins-Press-Untold-Reporting-Catholic/dp/1511852593.

It is always inspiring, when, in this hostile culture, you encounter a Catholic with the courage to fight back!


ACTION ALERT!!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

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

HELP FIGHT PUBLICLY FUNDED ABORTION IN MASSACHUSETTS!

Pro-life Attorney Thomas M. Harvey — a valiant and eloquent defender of the unborn, and a longtime friend and supporter of the Catholic Action League — is trying to put an end to taxpayer funded abortions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Since the 1981 Supreme Judicial Court decision in Moe v. Hanley, Massachusetts has had an even more expansive right to child murder than the rest of the United States.

There is no Hyde Amendment restricting government subsidized abortions in the Bay State. On the contrary, because of Moe, any woman claiming indigence can procure an abortion at public expense. Since the repeal of the Doyle/Flynn Amendment in 1996, state, county and municipal employees can also procure tax funded abortions.

Under Mitt Romney’s Commonwealth Care act of 2006, your tax dollars now fund abortions and abortifacient drugs, which are either free, or require only a nominal $50 co-pay.

Tom Harvey has organized the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Public Funding of Abortion to secure an initiative amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution. This proposed amendment will overturn Moe v. Hanley by declaring that the state constitution may not be construed to mandate the public funding of abortion. This type of amendment requires the signatures of registered voters on an initiative petition.

The signatures of 64,750 voters are needed between now and November 18th.

Pope Saint John Paul II once said that the pro-life cause was “the most important work on earth.” Please help Tom Harvey in this vital and potentially life saving endeavor by signing the petition, and, if possible, by becoming involved in the signature drive.

You may contact Tom by telephone at (781) 312-8755, or by email at stoppublicfundingofabortion@gmail.com. His website address is www.stoppublicfundingofabortion.org. If you wish to make a contribution to this worthy undertaking on behalf of the helpless unborn, you may send it to P. O. Box 345, Arlington, MA 02476-9998.

The gruesome revelations of horrifying practices by the moral monsters of Planned Parenthood ought to impel all pro-life Catholics to redouble their efforts in this great moral struggle of our time to vindicate the sanctity of innocent human life.

Thank you.


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

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

To the Editor:

In its editorial on a possible government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding, The Patriot Ledger claimed that social conservatives have "long despised" that organization, (Another foolish shutdown of the federal government? 9/23/2015).

If that is so, why do liberals believe they have the right to coerce conservatives into subsidizing with their tax dollars a group whose practices and methods they find barbaric?

The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, famously wrote in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

Is it not even more tyrannical to force citizens to pay for an organization which they understand to be perpetrating mass murder?

Sincerely,

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


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015 — Published September 25

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

To the Editor:

The fatuous assertion in the Herald’s condescending editorial on Pope Francis that some Catholics have been shunned by the Church suggests an utter incomprehension of Catholicism, (Editorial: Welcoming the pope, 9/22/2015).

No one is shunned by being told the truth. Warning someone of the dangers of mortal sin is an act of charity and a spiritual work of mercy.

The essence of the Herald’s editorial seems to be that it is alright to be flexible on abortion and homosexuality, but one must never, ever criticize capitalism. Well, it’s certainly nice to know what the core values of the Boston Herald are.

Sincerely,

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


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015 — Published September 27

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

To the Editor:

Stephen Richter’s column on the possible legacy of Pope Francis struck a perplexing note of incongruence, (Pope Francis’ reforms face a ticking clock, 9/20/2015).

Richter believes the Church must reform — which he defines as modernization and the embrace of liberal goals like the abolition of celibacy — in order to remain "attractive" and "relevant" to contemporary society. Then, to underscore his point, he laments the priest shortage in Germany, which he describes as catastrophic.

The church in Germany is, arguably, already the most liberalized, secularized and culturally conforming branch of Catholicism in the world, and it is dying. Richter fails to mention that the German vocation crisis has no parallel in traditionalist orders or conservative dioceses.

An obsession with relevance emptied the mainline Protestant churches of America. There are now more Muslims than Episcopalians in the United States.

Richter seems to entirely misapprehend the historic Catholic conception of reform. For the Catholic Faith, genuine, effective and enduring reform has always been counter-cultural.

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein


NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE URGES CARDINAL O’MALLEY TO REAFFIRM CATHOLIC TEACHING ON MARRIAGE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is calling upon Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, to publicly reaffirm Catholic teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, after a senior member of the Cardinal’s own clergy openly derided that teaching as "ludicrous" in the current edition of The Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, whose publisher is the Archbishop.

In a column in the September 11th Pilot entitled "Synod needs your prayers," Monsignor Paul V. Garrity, Pastor of Sacred Heart and Saint Brigid Parishes in Lexington, wrote: “It is ludicrous to assert that divorced couples who have found love and fidelity with new spouses are still recognized by the Church as being married to their former spouses after the passage of many years. It is equally untenable (and disrespectful) to try to convince these happily married couples that, in fact, their relationships are sinful.”

Garrity had previously sparked controversy in December, 2013, when he compared same sex couples to the Holy Family in a letter in the bulletin of Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Norwood.

Roman Catholic teaching on the permanence of the marital bond, which is definitive and irreformable, is founded on Divine and natural law, expressed by the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Saint Matthew: "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder," and in the Gospel of Saint Luke: "Every one who divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery..."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Saint John Paul II, states: "Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law...Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery."

The Catholic Action League called Garrity’s column "a shocking disavowal of Catholic morality by a prominent pastor of the Archdiocese of Boston, in the Archbishop’s own newspaper."

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: "Garrity’s heretical assertions go far beyond the so-called concessions in pastoral practice envisaged by some synod fathers. Garrity unambiguously repudiates, and holds up to public ridicule, the constant, 2,000 year old doctrine of the Catholic Church on the indissolubility of a valid, sacramental marriage. Ordinary Catholics, reading Garrity in a diocesan newspaper published by Cardinal O’Malley, could be led to the erroneous belief that Catholic moral teaching is changeable."

"Although Garrity invokes ‘love, forgiveness and mercy,’ he doesn’t practice it. Apparently, for him, the Spiritual Works of Mercy — counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, and admonishing the sinner — are obsolete. Warning the flock of the dangers of mortal sin is intrinsic to the priesthood. For Garrity, such priestly duty is ‘disrespectful.’"

"There are three scandals here: that a Catholic pastor would propound such heresy; that an official Catholic newspaper would publish it; and that a Catholic archdiocese, would, by its silence, acquiesce in it. Twice in recent years, lay columnists who wrote opinion pieces in The Pilot critical of homosexuality were forced to clarify their comments. We will see if a different standard applies to a chancery connected cleric who mocks Catholic morality."


NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE APPLAUDS POPE’S
LETTER ON THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today applauded Pope Francis for his Letter on the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which extends to all Catholic priests the faculty to absolve penitents from the mortal sin of abortion, and which authorizes the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X — founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre — to validly and licitly administer the Sacrament of Penance.

As the grave sin of procuring an abortion involves the murder of the pre-born child, it has traditionally been an offense which carries the penalty of excommunication. Canon 1398 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states: “a person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.” This has meant that absolution in the confessional was reserved to the bishop or to a priest delegated by the bishop.

As a practical matter, most bishops, on the recommendation of most episcopal conferences, have already extended that faculty to their priests. Reportedly, Cardinal Bernard Law did so some years ago in the Archdiocese of Boston. The Holy Father has now made that faculty universal.

In his Letter, Pope Francis called abortion “profoundly unjust,” and said, “The tragedy of abortion is experienced by some with a superficial awareness, as if not realizing the extreme harm that such an act entails.” The Pope went on to say that “The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented...” and therefore decided “to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.”

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council stated that “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes,” while Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical Casti Connubii, described abortion as the “direct murder of the innocent.”

The Catholic Action League has called the Pope’s Letter “more symbolic than substantive, but nonetheless, a welcome and appropriate gesture for a jubilee year of mercy.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “For the Catholic Church, abortion has always been a grave sin, but one that could be forgiven. The early Church condemned rigorist heretics who held that penitents could not be forgiven for the sins of murder, adultery, or apostasy.”

“There is no change here in either Catholic moral prohibitions against abortion, or, effectively, in pastoral practice regarding women who have procured abortions. The Pope, it should be remembered, is referring to those seeking forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance, which requires both sincere contrition and firm resolution of amendment.”

“The most significant part of the Pope’s Letter involves not abortion, but the unprecedented decision to extend faculties, for the Year of Mercy, to the clergy of the Society of Saint Pius X, whose status Rome has long regarded as irregular. It would seem that Pope Francis aspires to the full reconciliation of the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre with the Holy See, which eluded Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.”


NEWS ANALYSIS — PART II

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015

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

CATHOLIC LEGISLATORS SERVE PLANNED PARENTHOOD:
THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Amid the gruesome revelations of the ghoulish practices by Planned Parenthood — the country’s worst perpetrator of abortions — came the news that the local political arm of this organized crime network, the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, keeps a list of “Champions” and “Allies” who serve the interests of the abortion industry in the Massachusetts General Court.

In the first part of our analysis, released on July 21st, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts exposed and documented the fact that 91% of self-identified Catholics in the Massachusetts Senate were listed as either “Champions” or “Allies” of Planned Parenthood. The few members of the Senate who supported the right to life were, by a four to one margin, Protestant.

This second part of our analysis will focus on the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The numbers here are not as extreme as those in the upper chamber, but still constitute a grave scandal.

Since 1979, the Massachusetts House has had 160 members. As of August, 2015, there are no vacancies. Of these 160 legislators, ninety-four, or nearly 59%, are Catholics. Of these ninety-four Catholic members of the House of Representatives, fifty-two, or 55%, are designated by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts as either “Champions” or “Allies.”

Catholic “Champions” of Planned Parenthood in the Massachusetts House of Representatives

  • 1.) Paul Brodeur (D-Melrose)
  • 2.) Marjorie C. Decker (D-Cambridge)
  • 3.) Ann-Margaret Ferrante (D-Gloucester)
  • 4.) Sean Garballey (D-Arlington) — Knights of Columbus
  • 5.) Danielle W. Gregoire (D-Marlborough) — Saint Anselm’s College
  • 6.) Patricia A. Haddad (D-Somerset) — Mount Saint Mary’s Academy
  • 7.) Kate Hogan (D-Stow) — Saint Mary’s High School
  • 8.) Kevin Honan (D-Boston) — Saint Columbkille’s School, Boston College, K of C, 2014 award from Sisters of St. Joseph
  • 9.) Mary S. Keefe (D-Worcester) — Marian High School
  • 10.) Peter V. Kocot (D-Northampton)
  • 11.) James J. O’Day (D-Boston)
  • 12.) Alice Hanlon Peisch (D-Wellesley)
  • 13.) Tom Sannicandro (D-Ashland) — College of the Holy Cross
  • 14.) John W. Scibak (D-South Hadley) — Mount Saint Charles Academy, University of Notre Dame

Catholic “Allies” of Planned Parenthood in the Massachusetts House of Representatives

  • 1.) Christine P. Barber (D-Somerville) — College of the Holy Cross
  • 2.) Garrett J. Bradley (D-Hingham) — Triple Eagle: BC High, Boston College, BC Law; Knights of Columbus
  • 3.) Antonio F. D. Cabral (D-New Bedford)
  • 4.) James M. Cantwell (D-Marshfield) — Double Eagle: Boston College, Boston College Law School
  • 5.) Evandro C. Carvalho (D-Boston)
  • 6.) Brendan C. Crighton (D-Lynn) — Ancient Order of Hibernians, Friendly Knights of Saint Patrick
  • 7.) Daniel Cullinane (D-Boston) — Providence College
  • 8.) Michael S. Day (D-Stoneham) — Georgetown Law School
  • 9.) Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo (D-Winthrop) — Knights of Columbus
  • 10.) Daniel M. Donahue (D-Worcester) — College of the Holy Cross
  • 11.) Michelle M. DuBois (D-Brockton)
  • 12.) Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield) — Salve Regina University
  • 13.) John V. Fernandes (D-Milford)
  • 14.) Carol A. Fiola (D-Fall River)
  • 15.) William C. Galvin (D-Canton)
  • 16.) Daniel J. Hunt (D-Boston) — Boston College
  • 17.) Robert M. Koczera (D-New Bedford) — Providence College
  • 18.) John J. Lawn, Jr. (D-Watertown) — Saint Patrick’s High School, Merrimack College
  • 19.) John J. Mahoney (D-Worcester)
  • 20.) Ronald Mariano (D-Quincy)
  • 21.) Paul W. Mark (D-Peru)
  • 22.) Joseph W. McGonagle, Jr. (D-Everett) — Pope John XXIII High School
  • 23.) Paul McMurtry (D-Dedham) — Knights of Columbus
  • 24.) Leonard Mirra (R-Newbury) — Boston College
  • 25.) Michael J. Moran (D-Boston) — Don Bosco High School
  • 26.) James M. Murphy (D-Weymouth) — Boston College High School, Merrimack College
  • 27.) Harold P. Naughton (D-Clinton) — Assumption College, Notre Dame Law School
  • 28.) William Pignatelli (D-Lenox)
  • 29.) Jeffrey N. Roy (D-Franklin) — Boston College Law School
  • 30.) Daniel J. Ryan (D-Boston)
  • 31.) Thomas M. Stanley (D-Waltham)
  • 32.) William M. Straus (D-Mattapoisett) — Georgetown Law School
  • 33.) Jose F. Tosado (D-Springfield)
  • 34.) Paul Tucker (D-Salem) — Anna Maria College
  • 35.) Steven Ultrino (D-Malden) — Malden Catholic High School; Emmanuel College; former principal, Saint Mary’s Parish School, Winchester; Business Manager, Saint Mary’s Parish
  • 36.) RoseLee Vincent (D-Revere)
  • 37.) Joseph F. Wagner (D-Chicopee) — Cathedral High School, Knights of Columbus
  • 38.) Jonathan D. Zlotnik (D-Gardner) — Saint Joseph’s Parish in Gardner

In addition to the designations “Champion” and “Ally,” the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts also identifies legislators with the designations “Opponent,” “Mixed,” and “NEI,” indicating newly elected, not yet voting, or no position on the issue of abortion.

Ten Catholic House members received the “Mixed” designation from Planned Parenthood.

  • 1.) Brian M. Ashe (D-Longmeadow) — Cathedral High School
  • 2.) Linda Dean Campbell (D-Methuen) — Saint Monica’s Parish in Methuen
  • 3.) Edward F. Coppinger (D-Boston) — Catholic Memorial High School, Knights of Columbus
  • 4.) Mark J. Cusack (D-Braintree)
  • 5.) Angelo L. D’Emilia (R-Bridgewater)
  • 6.) Marcos A. Devers (D-Lawrence)
  • 7.) Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R-Reading)
  • 8.) Christopher M. Markey (D-Dartmouth) — Bishop Stang High School, Society of Saint Vincent DePaul
  • 9.) David M. Nangle (D-Lowell)
  • 10.) Timothy J. Toomey (D-Cambridge) — Matignon High School

Four Catholic House members received the “NEI” designation from Planned Parenthood.

  • 1.) Michael D. Brady (D-Brockton)
  • 2.) Claire Cronin (D-Easton) — Stonehill College
  • 3.) Matthew Muratore (R-Plymouth) — Knights of Columbus
  • 4.) Timothy R. Whelan (R-Brewster) — Saint John’s High School

Twenty-eight Catholic House members received the designation “Opponent” from Planned Parenthood.

  • 1.) Bruce J. Ayers (D-Quincy) — Boston College
  • 2.) Thomas J. Calter (D-Kingston) — Cardinal Spellman High School
  • 3.) Nick Collins (D-Boston)
  • 4.) David F. DeCoste (R-Norwell)
  • 5.) Stephen L. DiNatale (D-Fitchburg) — Saint Bernard’s High School
  • 6.) Paul J.Donato (D-Medford)
  • 7.) Shawn Dooley (R-Norfolk) — Ave Maria College
  • 8.) Peter J. Durant (R-Spencer)
  • 9.) James J. Dwyer (D-Woburn) — Anna Maria College
  • 10.) Michael J. Finn (D-Springfield) — Saint Mary’s High School in Westfield
  • 11.) Paul K. Frost (R-Auburn) — Saint Mary’s High School in Worcester
  • 12.) Colleen M. Gary (D-Dracut)
  • 13.) Sheila C. Harrington (R-Groton) — Providence College
  • 14.) Kevin J. Kuros (R-Uxbridge)
  • 15.) Marc T. Lombardo (R-Billerica) — Merrimack College
  • 16.) James J. Lyons, Jr. (R-Andover)
  • 17.) Joseph D. McKenna (R-Webster)
  • 18.) James R. Miceli (D-Wilmington)
  • 19.) Frank A. Moran (D-Lawrence)
  • 20.) Thomas M. Petrolati (D-Ludlow)
  • 21.) Elizabeth Poirier (R-North Attleboro)
  • 22.) Angelo J. Puppolo, Jr. (D-Springfield) — Past Grand Knight, Knights of Columbus
  • 23.) John H. Rodgers (D-Norwood) — Catholic Memorial High School, Knights of Columbus
  • 24.) Angelo M. Scaccia (D-Boston) — Boston College, Knights of Columbus
  • 25.) Alan Silvia (D-Fall River) — Salve Regina University
  • 26.) Todd M. Smola (R-Warren)
  • 27.) Walter F. Timilty (D-Milton) — Boston College
  • 28.) David T. Viera (R-Falmouth)

I. THE NUMBERS

The numbers merit some elaboration.

(1) The findings are uniformly negative in all categories. Only 30% of Catholic members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives are opponents of Planned Parenthood.

Of the thirty members of the House who have received degrees from Catholic institutions of higher education, twenty-one, or 70%, support Planned Parenthood. Of the fifteen members who received a Jesuit education — Boston College High School, Boston College, the College of the Holy Cross, Boston College Law School, and Georgetown University Law School — twelve, or 80%, are supporters of Planned Parenthood. The only Triple Eagle and the only Double Eagle in the House are supporters of Planned Parenthood.

Of the twenty-two members who graduated from Catholic elementary or secondary schools, only five, or 22%, are opponents of Planned Parenthood. Of the eleven House members who can be identified as members of the Knights of Columbus, only three — 27% — are opponents of Planned Parenthood. The only House member who can be identified as belonging to the Ancient Order of Hibernians is a supporter of Planned Parenthood.

There is no apparent distinction here between nominal and practicing Catholics. If you received a Catholic education, belong to a Catholic fraternal order, and identify with your local parish, you are, if you belong to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, statistically likely to be a supporter of Planned Parenthood. In fact, Catholic school, college, or university graduates in the House are, by a significant margin, more likely to support Planned Parenthood than Catholic House members who attended public or private institutions.

(2) Given that polling data about religious affiliation in America reveals that one-third of American Catholics have left the Church, and that one in ten Americans now identify themselves as ex-Catholics, the number of House members baptized as Catholics who support Planned Parenthood is probably higher than that which this study details.

(3) One must guard against overstating the Catholicity of those Catholic House members identified as opponents of Planned Parenthood. The designation "Opponent" is not an indicator of either integral Catholic loyalty or complete pro-life fidelity. Some, like Rep. John Rogers, support the deformity of marriage and the re-definition of the family. Others have voted subsidies for a biotechnology industry which engages in embryonic stem cell research. One Catholic opponent, Rep. Angelo Puppolo, lists his membership in the Meadows Masonic Lodge, while another Catholic opponent, Rep. Nick Collins, voted in 2014 for punitive buffer zone legislation which would impose draconian civil and criminal penalties on pro-life sidewalk counselors.

The Planned Parenthood list only tells us who the most egregious offenders are. It does not identify the Catholic resistance, which, in the Massachusetts Legislature, is negligible.

II. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM

Any parish, any archdiocese, any Catholic community where someone can transition from being a parochial school principal to a legislative ally of Planned Parenthood may be rightly judged to be radically dysfunctional. The example of Rep. Steven Ultrino is more scandalous only, of course, by degree.

Only three American states in modern times — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut — have had Catholic majorities. (Only Rhode Island retains a Catholic majority in 2015.) In 1935, a single sentence in the daily press from William, Cardinal O’Connell, the Archbishop of Boston, caused more than one hundred legislators to reverse their position overnight on the issue of legalized gambling. In 1966, when O’Connell’s successor, Richard, Cardinal Cushing struck a deal with Planned Parenthood to legalize contraception in the Commonwealth, dozens of Catholic legislators ignored their archbishop and voted to uphold the law against birth control.

Massachusetts once produced the most outstanding examples of Catholic loyalty in American public life — men and women like Governor Edward J. King, Congresswoman Louise Day Hicks, U. S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, and Mayor James Michael Curley.

Now, the Catholic position in Massachusetts politics resembles that which Catholics endured in Third Republic France, Savoyard Italy, and PRI Mexico, where apostates, formal or de facto, acquire office and power by opposing the Faith, while faithful Catholics are effectively excluded from elective office.

One significant factor is the generational difference. An earlier generation of Catholic legislators who supported the right to life and traditional morality, like the late Michael Paul Feeney, Jim Craven, and Charles Doyle (no relation to this writer), were pre-conciliar in their formation. The self identified Catholics who vote for Planned Parenthood and Mass Equality today are products of the post-conciliar Church.

The pre-conciliar church was far from perfect. Indeed, the rapidity with which the revolution took hold fifty years ago suggests an advanced state of corrosion. Moreover, this was exacerbated by the accomodationist tradition, assimilationist ethic, and history of cultural conformity which has characterized the Catholic experience in America. None the less, the political effect of post-conciliar Catholicism in Massachusetts has not been merely problematic. It has been catastrophic.

III. THE BISHOPS

Ever since Roe v. Wade, our bishops have said that they do not wish to excommunicate anyone, or even withhold Holy Communion from public officials who promote the mass killing of the pre-born. As they have repeatedly told us, they prefer, instead, to use persuasion. The problem with that argument is that absolutely no one has been persuaded. In the last four decades, not a single pro-abortion Catholic politician in Massachusetts has converted to the pro-life cause.

The number of Catholic political defectors from the pro-life to the pro-abortion side is too extensive to accurately recount, but includes, most prominently, U. S. Senator Edward Markey, the late U. S. Senator Edward Kennedy, Congressman Richard Neal, Congressman Stephen Lynch, former Congressmen William Delahunt and Brian Donnelly, former state treasurer Joe Malone, State Senator Brian Joyce, former state senators Robert Ambler and Marian Walsh, and Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy.

All the movement has been in one direction. For nearly two decades after Roe, the Massachusetts House had a pro-life majority. In 1978, the first Doyle/Flynn Amendment (named after Representatives Charles R. Doyle and Raymond L. Flynn) was passed by both chambers, prohibiting the public funding of abortion. Now, 95 out of 160 House members support Planned Parenthood.

One supposes, humanly speaking, that it is impossible, short of a miraculous infusion of grace, for our bishops to look at themselves in the mirror and admit that their leadership, or lack thereof, in this matter has been an abject failure. Perhaps, the reform of the Church will come with a new generation of prelates who are not so invested in the errors, novelties, and fashions of the 1960s.

Meanwhile, our bishops, who have repeatedly refused to effectively address the issue of Catholic politicians who support Planned Parenthood, might remember the admonition which Pope Pius XI included in his profoundly pro-life encyclical Casti Connubii:

"And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them [children in the womb], but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven."

The next and final installment of this analysis will focus on the Massachusetts congressional delegation.


PRESS STATEMENT

TO: Brian Fraga, The Pilot

FROM: C. J. Doyle, Executive Director, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts

DATE: August 25, 2015

SUBJECT: Immigration Policy

First of all, there is absolutely nothing in traditional Catholic moral teaching or social teaching, that encourages, or even permits, a country to allow its borders to be violated by massive waves of illegal immigrants. On the contrary, the Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, taught that a country had a right to restrict immigration on the basis of the welfare of its own citizens — even going so far as to quote Aristotle that those who are admitted may be denied full citizenship until they are completely assimilated, which may take three generations.

Catholic social teaching, reaffirmed by numerous Doctors of the Church, has always held that a government has a responsibility to protect the lives and safety of its own citizens.

Immigration policy is a matter a prudential decision making, for which the bishops have no specific competence. Their position seems to be a mixture of pacifism, sentimentalism, and political correctness masquerading as Christian charity.

The American Catholic hierarchy, on this issue, seems to be encouraging massive civil disobedience against a just law. Moreover, they have effectively allied themselves with two of the most anti-Catholic forces in America today: the leadership of a pro-abortion Democratic Party, which seeks to control America through demographic change; and a rapacious, out-sourcing, down-sizing, off-shoring, globalist capitalism, mostly associated with the Republican Party, which views and exploits illegal immigrants as an endless source of cheap labor.

The Eisenhower Administration deported between 1.3 and 2.1 million illegal Mexican immigrants in 1954. It is estimated that for every illegal apprehended, nine fled the country to avoid arrest.

Finally, the charge of nativism is an insult to ordinary Americans, which speaks to the intolerance and intellectual poverty of those who make it. The nativism which 19th century Catholic immigrants experienced was rooted in a paranoid, hysterical, fundamentalist hatred of the Catholic Faith, and secondarily, in a racialist, chauvinist WASP disdain for Celts, Latins, and Slavs.

Today, millions of Americans have rational, reasonable, well founded and quite legitimate concerns about the sovereignty, demography, culture and national security of the United States, the safety of its citizens, the finances of its government, and the ability of its taxpayers to shoulder ever increasing burdens. To dismiss these concerns as nativism is not only unjust and uncharitable, but suggests an inability to formulate serious responses to legitimate grievances.

++++++

LINK to Pilot article that cited portions of this Press Statement.


REMARKS OF C. J. DOYLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST RALLY IN BOSTON

AUGUST 22, 2015

This is really a wonderful turnout. It looks like we have more than 250 people here today. God bless all of you, and you are certainly to commended for showing up on this Saturday in August.

Well, the mask has been torn away with these videos. The veneer has been shattered, irretrievably. The seemingly impenetrable, carefully constructed facade of public respectability of Planned Parenthood has cracked and crumbled. That facade was built over the course of seven decades with the help of America’s wealthiest foundations, the establishment press, the leadership of both political parties, and the nation’s corporate elites.

Now, as a result of these videos, Planned Parenthood no longer projects the image of the country club gentry. Now, it reminds people of Baron Frankenstein, the only difference being that Mary Shelley’s fictional character did not extract organs from bodies whose hearts were still beating.

This is a monstrous organization which is engaged in cold-blooded evil. This is the sort of thing that calls to mind the degraded physicians who worked in concentration camps, or who experimented on prisoners of war in 1940’s Japan; the difference being that this is not happening continents away, in totalitarian societies overseas, but is happening right here, all across America today.

This is, obviously, going to be a very uphill struggle to de-fund Planned Parenthood. PP enjoys the support of the President of the United States, many in Congress, the Democratic Party, some in the Republican Party, and much of the media.

While engaged in this uphill struggle, it should not be made more difficult for us by our own Church. I want to speak to you for just a few moments about the cooperation being provided to Planned Parenthood by some of our own Catholic organizations and institutions.

We have just learned the absolutely appalling news that Boston College — Jesuit administered Boston College — is, apparently, offering internships for Planned Parenthood, and, apparently, Boston College is not alone. Other Catholic colleges and universities throughout the United States are doing the same.

Congressman John Lewis of Georgia is someone who was not only endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, but in 2006 received the Planned Parenthood Living Legend Award. Last May, Congressman Lewis was the principal commencement speaker at Our Lady of the Elms College in Chicopee, administered by the Sisters of Saint Joseph.

One of the members of the U. S. Senate who just voted to continue the funding of Planned Parenthood is Ed Markey. In 2007, then Congressman Markey was the principal commencement speaker at Jesuit administered Boston College Law School.

I don’t know if you have heard of Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy. He just claimed that all these videos are bogus, and that we must retain funding for Planned Parenthood. A few months ago, he was the principal commencement speaker at Jesuit administered Boston College Law School.

One of the things we learned as a result of all of these revelations and scandals is that the local political arm of Planned Parenthood here in Massachusetts — the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts — keeps a list of “Champions” and “Allies” in the Massachusetts Legislature. One of these is State Representative Kevin Honan, from this area. Kevin Honan is a graduate of Saint Columbkille’s School and Boston College, and is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and recently received a humanitarian award from the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston.

Bye the way, one of the other allies of Planned Parenthood in the Legislature is Representative Steven Ultrino of Malden. Do you know what Representative Ultrino did before becoming a state legislator and a legislative ally of Planned Parenthood? Representative Ultrino was the principal of a Catholic parochial school, Saint Mary’s Parish School in Winchester, and is still listed, as of 2015, as the Director of Finance and Operations of Saint Mary’s Parish.

We can find numerous other examples of this. In the last year alone, Boston College, Boston College Law School, the College of the Holy Cross, Merrimack College, Regis College, the College of Our Lady of the Elms, and Catholic Memorial High School have all honored public figures and elected officials who agree with Planned Parenthood about keeping abortion legal and keeping it publicly funded.

Of course, we can’t forget that Boston College honored Secretary of State John Kerry by inviting him to be the university’s principal commencement speaker in 2014. Secretary Kerry, when he ran for President in 2004, was endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and had a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood as a U. S. Senator — and he is allowed to give the commencement address at Boston College!

And I regret to tell you this — it certainly gives me no pleasure to tell you this — but among the participants at that commencement was the Chairman of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

So how can we possibly take seriously the opposition of the Catholic Church to abortion when we see so many Catholic institutions honoring the champions, allies, and endorsees of Planned Parenthood?

Pro-Lifers shouldn’t be forced to fight a two front war, against a culture of death in secular society, and against a culture of betrayal in our own Church. We cannot hope to persuade our fellow citizens of the justice of our cause if that cause is not first vindicated and upheld in our own Catholic institutions, which profess to be pro-life, and which ought to be pro-life.

Ultimately, if we are going to defeat Planned Parenthood, we are also going to have to reform the Church, and ensure that our own Catholic institutions demonstrate Catholic integrity and pro-life fidelity.

Thank you all very much and may God bless you.


NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 2015

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

HUNDREDS RALLY TO DE-FUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

CJ Doyle addresses pro-lifers at Planned Parenthood

CJ DOYLE: “Pro-Life Catholics should not be forced to wage a two-front war: against a culture of death in secular society, and against a culture of betrayal in our own Church.”

Nearly 300 supporters of the Right to Life gathered this morning for a rally and prayer vigil in front of the Planned Parenthood facility on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. The event was part of a National Day of Protest against the abortion giant. More than fifty pro-life organizations in three hundred communities across the United States staged demonstrations today calling for the de-funding, investigation and criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood.

The protests came after shocking revelations that Planned Parenthood harvests and merchandises the organs of the pre-born children it destroys in abortions, haggles over prices in fetal parts trafficking, and even performs partial birth abortions to procure body parts.

The Boston rally was organized by Operation Rescue: Boston and 40 Days For Life. Among the groups participating was the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, whose Executive Director, C. J. Doyle, addressed the assembled protesters.

In his remarks, Doyle criticized the various Catholic educational institutions and religious orders who — contrary to explicit church policy — have given honors, awards and platforms to elected officials who have been endorsed by Planned Parenthood. Among the examples cited by Doyle was the decision of Jesuit administered Boston College to invite Secretary of State John Kerry to deliver the 2014 commencement address; similar invitations by BC Law School to U. S. Senator Ed Markey and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy; the 2015 address by Georgia Congressman John Lewis to graduates of Our Lady of the Elms College in Chicopee; and the Humanitarian Award given in 2014 to State Representative Kevin Honan by the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Boston.

Doyle also criticized Boston College for offering student internships directly with Planned Parenthood (see pages 18 & 42 of document; note also Queer Women of Color, page 45).

Doyle said: “Pro-Life Catholics should not be forced to wage a two-front war — against a culture of death in secular society, and against a culture of betrayal in our own Church. We cannot hope to persuade our fellow citizens of the justice of our cause, if that cause is not first vindicated and upheld in our own religious institutions, which profess to be and which ought to be pro-life. If we are to defeat Planned Parenthood, we must reform the Catholic Church.”

VIDEO: C.J. Doyle’s speech on YouTube (6 min)

LINK: to Boston Pilot article on rally.

Crowd at PP August 22

NEWS RELEASE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE WILL RALLY TO DE-FUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 22nd, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts will join more than fifty Pro-Life groups in 300 communities throughout the United States in a National Day of Protest against the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

Here in Boston, a rally and demonstration will be held in front of the Planned Parenthood facility at 1055 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston from 10am to 12 noon. Participating organizations will include 40 Days For Life, Operation Rescue: Boston and the Catholic Action League.

Among the speakers at the event will be Massachusetts State Representative James Lyons (R-Andover), who recently called upon Attorney General Maura Healey to open an investigation of Planned Parenthood’s practices in the Commonwealth.

Shocking videos released by the Center for Medical Progress revealed that Planned Parenthood engages in the harvesting and trafficking of the body parts of the pre-born children it destroys in abortions. The videos, which show PP functionaries haggling over prices, also exposed the practice of altering the method of abortion to retain the organs intact, and even delivering the child alive—an illegal partial birth abortion—to better dismember it for its parts.

The Catholic Action League called the videos “compelling evidence of the barbarous cruelty and callous inhumanity of an industrial abattoir masquerading as a health care provider.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The images and revelations contained in the videos of Planned Parenthood call to mind the hideous atrocities practiced by the degraded physicians who worked in concentration camps, or who experimented on prisoners of war in Japan. These contemporary crimes against humanity are not outrages that were perpetrated three quarters of a century ago in totalitarian societies overseas, but are on-going acts of savagery occurring across America today.”

“This murderously, monstrously evil entity, Planned Parenthood, must be de-funded, prosecuted and shut down.”


MEDIA ADVISORY

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015

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

NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 22nd, dozens of Pro-Life organizations across the United States will rally in 300 communities nationwide to call for the de-funding, investigation, and where applicable, the criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood.

Here in Boston, as part of the National Day of Protest, there will be a demonstration in front of the Planned Parenthood facility at 1055 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston from 10am to 12 noon. Among the organizations participating will be Operation Rescue: Boston, 40 Days For Life/Boston, and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. Featured speakers will include State Representative James Lyons (R-Andover), Father Michael McNamara, William Cotter of OR: Boston, Rita Russo of 40 Days For Life, and C. J. Doyle.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Planned Parenthood’s seemingly impenetrable facade of public respectability — carefully constructed for over six decades with the help of America’s corporate elites, the nation’s wealthiest foundations, the establishment press, and the leadership of both political parties — has cracked and crumbled, perhaps, irreparably.”

“We now know that Planned Parenthood not only perpetrates over 300,000 abortions each year, but harvests the organs of the unborn children it destroys. Whether this trafficking is called a sale or the coverage of expenses, PP is compensated for this harvesting. We now know they use specific abortion techniques to procure the organs intact, and that some children have been delivered alive to be dismembered for their body parts.”

“For an organization which for so long has projected an image of the country club gentry, it now reminds people of Baron Frankenstein, the only difference being that Mary Shelley’s fictional character didn’t extract organs from bodies whose hearts were still beating.”

Planned Parenthood receives over $500 million annually in taxpayer subsidies.


MEMBER ADVISORY

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE MOURNS THE LOSS OF JIM DERBA

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is mourning the loss of one of its faithful, longtime members and generous supporters, James J. Derba, who died Monday. He was 89.

A businessman, Boston College graduate, and Pacific Theater World War II veteran, Jim Derba was a key campaign aide and Treasurer to our last great Catholic and pro-life Governor of the Commonwealth — and League founding father — Edward J. King.

This writer recalls the privilege of meeting Jim Derba in September of 1978, a few days after the then former Executive Director of the Massachusetts Port Authority, Ed King, had defeated incumbent governor Michael Dukakis in the Democratic primary. A few of us from the organization of Representative Jim Craven had been summoned to see Mr. Derba and view with him an aggressive new campaign ad targeting King’s pro-abortion Republican opponent, Frank Hatch.

With King the Democratic nominee and the likely next governor, the trimmers, job seekers and play-it-safe crowd were already latching on and raising their voices, complaining that the ad was too "strident." We loved the ad and told Mr. Derba so. Jim Derba — who, it seemed to us, was probably the man behind the ad in the first place — was delighted with our response.

The ad ran, Ed King was elected Governor, and the helicopter videography of Frank Hatch’s palatial estate in toney Beverly Farms became part of Bay State political folklore.

Jim Derba was a good man, an orthodox Catholic, and someone who always remained, not only loyal to the cause, but faithful to the memory, of Governor King. He will be sorely missed.

James Derba’s Funeral will be held at the Lane Funeral Home at 760 Main Street (Rte. 38), in Winchester on Friday, August 21st at 9am. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Saint Eulalia’s Church at 50 Ridge Street in Winchester at 10am. The interment will be at the Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester. The wake will be from 4pm to 7pm on Thursday, August 20th.

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 therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from sins.” (2 Maccabees 12:46)


ACTION ALERT!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2015

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

PRO-LIFE GROUPS RALLY TO OPPOSE PLANNED PARENTHOOD

This Saturday, August 22, 2015, more than fifty pro-life organizations in nearly 300 cities across America will rally for a National Day of Protest, to demand that the gruesome butchers and callous organ harvesters of Planned Parenthood be de-funded, investigated, and prosecuted. Here in Boston, local pro-life groups will gather in front of the Planned Parenthood abortuary at 1055 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston, between 10am and 12 noon.

Among the organizations participating are Operation Rescue: Boston, 40 Days for Life/Boston, and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. Guest speakers will include State Representative Jim Lyons (R-Andover); Father Michael McNamara; Bill Cotter, President of OR: Boston; Rita Russo, Campaign Director of 40 Days for Life; and C. J. Doyle, Executive Director of the Catholic Action League.

C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “We knew that Planned Parenthood embraced the ideology of Margaret Sanger. Now, we have confirmation that it employs the methodology of Joseph Mengele. With these horrifying revelations of Frankensteinian practices, the mask has been torn away. The veneer of respectability has been irretrievably shattered.”

“For three quarters of a century, Planned Parenthood has carefully cultivated the elites of American society: U. S. Senator Prescott Bush, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Mrs. Barry Goldwater. The facade has, finally, been demolished. The abattoir has been exposed. Now, when the evil name Planned Parenthood is heard, no one will think of the country club gentry. Instead, they will conjure images of the depraved, perverted physicians who committed hideous crimes in Nazi concentration camps and Japanese prisoner of war camps.”

“What pro-lifers always knew, the rest of the world is beginning to perceive through the fog of media and government disinformation: that Planned Parenthood is a collection of moral monsters and mass murderers who destroy for profit innocent children on an industrial scale. Let us use all lawful means to put an end to this demonic entity, which wages ceaseless war against the Author of Life.”

Please join us this Saturday from 10am to noon!

For more information, call Rita Russo at (781) 762-4391. A bus will provide transportation from Norwood and Dedham. For bus pick-up times and locations, please call Anne at (781) 769-5398, or email annie40days@gmail.com.


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

August 5, 2015

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

To the Editor:

Cardinal Sean O’Malley is, certainly, to be commended for criticizing the barbarities of Planned Parenthood, (Cardinal O’Malley backs ending Planned Parenthood funding, 8/4/2015).

The Cardinal’s words might have more effect however, if archdiocesan agencies which he controls would stop giving awards to politicians who agree with Planned Parenthood about keeping abortion legal, as they have done with Marty Walsh and the late Tom Menino.

The Cardinal would also send a more credible message if he stopped participating in events where Catholic institutions honor notorious Planned Parenthood supporters, like the 2014 Boston College commencement, where Secretary of State John Kerry delivered the commencement address.

Sincerely,

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


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

August 5, 2015

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

To the Editor:

Most pro-life Catholics would applaud Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s eleventh hour call for the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, (Cardinal wants funding to Planned Parenthood cut, 8/3/2015).

On this issue however, there seems to be a curious disconnect between rhetoric and reality. While the Cardinal condemns Planned Parenthood, agencies of the Archdiocese of Boston, which he governs, continue to confer awards on elected officials who hold the same position as Planned Parenthood on the legality of abortion.

Last September, the Missionary Society of Saint James the Apostle, whose president is the Cardinal, honored Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Twice during the episcopate of Sean O’Malley, Catholic Charities of Boston honored the late Mayor Thomas Menino.

Perhaps the pro-life cause would be better served if Catholic prelates placed less emphasis on making last minute public statements, and did more to ensure a consistent ethic of fidelity from the institutions which they control.

Sincerely,

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


NEWS UPDATE

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015

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

CRUX PROVIDES FORUM FOR HATE GROUP — 

MAYOR WALSH MEETS WITH POPE — 

REP. JIM LYONS CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD

I. CRUX PUBLICISES POLL BY ANTI-CATHOLIC HATE GROUP — The Boston Globe’s visceral, longstanding, and institutionally pervasive hostility towards Roman Catholicism plummeted to new depths of malice and mendacity yesterday, when its religious website Crux, billed as “Covering all things Catholic,” published a column by a functionary of the anti-Catholic hate group, Catholics for Choice.

In a disinformation piece entitled “Do Catholic millennials buy US bishops’ religious freedom arguments?”, one Jen Girdish, identified as Associate Director of Communications for the group, recycled their decades old talking points, supposedly verified in a new poll commissioned by them, touting dissent from Catholic moral teaching.

Truth in labeling, ethics in journalism, and simple intellectual honesty should have impelled Crux to inform its readers that the organization formerly known as Catholics for Free Choice is a Catholic bashing front, founded and funded by the enemies of the Church in the abortion industry.

Its list of contributors comprises a virtual Who’s Who of the population control movement, including the Ford Foundation, the Sunnen Foundation (financed on the profits of EMKO contraceptive foam), and even Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Foundation. Its origins can be traced to Planned Parenthood, the Unitarian Church, and the National Abortion Federation--the trade association of abortion clinic operators.

In recent years, it has carried on a vindictive but unsuccessful campaign to expel the Holy See from the United Nations. A well funded letterhead, its former president, abortionist Frances Kissling, admitted under questioning from this writer in a Boston radio debate that “We’re not a membership organization. We have no membership.” CFC has no membership, and Crux has no integrity.

II. BOSTON MAYOR MARTY WALSH MEETS WITH POPE FRANCIS — The Mayor of Boston, Martin Walsh, travelled to the Vatican this week to participate in a conference on climate change and human trafficking, where he met with Pope Francis. Walsh later spoke with reporters about his sense of spirituality and his admiration for the Pontiff.

Walsh is a proponent of legal abortion, the distribution condoms to minors in the public schools, and same gender so-called marriage. As a state representative, he was instrumental in defeating a Protection of Marriage Amendment in the Legislature. Last year, he reportedly threatened and shouted obscenities, in public, at an official of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council because of the group’s refusal to admit self-identified practitioners of sodomy into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. He recently hailed the referendum repudiating Catholicism in Ireland.

As long as defectors like Walsh are given platforms and honors by the Church (in addition to the papal invitation, Walsh was recently given an award by an archdiocesan agency headed by the Cardinal), no sane person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to either abortion or the homosexual claim to marriage. Moreover, and more dangerously, uninformed Catholics may support collaborators like Walsh, believing them to be loyal sons of the Church. It is a grave scandal, the responsibility for which rests with our prelates.

III. REP. JIM LYONS DEMANDS INVESTIGATION OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD — Commendations are in order for pro-life State Representative James J. Lyons, Jr. (R-Andover), for demanding that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey investigate the grisly, Frankensteinian practice by Planned Parenthood of selling for profit the body parts of the unborn children it dismembers in abortions.

The Attorney General, who told the Boston Herald that her endorsement by Planned Parenthood was a key factor in her primary election victory, has agreed to “review” the matter to ascertain if any laws are being broken in the Bay State. So far, Governor Charlie Baker has not ordered the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to make any inquiry into the issue. Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion factory.


NEWS ANALYSIS

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC LEGISLATORS SERVE PLANNED PARENTHOOD

The gruesome revelations that Planned Parenthood — America’s largest perpetrator of abortions — is now engaged in the hideously evil and horrifically ghoulish practice of harvesting for profit the body parts of the unborn children it murders on an industrial scale, ought to remind the Catholic community that this demonic entity thrives because of the financial support it receives from the taxpayers through the votes of our elected representatives. A recent article in the Boston Herald revealed that Planned Parenthood is now integral to the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, and that its political wing, the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund, now keeps a list of so-called "Champions" who serve its lethal interests in public office.

As a service to pro-life Catholics, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts has decided to research and publish the names of the quislings who have betrayed the Faith of their Baptism to receive the commendations of this genocidal organization, which wages ceaseless war against the Author of Life. We will begin with Massachusetts State Senate. The findings are appalling.

Of the 39 members of the Massachusetts Senate, (the death of pro-life Thomas Kennedy leaving a single vacancy in the forty member chamber), 22 identify themselves as Roman Catholic. Of these, 20, that is to say, 91%, are designated by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts as either a "Champion" or an "Ally." Only one Catholic state senator, Michael Rush (D-Boston) is designated as an "Opponent," while Senator Michael Rodrigues (D-Westport) is identified as "Mixed."

Catholic "Champions" of Planned Parenthood in the Massachusetts Senate

  1. Michael Barrett (D-Lexington)-parochial school graduate.

  2. Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Boston)-identifies herself as a parishioner of Saint Mary of the Angels in Roxbury, has mentioned her parish council membership in her campaign literature; reportedly referred to pro-life Catholics as “Nazis and Klansman.”

  3. Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett) -Boston College graduate, President of the Saints Cosmas and Damian Society.

  4. Kenneth Donnelly (D-Arlington)

  5. Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover) -Merrimack College graduate, identifies herself as a parishioner of Saint Augustine’s in Andover.

  6. Michael Moore (D-Millbury)

Catholic "Allies" of Planned Parenthood in the Massachusetts Senate

  1. Eileen Donoghue (D-Lowell)


  2. Linda Dorcena-Forry (D-Boston)-parochial school graduate, Catholic high school graduate, Boston College graduate; Mistress of Ceremonies at South Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Breakfast.


  3. Benjamin Downing (D-Pittsfield)-Providence College graduate; affiliated with Catholic youth center.


  4. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster)


  5. Brian Joyce (D-Milton) - Boston College graduate, Knight of Columbus; first ran for office pretending to be pro-life and pro-family in order to defeat a faithful Catholic, the late Rep. Joseph Manning.


  6. John Keenan (D-Quincy) - coaches Catholic basketball league.


  7. Joan Lovely (D-Salem)


  8. Thomas McGee (D-Lynn) -Knight of Columbus.


  9. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) -parochial school graduate; Hibernian; member, Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick.


  10. Kathleen O’Connor Ives (D-Newburyport)


  11. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton)


  12. Anthony Petruccelli (D-Boston) -parochial school graduate, Boston College High School graduate.


  13. James Timilty (D-Walpole)


  14. James Welch (D-Springfield) -parochial school graduate.

Three observations are in order. First of all, these numbers constitute a massive institutional failure, particularly in our parishes and our Catholic schools, to form and grow Catholics. Secondly, most of these defections do not represent an ideological conversion. These wretched men and women burn incense to the Luciferian gods of Planned Parenthood because they wish to prolong their tawdry careers, and receive the paychecks, pensions and per diems that are the fruit of their apostasy. They have no principles, at least none that aren’t for sale, and the asking price is cheap.

Finally, our hierarchy and clergy not only refuse to sanction these collaborators, but, in many cases, actually serve as their enablers. Our bishops tell us they do not wish to excommunicate anyone, and are unwilling even to enforce Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which enjoins that those "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion." In the words of John Kerry, and Sean O’Malley, to do so would "politicize the Eucharist." The sacrilegious reception of the Blessed Sacrament is, evidently, to be preferred.

The problem however, is far more systemic. Not only do the legislators on the list above know that they will never suffer any ecclesiastical sanction, but they will confidently run for re-election every two years knowing that they will never hear a word of rebuke from a parish pulpit, read a critical article in a diocesan newspaper, or even watch a candid discussion of their record on a Catholic television station.

If they serve on the board of directors, advisors, or trustees of a Catholic organization or institution, they will continue to do so. If they hold an academic or administrative position at a Catholic educational institution, they will continue to do so. If they serve at a Catholic parish as a lector, a CCD teacher, or an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, they will continue to do so.

Catholic charitable organizations and religious orders will give them awards. Elite Catholic secondary schools will recognize them at fund raising dinners as successful alumnae. Catholic colleges and universities will bestow honorary degrees upon them, and invite them to deliver commencement addresses, while cardinals and bishops politely applaud.

If they arrive at a parish function, they will be treated as an honored guest, and thanked for their condescension in appearing. If they cross Planned Parenthood or the homosexual lobby, they will be eviscerated. If they betray Our Lord or the Church He established, they will be praised and feted by nuns, priests, prelates, and Roman cardinals.

The same prelates who would never be caught dead with real Catholics — like the ones who keep an early and faithful vigil in front of the abortuaries — smile at, fawn over and ingratiate themselves with these loathsome traitors in political office. Their Faustian bargain will not save them, however. It is the quislings who will lead the coming persecution.

The next installment of the analysis by the Catholic Action League will continue with the Massachusetts House of Representatives.


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JULY 20, 2015 - Published July 23

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

To the Editor:

Cynthia Allen is to be commended for her thoughtful column on the gruesome practice by Planned Parenthood of harvesting the body parts of unborn babies killed in abortions, (Abortion is a business and kids are a commodity, Sat/Sun, July 18, 2015).

Allen accurately points out that children in the womb are now viewed as property that can be destroyed at will. The idea that some human beings are the property of others is, of course, one that has a tragic resonance in American history.

Sincerely,

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


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JUNE 29, 2015 - Published July 7

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

To the Editor:

In his lucid article on the deficiencies of City Hall Plaza, David Kruh made the assertion that one of the factors in Boston’s demographic decline after World War II was residents leaving a city "crumbling from decades of Curley-ism..." (Kruh: City Hall area stuck on old tune).

The facts do not warrant such a conclusion. Boston’s population peaked at 801,000 in 1950, the year James Michael Curley left office as mayor for the last time. By 1982, it had fallen to a low of 562,000.

Most of that collapse can be traced to the clearances of entire neighborhoods — like the West End and the New York streets — by urban renewal, the demolition of thousands of inner city homes for highway construction, and the white flight which followed blockbusting, crime increases and forced busing. Needless to say, none of this had anything to do with Mayor Curley.

Sincerely,

Prof. Lawrence A. Overlan & C. J. Doyle
Boston, MA
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

Prof. Larry Overlan teaches state and local government at Suffolk University. Overlan and Doyle are researching James Michael Curley’s legacy of public works projects in Boston.


NEWS RELEASE

FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE DENOUNCES SUPREME COURT DECISION ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized this morning’s decision by the U. S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges which held that both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States — ratified in 1868 — contained a heretofore undiscovered right to same-gender marriage.

The five to four decision, written by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, vacates all existing state laws and state constitutional provisions which define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.Just two years ago, in U.S. v. Windsor, the same court overturned the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, partly on the basis that it infringed on the longstanding right of individual states “to regulate domestic relations.”

The Catholic Action League called the ruling “anthropological change through judicial fiat” and “ideological enforcement masquerading as jurisprudence.“

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The hubris of the Supreme Court is Olympian. Today, five unelected, unaccountable, appointed officeholders, cloaked with the immunity of lifetime tenure, decided that all of civilization — in its laws, ethics, religious beliefs, and moral sensibilities — was wrong for thousands of years about the character of marriage; that a form of behavior historically understood to be a crime is, in fact, a conjugal act; and that a document written 150 years ago, by men who believed in natural law and limited government, is the foundation of a societal revolution unimaginable to its framers. They also decided that they, not the people and their elected representatives, were self-authorized to come to these conclusions.”

“This entirely predictable, but nonetheless appalling travesty speaks to the debasement of our laws, the corruption of our courts, the depravity of our nation’s morals, and the corrosion of our culture. Kennedy’s majority decision was a mixture of invention, specious assertion, intellectual dishonesty, manifest absurdity, pretentious hypocrisy, and an unbridled presumption of judicial entitlement. Dissenting justices cited The Federalist Papers and Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, while Kennedy opined on dignity, demeaned feelings, and ‘new insights’ which allowed homosexuals ‘to define and express their identity.’”

“This contrived right is on a collision course with the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. Justice Thomas, in his dissent, wrote that the ruling ‘has potentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty.’ Chief Justice Roberts reasoned that it would affect everything from the adoption policies of religious charities to the housing arrangements of religious schools. The Solicitor-General had previously admitted, in oral arguments, that an affirmative ruling could impact the tax-exempt status of religious institutions.”

“Religious believers opposed to same-sex marriage whose businesses serve wedding ceremonies are already being sued and fined. As a practical matter, the demonization, marginalization, and victimization of orthodox Christians and Jews will accelerate. Anyone with memories of the fiasco of forced busing in Boston in the 1970’s will remember the ultimate argument defending the indefensible — ‘It’s the law.’ So it will be in this controversy.”


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JUNE 21, 2015 - Published in Herald June 23

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

To the Editor:

Howie Carr’s ludicrous assertion that Joseph Stalin’s sarcastic crack — How many divisions does the pope have? — came after Stalin read “a similarly windy sermon by an earlier pope,” is pure invention (Howie Carr: Encyclical a lot of papal hot air, 6/21/2015).

According to Winston Churchill, Stalin’s remark occurred during a prewar conversation with French Premier Pierre Laval about Poland. Given that Communism collapsed in Poland after years of popular resistance organized by a Solidarity movement inspired by Pope Saint John Paul II, it would seem that the Soviet tyrant seriously underestimated his adversary.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com


PRESS STATEMENT

TO: BRIAN FRAGA, THE PILOT

FROM: C. J. DOYLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS

DATE: JUNE 16, 2015

SUBJECT: THE LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

I believe it is reasonable to suppose that most adherents of traditional Catholic social teaching would find the legalization of cannabis to be opposed to the common good. The inhalation of any controlled chemical substance, used solely for recreational purposes, which alters the consciousness, while adversely affecting the physiology of the brain, thus impairing both the faculties of the mind and the health of the body, must be considered a violation of The Fifth Commandment of The Decalogue.

One might add, that as a matter of public policy, it is also chronologically anomalous. For the past fifty years, our society has professed an increasing alarm over the lethal effects of smoking, the dangers of driving while intoxicated, and toxic consequences of ingesting carcinogens and contaminants. Now, there is a growing movement to legalize a substance that will pose dangers in all three of those categories.

Finally, Catholics should recognize in this debate, that not all opposition to Catholic moral and social teachings comes from the secular, liberal left and the Democratic Party. It is likely, in the future, to come also from a libertarian movement which is increasing its influence among independent and even Republican voters. Both movements, of course, are derivative of classical liberalism.

Issues such as this should warn us of the danger of emptying conservatism in America of its moral content, and reducing it to a defense of capitalism and jingoism.


NEWS UPDATE

TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

AFTER PROTESTS BY CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE, O.F.M. M-I-A AT PRIDE FESTIVAL

Following protests, this year and last year, by the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, the Franciscan Friars of Boston’s Saint Anthony’s Shrine — members of the Holy Name Province of the Order of Friars Minor — apparently decided to forgo, for the first time in several years, a visible presence at the 2015 homosexual pride festival and parade in Boston.

In past years, the friars could be seen in videotape coverage of the parade, standing on the sidelines and cheering. Last year, they were photographed manning a booth, in the middle of the festival, with signs which read “Who am I to judge?”. This year, they were missing.

Last Saturday, amid the various booths offering condoms, lubricants, and the apparel and instruments of sado-masochism, there were two festival booths with purportedly Catholic themes. One was sponsored by Dignity, the homosexual advocacy group which claims to be Catholic, but which meets in Episcopal churches. The other displayed signs which read “LGBT Catholics.”

When questioned by a member of Mass Resistance about their identity, the occupant of the latter responded that they represented the LGBT “Catholics” of three Boston churches — Saint Anthony’s Shrine on Arch Street, Saint Cecilia’s Parish in the Back Bay, and the Paulist Center/Holy Spirit Chapel on Park Street. Franciscan friars in their habits, however, were nowhere to be seen.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The corruption at Saint Anthony’s remains unabated. Their website proclaims the blasphemous heresy that the mortal sin of impurity against nature is ‘gift from God.’ None the less, the fact that they chose to avoid, for the first time in years, an overt participation in this depraved spectacle — at a time when society is galloping in the opposite direction — is compelling testimony to the determination and effectiveness of the many faithful Catholics who protested against this grave scandal.”

“Edmund Burke famously warned that all that was necessary for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing. That circumstance did not prevail here. The League wishes to express its gratitude to the good men and women, especially our own members, who took the time to contact the Shrine, the Pastoral Center in Braintree, and even the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. We also appreciate the goodwill of the individuals and organizations who posted our Action Alert on their websites.”

“The League also wishes to convey its thanks to Brian Camenker and his staff at Mass Resistance, for their fortitude and endurance in meticulously documenting, each year, the repulsive, nauseating events of ‘Pride Month’ in Boston, and for their unfailing courtesy in making their data available to us. Finally, we want to thank Bill Cotter of Operation Rescue: Boston for calling to our attention his timely and thorough research into the egregious distortions of Catholic moral teachings being peddled by the so-called LGBT ministry at Arch Street.”

“At this point in history in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, orthodox Catholics may not enjoy the numbers to affect the outcome of elections, legislation, and referenda. As this episode, and a recent episode involving the Knights of Columbus and the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade demonstrate, however, we do retain the ability to expose, embarrass, and apply pressure to the quislings and collaborators in our own Catholic community. It is our intention to keep the pressure up.”


ACTION ALERT!!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

URGE CARDINAL O’MALLEY TO STOP FRANCISCANS FROM JOINING HOMOSEXUAL “PRIDE” FESTIVAL

Boston’s annual homosexual “Pride” parade and festival will occur this Saturday, June 13th. The event is a cauldron of depravity, characterized by indecency, immodesty, lewd and lascivious behavior, exhibitionism, and open displays of sado-masochism, including men in leather masks, dog collars, and chains.

Besides celebrating the rejection of Divine and natural law, it frequently promotes explicitly anti-Catholic themes. Last year’s honorary Grand Marshals were the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. This year’s LGBT flag raising ceremony at City Hall included the anti-Christian hate group with the pornographic name Pussy Riot. The group has a long history of perpetrating hate crimes against Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

For the past few years, the Franciscan Friars of Saint Anthony’s Shrine on Arch Street in Boston, who are members of our Capuchin Cardinal’s own religious family, have participated in the festival. In 2014, they manned a booth displaying signs which read: “Who am I to judge?”.

They are not there to practice the Spiritual Works of Mercy, call anyone to conversion and repentance, or warn of the dangers of mortal sin. As their own website reveals, they are there to express “pride” in the homosexual identity, and to affirm the homosexual movement.

Priests ought to have zeal for souls. Abandoning people to their sins is a spiritual dereliction. It suggests, that in the mind of some clerics, the desire for human respect has superseded the obligations of Christian charity.

Although an official of the Archdiocese of Boston in 2014 made the unpersuasive claim that the friars, as members of a religious order, were not under the control of the Archdiocese, it is unimaginable that the friars would engage in such a controversial initiative without, at least, the tacit consent of the Archbishop. In fact, the League received reports last year that some of the friars openly asserted that they enjoyed Cardinal O’Malley’s support.

The presence of the friars at this celebration of sodomy is a grave scandal. No rational person in secular society can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic teaching about marriage, about chastity outside of marriage, about the immorality of homosexual acts, and about the need for modesty and purity in speech, dress, and behavior, when Catholic priests participate in something as course, vulgar and obscene as a homosexual pride festival.

Please contact Cardinal Sean O’Malley and urge him to put a stop to this scandalous repudiation of Catholic morality, which is also a callous betrayal of all those faithful Catholics struggling to preserve traditional marriage and moral sanity in our nation! You may reach the Cardinal by email at ArchbishopSean@RCAB.org, or by telephone at (617) 254-0100, or (617) 782-2544.

Please remind the His Eminence that loyal Catholics should not have to fight a two-front war, against a culture of death in society, and against a culture of betrayal in our own Church!

Thank you.

PRESS STATEMENT

TO: BRIAN FRAGA, THE PILOT

FROM: C. J. DOYLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS

DATE: JUNE 5, 2015

SUBJECT: POPE’S ENCYCLICAL ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Acknowledging the obvious — that the text of the encyclical is, as of this date, unknown — five considerations are in order:

  1. Catholicism has traditionally criticized liberal capitalism as an economic system, particularly in its treatment of workers and debtors. It is consistent therefore, with traditional Catholic social teaching to extend that critique to an examination of the impact of capitalism on God’s Creation — the natural environment.

  2. We should remember, especially in Boston, that an indifference to the environment had devastating consequences for inner city Catholic communities, when, a half century ago, a corporate driven public policy to promote highway construction obliterated urban Catholic neighborhoods. It was the incipient environmental movement which finally halted the injustice of eminent domain.

  3. There is a danger, however, in any cooperation with an ecological movement that is militantly secularist, profoundly anti-life, and intrinsically committed to population control.

  4. There is also the risk that some in the Church will exploit the encyclical to revive the “seamless garment” argument, in order to diminish the centrality of the struggles to defend the sanctity of innocent human life, and preserve the integrity of traditional marriage and the natural family — the two greatest challenges in the moral order confronting what remains of Christian civilization today.

  5. Finally, neither the Holy Father nor any other member of the hierarchy have a specific competence in scientific matters, nor could any ecclesiastical authority bind Catholics in questions which require purely prudential judgments.

MEMBER ALERT

MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

AN INSPIRING PRO-LIFE VIDEO FROM THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY SCHOOL

The faithful Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Still River, Massachusetts — who produced "The Leaving of Boston" during the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade controversy — have now created an inspiring Pro-Life video entitled "From the ‘Cradle of Freedom’ — A Tale of Two Tragedies."

Congratulations to Brother Thomas Augustine, and to the Sisters, staff, students, and parents of the school for this splendid initiative. Its message is incisive, but even more compelling is its uplifting example of fidelity in this age of apostasy! Bravo!


NEWS ANALYSIS — PART TWO

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

IRELAND: A CHRONOLOGY OF DE-CHRISTIANIZATION

Ireland’s rejection of Divine and Natural Law in the definition of marriage was the culmination in a series of incremental betrayals, over a period of forty-three years, which secularized the Irish State and Irish society. A chronology of these events is presented below:

  • 1972 — Irish voters approve, by a referendum margin of 84%, a constitutional amendment repealing Article 44 of the Irish Constitution, which recognized “the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of citizens.”

  • 1973 — The Irish Supreme Court declares a right to marital privacy which includes contraceptive use, but declines to overturn laws prohibiting the sale of contraceptives.

  • 1979 — The Health (Family Planning) Act is passed, allowing pharmacists to dispense contraceptives to those holding a prescription from a doctor.

  • 1985 — The Health (Family Planning) Amendment Act is passed, allowing the over-the-counter sale of condoms and spermicides to anyone over the age of eighteen.

  • 1992 — The Health (Family Planning) Amendment Act is passed, allowing the unrestricted sale of contraceptives to anyone over the age of seventeen.

  • 1992 — In Attorney-General v. X, the Irish Supreme Court declares a right to abortion arising from a threat to the life of the mother, including suicidal ideation.

  • 1992 — Voters in Ireland reject, by a referendum margin of 65%, a proposed amendment to the Irish Constitution which would overturn the X ruling.

  • 1992 — The Thirteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 62%, establishing a ‘right to travel’ outside the country, for the purpose of procuring an abortion. Between 6,000 and 8,000 Irish women go to England each year to kill their unborn children.

  • 1992 — The Fourteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 59%, establishing a right to obtain information about abortion.

  • 1993 — The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act is passed, decriminalizing sodomy in Ireland.

  • 1995 — The Fifteenth Amendment to the Irish Constitution repealed, by a referendum margin of 50.2%, the constitutional prohibition against divorce, and allowed the civil dissolution of marriage.

  • 2010 — The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act is passed, without a recorded roll call, establishing civil unions for same sex couples.

  • 2013 — The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act is passed, legalizing abortion in cases of suicidal ideation by the mother.

  • 2015 — The Children and Family Relationships Act is passed, allowing homosexual partners to adopt children.

  • 2015 — The Thirty-Fourth Amendment to the Irish Constitution is passed, by a referendum margin of 62%, allowing two persons to contract marriage “without distinction as to their sex.”


NEWS ANALYSIS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

SAINT PATRICK BETRAYED: IRELAND VOTES FOR SAME GENDER “MARRIAGE”

The Catholic Faith and the Christian civilization which Saint Patrick brought to Ireland nearly 1600 years ago was repudiated by more than three-fifths of the voters of the Republic of Ireland last Saturday, when that country became the first nation on earth to endorse, by popular referendum, the fashionable, neo-pagan superstition that sodomy is a conjugal act.

More than sixty generations of Irishmen and Irishwomen remained loyal to the apostle “who brought to our mountains the gift of God’s Faith and the sweet light of His love.” They did so through 800 years of foreign occupation, 300 years of religious persecution and economic dispossession, a hundred years of pre-twentieth century totalitarianism known as the Penal Laws — aptly described by Edmund Burke as “a model of vicious perfection” — and a dozen hellish years of Cromwellian genocide. Now, after fifty years of peace, prosperity and post-conciliar Catholicism, the Faith is all but dead in Ireland.

This generation, of mostly young citizens of Ireland, will now forever be remembered for an appalling act of national apostasy and betrayal, effecting a moral deformity, a societal deconstruction, and a civilizational change.

Ireland is, once again, as it was before Saint Patrick, a pagan country. The difference is the pre-Christian pagan culture of Classical Antiquity admired beauty and reason, and sought truth through natural law. The post-Christian pagan culture of modernity is depraved and demonic, rejects reason, and is aggressively hostile to any expression of truth.

Among the influences which led to the debacle were the following:

I. The Power of Money The old saying that the three most important factors in politics are, in ascending order of importance, money, money, and money was reaffirmed on May 22nd in Ireland. The Yes side outspent the No side by several orders of magnitude. The American billionaire Chuck Feeney funneled at least $28,000,000 into the homosexual movement in Ireland in the last twelve years.
    The Yes side had seemingly unlimited resources for voter registration, advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. The No side could not compete financially.

II. The Power of Government The government of pro-abortion Prime Minister Enda Kenny and all Irish political parties supported the Yes campaign. Kenny was not reluctant to resort to the instruments of coercion. Funding was cut off for Catholic marriage counseling services. Non-profit organizations dependent on state support were threatened. Even the GardaĆ­ — Ireland’s National Police — were mobilized to help the Yes campaign. Kenny had already, during the abortion controversy of 2013, purged his Fine Gael Party of Catholic objectors.

III. The Power of the Media Ireland’s Anglophile, aggressively secularist and hysterically anti-Catholic media, abandoned all pretense of fairness and professionalism, and served as de facto public relations agents, promoting the Yes campaign. During the Cold War, some American conservatives wondered how people behind the Iron Curtain would vote, if allowed to do so in a free election, given the total Communist control of the media. Something approximating that level of media monopoly prevailed in Ireland.

IV. The Power of Corporate Capitalism American multinationals, which provide tens of thousands of jobs to the struggling Irish economy, instructed — in a flagrant violation of Irish sovereignty — their employees to support the Yes campaign.

V. The Power of Organized Labor The Irish trade unions and their political arm, the Labor Party, campaigned for a Yes vote. The Labor Party has become so anti-Catholic that one of its leaders has called for the exclusion of practicing Catholics from government — overt religious discrimination in employment — because Catholics are loyal to a foreign power, the Holy See. This charge is the same one English occupiers used for centuries to rob and oppress the Irish.

VI. The Power of the European Union The influence of the E. U. in Ireland has been profoundly corrupting and malign. For decades now, the E. U. has operated what amounts to a system of organized bribery in Irish politics. Irish politicians are suborned by everything from infrastructure monies to the perks, privileges, and paychecks that come from European Commissionerships, and M.E.P. (Member of the European Parliament) status. The quid pro quo is de-Christianization.

VII. The Scandals in the Church The decision to ordain homosexuals to the Catholic priesthood, failing to stop them when they molested minors, and then covering up for them rather than punishing them and getting rid of them, bankrupted the moral authority of the Irish Church.

VIII. The Cowardice of the Bishops The conduct of the Irish Hierarchy during the referendum campaign was shameful. cowardly and pandering. They conceded the arguments and accepted the intellectual premises of the enemy. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, in an exercise in Stalinist self accusation, claimed that he knew of the “harshness with which the Irish Church treated gays and lesbians in the past,” and urged that “people of same sex orientation have their rights and loving and caring relationships cherished in a culture of difference.” Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry was actually worse. He said he hoped people would not vote No “for bad reasons, for bigoted reasons, for nasty reasons, for bullying reasons.”

IX. The Treachery in the Ranks of the Clergy At least fifteen Irish priests publicly endorsed the Yes campaign. Not one of them was removed, reprimanded or silenced by their bishops.

X. The Failure of Post-Conciliar Catholicism It is difficult to find a more compelling example of the absolutely dysfunctional character of the contemporary Church. Exactly fifty years after the close of Vatican II, what was the most Catholic country in the world is now mission territory. Fifty years of modernism, sappy ecumenism, toleration of heresy, secularization of Catholic institutions, corruption in religious orders, immorality against nature in the priesthood, novelties in teaching and practice, and the unprecedented invention of a new, abuse prone vernacular liturgy have all turned the Church Militant into the Church Dialoging.

Enda Kenny’s next target will be Catholic schools. He has already demanded that they present same-sex unions as the same as traditional marriage. What remains of the Faith in Ireland will now face persecution. Please pray for Ireland! Sanctus Patricius, Ora Pro Nobis!


NEWS RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2O, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

FRIENDS OF IRELAND WARN OF DANGERS TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN YES VOTE ON MARRIAGE REFERENDUM

Pro-Life and Pro-Family friends of Ireland in the United States today are sending a message of caution to the Irish people about the potential dangers to religious freedom in the Irish Republic, which could result from a change in the traditional definition of marriage. Irish citizens will vote in a referendum on Friday, May 22nd on whether to permit two persons of the same gender to contract marriage.

“The progress of same gender marriage in the United States has produced serious and troubling consequences for religious freedom in America, including limitations on free speech, discrimination against Catholics and other religious believers, and state sponsored coercion, characterized by harshly punitive measures against Christians and others who refuse to violate their consciences in this matter,” the signatories said in a statement released earlier today.

“Among the examples of injustice directed at those who support the perennial understanding of marriage are the following:

  • Printers, photographers, bakers, florists, innkeepers and others have been the objects of lawsuits by homosexuals, and investigations, resulting in fines — some as high as $150,000 — and other civil penalties, by administrative law, government enforcement agencies, for refusing to service same gender marriage ceremonies;

  • The Solicitor General of the United States, in arguments before the U. S. Supreme Court, admitted that religiously affiliated institutions, such as schools and charities, could lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to recognize same gender unions as marriages;

  • Military and naval chaplains have faced warnings and disciplinary proceedings, for counseling members of the Armed Forces that homosexual behavior is sinful;

  • In Massachusetts, a federal judge has ruled that public schools must instruct the children attending them, without parental notification or consent, that same gender marriage is the equivalent of traditional marriage;

  • In states where same gender marriage has been legalized, employers, including religious employers, must provide spousal benefits to the partners of homosexuals who have contracted civil marriages.”

“For three decades now, homosexual activists have portrayed themselves as victims of intolerance who are only seeking to end discrimination and achieve equality. The reality is very different. Wherever the homosexual agenda has prevailed, homosexual activists have sought to use the authority of the law, the power of the government, and the money of the taxpayers to censor, silence, coerce, and punish religious believers who criticize, oppose or resist them.”

“We respectfully urge the people of the Republic of Ireland to weigh carefully the implications of same gender marriage to their own freedoms, and to re-affirm the millennia-old definition of marriage by voting No on Friday.”

Rev. Shenan J. Boquet
President
Human Life International

John Aidan Byrne
President
Irish Pro-Life USA

Brian Camenker
President
Parents’ Rights Coalition

Dr. Patrick J. Castle
President & CEO
Vitae Foundation
Co-Founder, LIFE Runners

William Cotter
President
Operation Rescue: Boston

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

Thomas A. Haltigan
Chairman
Saint Cecilia’s Pro-Life Ministry
Rockaway, New Jersey

Atty. Thomas M. Harvey
Arlington, Massachusetts

Royce Hood, Esq.
Founder
Law of Life Summit

John Horvat
Vice President
American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)

Atty. Robert W. Joyce
Boston, Massachusetts

Brian Kelly
Editor
Mancipia

Philip F. Lawler
Editor
Catholic World News

Atty. Colbe Corcoran Mazzarella
Founder
Way of the Cross for Life

John P. McCarthy, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of History
Fordham University

Brendan H. O’Connell
Executive Producer & Host
Life Matters TV

Timothy and Marcella Taggart
Saint Cecilia’s Pro-Life Ministry
Rockaway, New Jersey

John-Henry Westin
Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief
LifeSiteNews.com


MEMBER ALERT

FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

VOICE OF THE FAMILY PROMOTES AMERICAN VERSION OF PRIESTS’ INITIATIVE

Voice of the Family — a coalition of 23 pro-life and pro-family groups from around the globe — is organizing an American version of the Priests’ Initiative. In March, a “Support for Marriage Letter,” signed by 461 Catholic priests in England and Wales, was released, reaffirming traditional Catholic doctrine, and urging the Holy See to put an end to growing confusion over Catholic teaching on marriage and human sexuality.

The letter was prompted by events at the October 2014 bishops’ Synod on the Family in Rome, where various prelates, some of whom claimed the support of the Pope, called for the recognition of homosexual unions and for the repeal of Catholic moral prohibitions — rooted in Holy Scripture — against the reception of Holy Communion by those in a state of mortal sin. The synod will conclude with a final session in the Vatican, in October of this year.

The Voice of the Family is headed by John-Henry Westen, Editor-in-Chief of LifeSiteNews, the online pro-life news service known for its vigorous defense of Catholic orthodoxy.

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts fully endorses the admirable efforts of John-Henry Westen to encourage Catholic priests in the United States to emulate the faithful Catholic witness of their confreres in the United Kingdom. Any members of the clergy wishing to sign the American version of the Voice of the Family letter may do so below. Please forward this email to any priest, diocesan or religious, who you believe might be interested in lending his name to the sacred cause of upholding the Deposit of Faith. Thank you.

COPY AND FORWARD THIS TEXT (DOWN TO “END . . .”) TO CLERGY:

Dear Father,

Will you join the nearly 500 priests in England who recently signed a public statement defending the Church’s teachings on the nature and indissolubility of marriage, and asking for clarity from the upcoming Synod on the Family?

Following the amazing success of the Priests Initiative in England, Voice of the Family, a lay initiative made up of 23 pro-life and pro-family groups from around the world, is now working to promote the initiative internationally.

To add your name to the OPEN LETTER, simply send an e-mail to voiceofthefamilyusa@gmail.com with your full name, parish and/or religious order, and affirm that you wish to be added as a signatory to the letter.

The full text of the open letter appears below. A fuller explanation of this initiative follows after that.

FULL TEXT OF OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESS

Following the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome in October 2014 much confusion has arisen concerning Catholic moral teaching. In this situation, we wish, as Catholic priests, to re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.

We commit ourselves anew to the task of presenting this teaching in all its fullness, while reaching out with the Lord’s compassion to those struggling to respond to the demands and challenges of the Gospel in an increasingly secular society.

Furthermore we affirm the importance of upholding the Church’s traditional discipline regarding the reception of the sacraments, and that doctrine and practice remain firmly and inseparably in harmony.

We urge all those who will participate in the second Synod in October 2015 to make a clear and firm proclamation of the Church’s unchanging moral teaching, so that confusion may be removed, and faith confirmed.

Yours &c.



Your name:
Your parish:

It is most likely that, like us, you will have followed the events of last October’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops and its aftermath with interest. Like us, you may also have been left unsettled and deeply concerned by some of the statements coming out of that Synod, and the manner in which the Synod was at times reported by the media and interpreted by those with a secular ideological agenda. There is now a distorted general sense that the Church’s moral teaching could be changed and that Catholic practice could be altered regardless of doctrine. Even some committed Catholics are making statements that do not reflect the settled teaching of the Church, nor the clear message of the New Testament.

As pastors of souls you will be only too aware of the confusion this has caused to those to whom you minister. All too often it is those who have been most faithful to the teaching of the Church and have made great sacrifices in order to conform their lives to the Gospel, who have been left in greatest distress.

Pope Francis exhorted the participants of the Extraordinary Synod: ‘Speak freely and from the heart. And listen humbly to each other.&rsquo Inspired by the Holy Father’s invitation, we wish to make our voice heard.

Above is the text of an open letter which we intend and now propose to publish in the Catholic/national press. It states our adherence to the Church’s traditional doctrine and discipline of marriage, and our request that this will be affirmed without ambiguity by the Synod to be held later in 2015. We also make clear our commitment to serve all those who struggle to live out the demands of the Gospel amidst the often difficult circumstances of modern life. Clarity in teaching is never opposed to good pastoral practice, but is rather its foundation.

Please join your brother priests around the world in making this statement, for which we know many people are longing. To add your name to the OPEN LETTER, e-mail us at voiceofthefamilyusa@gmail.com with your full name, parish and/or religious order, and affirm that you wish to be added as a signatory to the letter.

You can also support the Priests’ Initiative by contacting the organization Credo Priests at www.credopriests.org.

Yours in Our Lord,



John-Henry Westen
Co-Founder
Voice of the Family
Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
LifeSiteNews.com
North America: (888) 678-6008 ext 925
International: +01 613 756-9029
Mobile: (613) 633-9006
Email: editor@lifesitenews.com

END OF TEXT TO BE FORWARDED TO CLERGY


NEWS UPDATE

THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

EPISCOPAL PRIEST INSULTS CATHOLICS ON GOOD FRIDAY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized the Associate Rector of Boston’s historic Trinity Church, the Rev. William W. Rich, for insulting Catholics on Good Friday. During the church’s annual “Stations of the Cross” walk, while stopped in front of the Central Reform Temple of Boston, Rev. Rich asserted to his followers that in the past, some Catholics murdered Jews on Good Friday.

Rich offered no evidence to substantiate this sweeping indictment. Good Friday is the most solemn day of the liturgical year for Catholics.

The Catholic Action League called Rich’s crack “a gratuitous and mean-spirited affront to Catholics on the day they commemorate the death of Our Savior on the Cross.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “At a time when Catholics and other Christians are confronted by genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Middle East, Rev. Rich prefers to observe Good Friday by dredging up accusations made against Catholics from a millennium ago. So much for ecumenical sensitivity.”

“One suspects that Rich’s unprovoked attack has less to do with solicitude for the Jewish community than with current, culture war issues. Rich is a civilly married homosexual, with a record of activism for same-sex unions.”

“The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has a history of cheap shots at the Catholic Faith. In 2002, a couple of days before the resignation of Cardinal Law, when the Archdiocese of Boston was inundated with public criticism, Episcopal bishop Thomas Shaw took the opportunity to pile on by alleging that Catholic moral teaching helped incite violence against homosexuals.”

One of those offended by Rich’s remark was Brian Camenker, the leader of Mass Resistance and the Parents Rights Coalition. Camenker — who is an Orthodox Jew — had this to say: “Liberals love to talk about ancient history as a way of diverting attention from what is going on today. Just look at Obama’s crack about the Crusades and the Inquisition. Catholicism poses no threat to the religious freedom of Jews or any other Americans. The homosexual movement, which the Episcopal Diocese seems to have so thoroughly embraced, does pose such a threat.”

C. J. Doyle continued: “If Rev. Rich wishes to lament sectarian violence, he can begin by apologizing for the thousands of Catholics murdered in England, and the hundreds of thousands of Catholics murdered in Ireland, by his co-coreligionists, not to mention all the Catholics who were imprisoned, tortured, exiled, destituted, dispossessed of their land, and deprived of their civil rights. Apparently, Rev. Rich has never heard of the clean hands doctrine.”

“Incredibly, this is the same crowd — Massachusetts Episcopalians — to whom the Archdiocese of Boston used to lend Holy Cross Cathedral for their ordination ceremonies. Rev. Rich’s remark ought to remind Catholics of the one way street which is called ecumenism.”


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

March 31, 2015

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

To the Editor:

Whether it is the joyous celebration of Christmas, or the solemn observance of Holy Week, for James Carroll, it is just one more opportunity to prosecute his dreary polemic against Catholicism, (The wicked irony of Holy Week, 3/30/2015).

Anyone remotely familiar with Carroll could have reasonably foreseen that his column before Easter would contain yet another round of recycled accusations asserting Catholic culpability in anti-Semitism. Carroll, being tediously predictable, conformed to expectations.

Contrary to his malevolent contentions, the Gospel accounts of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ are not “an immorality tale of hate,” or “a transcendent source of suffering,” nor did they “spawn...racial anti-Semitism.”

The tawdry method in Carroll’s obsessive, decades long campaign to defame and discredit the Catholic Faith is to implicate it, however tenuously, in the genocide perpetrated by National Socialism. Attempting to forge a link between the Catholic commemoration of the Passion and Nazi mass murder is a malicious exercise in intellectual dishonesty, which suggests Carroll is not burdened by excessive scruples about what is, and what is not ethical in journalism, or in what he purports to be scholarship.

No other religion is made the object of such continuous venom in the pages of the Globe. No other denomination must suffer one of its ex-ministers repeatedly declaiming its alleged derelictions in a major American newspaper.

Why does the Globe permit James Carroll to so revile the Catholic Church?

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

March 22, 2015

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

To the Editor:

It is a pity that Thomas Farragher diminished his otherwise estimable column on Sister Margaret Leonard of Project Hope with a snide and gratuitous insult to the Catholic priesthood, (A nun who brought hope for decades, 3/11/2015).

After praising Sister Margaret’s nuns for converting their convent into a homeless shelter, Farragher sarcastically postulated that this would never happen with a rectory — which houses priests.

What Farragher does not tell his readers, and perhaps, does not know himself, is that religious orders, unlike parishes, own their own property and are, thus, able to dispose of it as they choose. Moreover, with a two thirds collapse in numbers of women religious in the U. S. in the last fifty years, many convents, beginning in the 1970’s, became surplus and in some cases, were given away at a nominal price.

Neither priests nor parishioners own church rectories. They belong to the Archdiocese of Boston, which is a corporation sole. As long as a parish remains open and staffed, it requires a rectory.

Anyone remotely knowledgeable of the American church would have some inkling of this. Ironically, Farragher, in attempting to demean priests, only advertised his own unfamiliarity with contemporary Catholicism.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com


NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE QUESTIONS CLAIM THAT PARADE ORGANIZERS DID NOT KNOW THAT BOSTON PRIDE WAS GAY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is reacting with skepticism to claims by Brian Mahoney, Commander of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council — the organizers of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade —  that the veterans, in approving the application to march of Boston Pride, were actually unaware that it was one of the state’s leading homosexual advocacy organizations.

In a column in the March 19th SOUTHBOSTONTODAY, portions of which were quoted in yesterday’s Boston Herald, Mahoney asserted that Boston Pride misrepresented themselves on their application as a “social organization with volunteers of Irish descent,” and that the veterans “innocently believed they were an offshoot of Boston Strong,” which was formed in response to the Marathon bombings.

The Catholic Action League called Mahoney’s contention “beyond disingenuous, something more on the order of the-dog-ate-the-homework.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Brian Mahoney, who seems to have a utilitarian view of telling the truth, is insulting the intelligence of the people of Boston with his meretricious disavowals. For twenty-three years, homosexual activists tried to force their way into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. Last December, under pressure from Mayor Martin Walsh, Mahoney and four others threw away a 9 to 0 Supreme Court decision and let them in. Now, he would have us believe he didn’t know that the organizers of Boston’s gay pride parade were homosexuals.”

“To accept Mahoney’s absurdly improbable claims, one would have to believe that no one on the veterans council watched television, listened to the radio, read newspapers, or talked to anyone living in Massachusetts. While no one should discount the duplicity of the groups which tried to strong-arm their way into the parade — they reinvented themselves several times — Mahoney’s claim is a bridge too far.”

“Brian Mahoney is the successor of the legendary John J. ‘Wacko’ Hurley, whose courage and tenacity gave us Hurley v. GLIB. Mahoney bears less resemblance, in his principles and in his speech, to Hurley than to the comedic figure of Sergeant Shultz, who always knew, saw, and heard nothing.”


HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY TO ALL CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE MEMBERS

TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015

The faithful Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Still River — students, teachers and administrators — refused to dishonor Saint Patrick when the parade in his name in South Boston was deformed and de-Christianized.

The good Sisters of the school, who belong to the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, lightheartedly memorialized their departure with this melody to the air of “The Leaving of Liverpool,” entitled “The Leaving of Boston.”

Sanctus Patricius, Ora Pro Nobis!

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


NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

SAINT PATRICK DISHONORED IN SOUTH BOSTON

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Saint Patrick was dishonored today in historically Catholic South Boston. A parade in honor of a Catholic saint was used to promote public acceptance of behaviors unequivocally condemned by the Catholic religion.”

“Two groups — OUTVETS and Boston Pride — which have zero interest in the ancient Catholic culture of Ireland and her patron saint, which express pride in rejecting Catholic morality, and which dismiss that moral code as bigotry and prejudice, exploited the venerable name of Saint Patrick to advance their anti-Christian ideology. They were joined by a platoon of politicians who also oppose and publicly work against the moral teachings of Saint Patrick’s Faith.”

“Boston Mayor and nominal Catholic Marty Walsh should be proud of himself. With this afternoon’s spectacle, he has retired his campaign debt to the homosexual community, and he created a new, de-Christianized Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, which is welcoming and inclusive to everyone, except of course, the followers and spiritual children of Saint Patrick.”

“The Mayor is dead wrong on one point. This controversy is not over. It will continue as long as the name of Saint Patrick is cheapened, misused, and profaned by anti-Catholic organizations and their political enablers.”

The predecessor organization of the Catholic Action League provided legal assistance to the Allied War Veterans Council in Hurley v. Glib.


NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE SAYS: DROP SAINT PATRICK’S NAME FROM THE SOUTH BOSTON PARADE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today urged the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council — the organizers of the city’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade — to remove the name of Saint Patrick from the parade. Yesterday, a second homosexual activist group, Boston Pride, announced that they would be joining the parade. The group OUTVETS was admitted in December.

As homosexual groups enter the parade, Catholic organizations, which is to say, people who belong to the religion of Saint Patrick, have been pulling out. Immaculate Heart of Mary School withdrew on February 26th. The State Council of the Knights of Columbus reversed their decision to march yesterday.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1994, described homosexual behavior as “grave depravity.” In Catholic tradition, “the sin of impurity against nature” is one of four sins “which cry out to heaven for vengeance.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Two groups which express pride in repudiating Catholic morality, and which consider that morality as nothing more than bigotry and prejudice, will now march in a parade ostensibly in honor of a Catholic saint. The cynicism here is off the charts. Groups which have contempt for the Catholic Faith will exploit a piece of Catholic culture to promote an ideology which is antithetical to Catholicism.”

“Saint Patrick was not a figure of mythology. He was a Catholic bishop and is a Catholic saint, and he was not a proponent of gay rights. Quite the opposite. In his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, the Apostle of Ireland took what liberals might describe as a severely judgmental view of mortal sin. The saint’s venerable name should not be cheaply misappropriated by nominally Catholic politicians and anti-Catholic organizations with a same sex agenda.”

“Call it the Evacuation Day Parade. Call it the South Boston Irish Pride Festival. Call it whatever you want, but don’t debase the name of Saint Patrick by associating it with the tawdry circus that will take place on Broadway tomorrow.”


NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS WITHDRAW FROM SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE AFTER CAMPAIGN BY CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE

Following a nine day email and telephone campaign by the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, urging orthodox Catholics to express their outrage at the Knights of Columbus, the Massachusetts State Council of the K of C finally reversed their recent decision to march in the 2015 Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. The Knights announced their withdrawal late Friday afternoon.

Incredibly, the State Council of the Knights — which had not participated in the parade in decades — made public their intention to march on the very same day that the faithful Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School pulled out of the parade because of the admission of the homosexual activist group OUTVETS.

The Catholic Action League criticized the Knights for giving cover to Mayor Walsh, the parade organizers, and OUTVETS by perpetuating the impression that the parade was still Catholic friendly. The League also rebuked the Knights for undermining the courageous Catholic witness of Immaculate Heart of Mary School.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Whether the Knights were suborned, or were simply doing what they do best, promoting themselves without regard to Catholic teaching, their ill-timed decision to march in the same parade as OUTVETS--while loyal Catholics were leaving the parade — was a disgrace and a betrayal. Perhaps the time has come to address the dysfunctional corporate culture of the Massachusetts Knights, who have a cult of self congratulation, while remaining cluelessly indifferent to the struggle of believing Catholics to defend Christian principles in the public square.”

“As the State Deputy of the K of C cited both the national headquarters in New Haven, and the local clergy in justifying his original intention to march, questions remain on what role, if any, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, and the State Chaplain, Bishop Robert Hennessey, had in this improvident, though gratefully short lived decision.”


UPDATE!!

BOSTON GLOBE: The Massachusetts State Council of the Knights of Columbus announced that it will not participate in the annual South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday, saying that the event had “become politicized and divisive.”


ACTION ALERT !!!

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

DEMAND ACTION FROM NATIONAL LEADERSHIP OF KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS OVER SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE SCANDAL

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is urging all faithful Catholics concerned over the scandal of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade to contact the national leadership of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, and urge them to veto the decision by Bay State Knights to march in Sunday’s parade along with a homosexual activist group.

The State Council of the Massachusetts Knights of Columbus is entering the parade for the first time in decades, just as loyal Catholics are withdrawing from the event, because of the participation of the homosexual advocacy organization, OUTVETS.

You may call Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson at (203) 752-4000, or email him at Carl.Anderson@KOFC.org

Don’t let surrender be compounded by betrayal! It is bad enough that parade organizers threw away a 9-0 U. S. Supreme Court decision, do not allow the K of C to give political cover to the organizers, the anti-Catholic activists, or the author of this affront to the honor of Saint Patrick, Mayor Martin Walsh. As the parade is Sunday, March 15th, please call as soon as possible!


NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS FOR MARCHING IN SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned the decision of the Massachusetts State Council of the Knights of Columbus to march — after a decades long absence — in Boston’s 2015 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. This is the first year in the history of the parade that a homosexual group has been invited to participate by the parade organizers, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council.

As a result of OUTVETS being permitted to march carrying signs and banners identifying their sexual behavior, the faithful Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School — whose float of Saint Patrick blessing the children was for 25 years the iconic symbol of the Boston parade — have withdrawn their band and float from this year’s event.

The Catholic Action League called the decision by the Knights “a grave scandal, and an unconscionable betrayal of Catholic moral principles, which displays an appalling lack of solidarity with the believing Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Whatever their motivations or pretensions, the Knights are giving cover to Mayor Walsh, the parade organizers, and most of all, to OUTVETS, by perpetuating the impression that the parade is still a Catholic friendly and a family friendly event.”

“The K of C is also shamefully undermining the admirable Catholic witness of Immaculate Heart of Mary School, which is refusing to march in a parade with a group that expresses pride in repudiating Catholic morality.”

“The overt message of OUTVETS is that homosexual relations — including same gender so-called marriages — are not only morally acceptable, but something to be proud of. Their implicit message, therefore, is that Catholic moral teaching is nothing more than bigotry, prejudice and hatred.”

“The Knights are helping OUTVETS spread their message by pretending nothing is wrong, and pretending there is nothing morally objectionable to a homosexual group exploiting a parade in honor of a Catholic saint to advance its anti-Catholic ideology. The Knights of Columbus are dishonoring Saint Patrick, and ought to be ashamed of themselves.”


ACTION ALERT !!!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

SEND MESSAGE TO KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS:
DO NOT DISHONOR SAINT PATRICK

Last December, in a shocking defeat for Catholic religious freedom rights, a minority on the board of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council — the organizers of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade — dispossessed the majority, surrendered to political pressure orchestrated by Mayor Martin Walsh, and agreed to permit a homosexual group to march in the 2015 parade.

In doing so, this minority dishonored themselves, discarded a hard fought, 9 to 0 U. S. Supreme Court decision, and betrayed their Faith, their heritage, and all those persons, living and dead, who struggled for twenty-three years to preserve the Catholic and family character of the parade.

As a result of this betrayal, a parade in honor of a Catholic saint will now become a propaganda vehicle to legitimize sodomy. A parade in honor of Saint Patrick will become a forum for those who express pride in rejecting the religion and morality of Saint Patrick.

Consequently, the faithful Catholics of Immaculate Heart of Mary School publicly withdrew from the parade last Thursday.

Now, incredibly, at a time when real Catholics are leaving the parade, the Massachusetts State Council of the Knights of Columbus — who never marched in the parade before, at least in the last thirty years — have announced that they will march in the 2015 Boston Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

It is almost impossible to believe that this is a coincidence. It would seem that the Knights are giving political cover to the Veterans Council, to Mayor Walsh, or both, by pretending the parade is still a Catholic friendly event. (Interestingly, the State Deputy of the K of C is a resident and small business owner in Dorchester, Mayor Walsh’s hometown.)

The decision of the K of C to march, whatever their motivation, is a disgrace. Please contact the Massachusetts State Council of the Knights of Columbus and tell them how disgusted you are that they would march in a parade that includes homosexual activists, and which will be celebrated in the media as a victory for gay rights. Urge them to cancel their plans to march in this sham parade, which makes a mockery of Saint Patrick!

You may contact the State Council by telephone at 781-551-0628, by fax at 781-551-0490, or by e-mail at State.Office@masskofc.org. You may also contact State Deputy Russell Steinbach at his home telephone at 617-282-7752.

For twenty-three years, homosexual militants tried to force their way into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, while the Massachusetts K of C stood by and did nothing. Now that the militants have succeeded, the Knights, suddenly, want to march. It is really quite appalling!


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

March 2, 2015 - Published March 10

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

To the Editor:

Ambassador Ray Flynn was correct in excoriating the lamentable lack of urgency and outrage among government officials and media elites over the dire suffering of Christians in the Middle East, (Where is moral outrage over ISIS? 3/2/2015).

Some of the oldest Christian communities on earth — the Copts, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians — are facing mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide by Muslim fanatics. The United States and its allies in the European Union must intervene to save innocent lives and to preserve ancient cultures, which are part of the common patrimony of the West, and are now threatened with violent extinction.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

February 27, 2015

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

To the Editor:

In its editorial on the Catholic Church and divorce, the Globe referred to those who believe “the sacrament of marriage is forever.” (Outdated rules on divorce, annulment need reform, 2/23/2015).

Your editorial writer neglected to mention that those who believe that marriage should be until death include the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who said, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Does anyone seriously think that the Catholic Church is going to abandon the 2,000 year old teaching of her Founder so she can embrace the bourgeois values of modern society exemplified by, well, the Globe’s editorial board?

The Globe views the Church in sociological terms, as a human institution which could ease the consciences of its members by making its requirements less rigorous. The Church understands herself as an institution of Divine origin, entrusted with the mission of saving souls, by bringing men and women to the knowledge of the truth.

Sincerely,

C. J. Doyle
Executive Director
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com


NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2015
CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE
(617) 524-6309
catholicactionleague@gmail.com

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE COMMENDS IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY SCHOOL FOR WITHDRAWING FROM BOSTON’S SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today commended the administrators, teachers, and students of Immaculate Heart of Mary School for withdrawing their float and band from Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

In December, a minority of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council — the organizers of the parade — invited a homosexual group specifically contrived for this controversy, OUTVETS, to march, and gave them permission to carry signs and banners identifying their sexual behavior.

Attempts to reverse this decision ended with the resignation of faithful Catholics from the Veterans Council. The school’s float of Saint Patrick blessing the children was, for many years, the iconic symbol of the Boston parade. The Catholic Action League called the school’s decision to withdraw “an act of courage, integrity, and fidelity to the moral teachings of the Catholic religion.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “At a time when so many Catholics conform to the culture, it is profoundly edifying to see the splendid example of Catholic witness offered by Immaculate Heart of Mary School. The Catholic community ought to be grateful that there is at least one Catholic institution left in Massachusetts whose members have the faith, fortitude, and sovereignty of mind to act unreservedly in defense of their Catholic principles. Clearly, at Immaculate Heart of Mary School, they not only profess the Catholic Faith, they live it.”

“This valiant example of unflinching devotion to Catholic Faith and morals deserves to be both emulated by other Catholic organizations and affirmed by the leadership of the Archdiocese of Boston.”

“The Catholic Action League also joins with Brother Thomas Dalton in urging parade organizers to change the name of the parade to the Evacuation Day Parade, commemorating the civil holiday, as the event no longer has any meaningful connection to the religion of Saint Patrick.”

Immaculate Heart of Mary School, administered by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is located in Still River, in the Town of Harvard, MA in the Diocese of Worcester.


Contact the Catholic Action League