2017 Archive

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THE PROCLAMATION OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST

FROM THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

The twenty-fifth of December.

In the year, from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created Heaven and earth, five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine;
from the flood, two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven;
from the birth of Abraham, two thousand and fifteen;
from Moses and the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt, one thousand five hundred and ten;
from the anointing of King David, one thousand and thirty-two;
in the sixty-fifth week, according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
in the year seven hundred and fifty-two from the foundation of the city of Rome;
in the forty-second year of the empire of Octavian Augustus,
when the whole world was at peace, in the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ, eternal God, and Son of the eternal Father, desirous to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived of the Holy Ghost, and nine months having elapsed since His conception, is born in Bethlehem of Juda, having become Man of the Virgin Mary.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
(Nativitas Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum carnem.)

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MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS!

MAY YOU AND YOUR FAMILY HAVE A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.

As we celebrate the birth of the Word made flesh, let us also rejoice in our devotions to the glorious saints of the Christmas Season:

• Saint Stephen, the Proto-Martyr, on December 26th;
• Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist on December 27th;
• the Holy Innocents, Heavenly Patrons of the Pro-Life cause, on December 28th; and
• Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Defender of the Faith, on December 29th.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Head of the Holy Family, pray for us.

Beloved: The grace of God our Savior hath appeared to all men, instructing us, in order that, rejecting ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live temperately and justly and piously in this world, looking for the blessed hope and glorious coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ: Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse to Himself a people acceptable, pursuing good works. Thus speak and exhort, in Christ Jesus our Lord.  — The Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to Titus [2:11-15], for the Mass at Midnight, on the Feast of the Nativity of Our Savior

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A Request To Our Supporters: As we approach the end of the calendar year, we are updating our membership and donor records. If you have moved or changed your postal mailing address in the last year, could you please email your new postal address to: catholicactionleague@gmail.com. Thank you.

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SPECIAL REPORT

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE MOURNS DEATH OF BERNARD, CARDINAL LAW

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is mourning the death of the former Archbishop of Boston, Bernard, Cardinal Law, who died in Rome shortly after midnight, following a brief hospitalization. Law was 86.

Born in Mexico of American parents, Law, a Harvard graduate, was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. In 1963, he became editor of the diocesan newspaper, where he received death threats for his support for the civil rights of African Americans.

Named Vicar-General of Natchez-Jackson in 1971, Law was appointed Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1973, serving until 1984. In 1975, he welcomed and resettled 167 priests, brothers, and novices of the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix, who as Vietnamese boat people, were fleeing the Communist conquest of their country. Law gave them a vacant seminary to serve as their new home.

In 1981, the Holy See appointed Law Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision, which permitted married Anglican clergymen to become Catholic priests. This was the beginning of a long movement which culminated in the establishment of Anglican Catholic Ordinariates by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.

Appointed Archbishop of Boston by Pope Saint John Paul II in January, 1984, Law was elevated to the College of Cardinals in May, 1985. In his homily at his installation as archbishop on March 23, 1984, Law described abortion as “the primordial darkness of our time...the cloud that shrouds the conscience of our world.”

A month later, Law attended a pro-life rally in front of the Massachusetts State House. In 1986, he supported a proposed initiative amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution, which would stop the public funding of abortion, earning him a rebuke from Planned Parenthood, which claimed Law came to Boston “looking for a heavyweight fight” on this issue. His pro-life advocacy would also be criticized by former Lt. Governor Thomas P. O’Neill III, who characterized Law’s views as offensive.

In 1985, in a speech in Latin at the Synod of Bishops in Rome, Law was one of two bishops to advocate that a new, universal catechism be issued, the first since the Roman Catechism, promulgated in 1570 by Saint Pius V, following the Council of Trent. This resulted in the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by John Paul II in 1992. Law was given the task of overseeing the English language translation.

In April, 1985, Law wrote, at the request of the bishops conference, a letter to every American prelate detailing the findings of a conference committee which he headed, which declared that Freemasonry was “incompatible with Christian Faith and practice.”

In January, 1988, Law, consistent with his longstanding civil rights position, issued a letter which was read at all parishes in Boston, urging the integration of public housing projects in the city. He became however, the first, and to date, the only Catholic prelate in the modern history of Boston to acknowledge that working class Catholic ethnics had, in controversies such as these, legitimate concerns regarding crime and public safety.

In 1989, Law opposed the so-called gay rights law, which made homosexuals a protected class in Massachusetts civil rights legislation. Following an editorial critical of the measure in the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, Saint Thomas More Chapel, located next to the newspaper office, was vandalized.

In April, 1990, Law became one of the minority of American bishops who implemented John Paul II’s decree Ecclesia Dei, which permitted a modest restoration of the traditional Latin Mass.

In June, 1990, while Law was presiding at ordination ceremonies at Holy Cross Cathedral, a mob of militant homosexuals surrounded the building and attempted to gain access. Unable to physically disrupt the liturgy, they attempted to acoustically disrupt it with drums, whistles and boat horns. As the ceremonies ended, they surged forward at police barriers shouting obscenities at worshipers and throwing condoms at priests.

In April, 1991, Law, through his aide, Msgr. William Murphy, asked the League’s predecessor organization to oppose a domestic partners ordinance under consideration by the Boston City Council. Although The Boston Globe predicted it would pass by a comfortable margin, it was narrowly defeated following the personal lobbying of Council members by Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence Riley.

Law had a contentious relationship with Jesuit administered Boston College during his episcopate, warning that BC was in danger of losing its Catholic identity. It was Law who intervened to prevent liberal theologian Richard P. McBrien from teaching there. He also once described the Catholic Theological Society of America as a “theological wasteland.”

From 1995 to 1999, the Archdiocese of Boston, under Law’s leadership, supported the efforts of the Catholic Action League to resist, successfully, a second attempt to institute a domestic partners program in Boston, this time by Mayor Thomas Menino.

In 1999, Law opposed the nomination of Margaret Marshall as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth, saying she was “open to serious charges of anti-Catholicism.” As Chief Justice in 2003, Marshall would write the decision in the Goodridge case, inventing a constitutional right to “marriage” between two persons of the same gender. In it, she asserted that the belief in the universal, millenia old definition of marriage was “rooted in persistent prejudices against persons who are (or who are believed to be) homosexual.”

In the late 1990’s, Law told the story that he was the object of attempted extortion. According to his account, he was warned, that if he did not cease to oppose the goals of the homosexual movement, the homosexual priests in the Archdiocese would be exposed. Law said he rebuffed his blackmailer, telling him to go ahead.

Law’s most egregious error, and the one that cost him his position and his reputation, was to follow the practice of his two immediate predecessors, Cardinals Cushing and Medeiros—under whom four-fifths of accused priests in Boston operated—and view the molestation of minors by homosexual predators in the priesthood as a psychiatric disorder requiring treatment, and offering the possibility of rehabilitation, rather than understanding it for what it actually was, a monstrous crime which deserved immediate prosecution and prolonged incarceration. In this the archdiocese did not behave in a manner inconsistent with other institutions of its time, though it should have.

In 2002, members of the plaintiff bar, some of whom had reached settlements with the archdiocese, combined with The Boston Globe, a newspaper which celebrated predators like Paul Shanley, and which had spent thirty years attacking the Catholic Church, Catholic moral teaching, and Catholic political leaders, to expose all of this.

For eleven months in 2002, Law was subjected to a daily cascade of uniformly negative media coverage, driven by the Globe, that is unmatched even in the era of Donald Trump. After hundreds of articles, columns, op-eds, editorials, letters to the editor and television and radio reports, Law’s position became untenable.

Meanwhile, victims groups with bullhorns, bent on confrontation, besieged Holy Cross Cathedral, taunting and harassing innocent Catholics going to Mass, who had never done them any harm. Parishioners were forced to walk into church through a police cordon. Mothers were told through megaphones to cover their children’s genitals, because Catholic priests were abroad. The cathedral was denounced as a “house of rape.”

Poor Hispanics entering Mission Church were greeted with shouts from the sidewalk of “Check their green cards!” and elderly female secretaries at the chancery were forced to pass angry, jeering protesters. This writer recalls one victims’ spokesman shouting profanities at him on Commonwealth Avenue.

Fifty-eight priests—at least one of whom was a personal friend and supervisor of defrocked predator Paul Shanley—called upon Law to resign. Massachusetts Attorney-General Thomas Reilly convened a grand jury to investigate the archdiocese. Law, who had repeatedly and profusely apologized for his failures, resigned on December 13, 2002, begging forgiveness, once again. He was not to receive any.

Reilly who, unethically, released a grand jury report condemning Law, later admitted that the former archbishop had broken no laws, and could not be prosecuted.

In 2004, Law was appointed Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome. He retired in 2011.

Law was, and continues to be, an object of demonization unprecedented even in the cases of prelates like Rembert Weakland, who actually committed acts of molestation themselves. On the day of Cardinal Law’s death, attorney Mitchell Garabedian held a press conference to denounce Law once again, along with the “trillion dollar corporation called the Catholic Church.” During the event, victims talked of having a party, of Law burning in hell, and how they considered “hunting him down in Rome and getting him.”

One victim recounted how he began a meeting with Law by shouting an obscenity at him. Remarkably, Law continued the meeting. This forbearance did not constrain the victim from suggesting that the Cardinal’s body be chopped up and dropped in the ocean.

Whatever the derelictions of Bernard, Cardinal Law, this much ought to be said. With Cardinal Law, you never had to wonder where he stood on a public controversy. He was never afraid to enter the fray when he conceived it his duty to do so, and he never hesitated to defend the teachings of the Church which he headed in Boston. Cardinal Law never thought silence was the better part of valor, that speaking the truth was impolitic, or that standing up for what he believed in was divisive.

Law never practiced the fawning, obsequious deference towards politicians who reject Catholic morality that seems to obsess our prelates today. In 1990, then state senator (and future governor) Paul Cellucci was disinvited from speaking at Hudson Catholic High School, because of his support for legal abortion.

At Cardinal John O’Connor’s funeral in May of 2000, Law garnered thunderous applause when he said the Church “must always remain unambiguously pro-life,” as Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore sat stone faced in the congregation. The current regime of awards, honors and platforms to opponents of Catholic teaching was not the norm under Cardinal Law.

Nor should anyone forget what Cardinal O’Malley said of Cardinal Law today: “He was well known for visiting the sick, the dying and the bereaved at all hours of the night and day, a ministry that extended to the rich and the poor, the young and the elderly, and to people of all faiths.”

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NEWS UPDATE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017

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

– MORE CHURCH PLATFORMS FOR PRO-ABORTION POLS
– HOLY CROSS IS ASHAMED OF THE CROSS
– A THANK YOU TO OUR MEMBERS

I. More Church platforms for proponents of abortion and sodomy

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

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, declared, consistent with Divine and natural law, and the perennial teaching of the Church, that “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”

Despite the fact that the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is the former Pro-Life Activities Chairman of the bishops’ conference, this prohibition against honoring or hosting pro-abortion public figures is routinely ignored in the Archdiocese of Boston. As the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts documented in its June, 2017 Special Report, there have been, at least, eighteen violations of this policy involving the personal participation or authorization by Cardinal O’Malley since 2014.

The League recently reported two additional incidents in the last two months when Boston Mayor Marty Walsh spoke at the Celebration of the Priesthood dinner on September 28th and when the Cardinal held a joint press conference with Congressman Joe Kennedy on October 3rd.

The Cardinal, it would seem, is bi-partisan. He embraces not just pro-abortion Democrats, but pro-abortion Republicans also. Meanwhile, the episcopal betrayals of the pro-life cause continue and accelerate:

On October 23rd, Cardinal O’Malley joined Massachusetts Republican Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito at the groundbreaking ceremony for Bethany Apartments, where a former dormitory building at the Cardinal Cushing Center in Hanover will be converted into 37 units of affordable housing. Polito is a supporter of abortion, marriage deformity. gender ideology, buffer zones, and the recently expanded state mandate requiring employers, including religious institutions, to subsidize abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations. As a state representative, Polito received a 100% rating from both the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. In 2015, Polito, who was first elected to the House of Representatives as a defender of traditional marriage, officiated at the “wedding ceremony” of state Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, 65, and his aide and paramour, Bryan Hefner, 27. As usual, the cardinal was photographed smiling with this proponent of child murder and depravity.

On October 25th, Cardinal O’Malley welcomed Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center (the high priced PR firm didn’t like the term chancery) in Braintree. Walsh spoke at an archdiocesan sponsored addiction recovery workshop. Earlier this year, Walsh named a square in the city’s South End after the notorious abortionist Kenneth Edelin, who was convicted of manslaughter in 1975 for suffocating a 24-week-old infant after a failed saline abortion.

II. Holy Cross is ashamed of the Cross

The Jesuit administered College of the Holy Cross is actually considering changing the historic name of its football team, as the term Crusaders might be offensive to the followers of Mohammed. There is no indication that any Muslim, whose community comprises one percent of the U. S. population, has registered an objection to the name. The initiative comes from politically correct, culturally conforming liberals from within the college, who despise the very memory of Christendom, and who believe they have the right and the duty to secularize Catholic education, dispossess Catholics of their institutions and their heritage, and enforce subservience to bourgeois ideology, which they characterize as “21st century values.”

The Latin derivation of the word crusader comes from “taking the Cross,”—the crucem—referring to the Cross of our Savior, after which the college is named.

If the Church, and the Society of Jesus, were healthy, such a malign proposal, which combines odium fidei with secularist presumption, under the guise of appeasing the enemies of the Cross, would be dismissed, out of hand. Sadly, the corruption in Jesuit education is pandemic, and worsening. What would, two generations ago, be treated as an absurdity is now the subject of impassioned debate. As events in France in the 1790’s remind us, collective insanity is one the consequences of revolution.

None of this would be possible without the mixture of historical illiteracy and anti-Catholic bigotry which pervades modern higher education. The Crusades were just wars of liberation waged in response to unjust wars of aggression, which saw a peaceful and homogeneously Christian Middle East invaded and conquered by Mohammedan fanatics.

The immediate catalyst for the First Crusade was the cry for help from the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, whose territory was being overrun and whose citizens were being slaughtered by Seljuk Turks. The robbery and murder of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, and the destruction, earlier in the eleventh century, of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Muslim Caliph, were longstanding grievances against the Saracen occupiers of what had been, for nearly 700 years, Greek speaking provinces of the Roman Empire.

The idea of vigorously defending, rather than submissively apologizing for Catholic history, has now, tragically, become an alien concept in the contemporary Church.

III. A Thank You to our Members

I would like to thank all of our members who braved the cold on November 11th to attend our Annual Rosary for our faithful departed at James Michael Curley’s grave in Roslindale. Through the courtesy of Mayor Curley’s last surviving stepson, Richard Dennis, and that of Professor Larry Overlan of Suffolk University, we were able, afterward, to enjoy a tour of the Mayor’s home on the the Jamaicaway in Jamaica Plain, which is undergoing an extensive renovation underwritten by the City of Boston’s George Robert White Fund.

The Catholic Action League is the only Catholic organization which faithfully commemorates the anniversary of the “Mayor of the Poor.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES CONTRACEPTION SUBSIDY LAW

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today denounced the law expanding employer subsidized contraceptive coverage—Chapter 120 of the Acts of 2017—which Governor Charlie Baker signed this afternoon. The legislation will eliminate all remaining co-pays, reviews, and limitations on mandatory contraceptive coverage in group health insurance plans in the Commonwealth.

The measure passed the Massachusetts House of Representatives by a vote of 138 to 16 on November 8th. The state Senate concurred by a vote of 27 to 0 on November 13th. The law was promoted as a response to the Trump administration executive order defending the religious freedom rights of employers, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, who had conscientious objections to subsidizing birth control.

The Catholic Action League characterized the new law as “a coercive and gratuitous measure that is more about ideological enforcement than health care.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Birth control is legal, inexpensive and ubiquitously available in Massachusetts. It has been a mandatory part of employer sponsored group health insurance since 2002, and has been subsidized, for those meeting income guidelines, since Commonwealth Care began in 2006.”

“Under this new law, those who have moral objections to contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations will be compelled, in violation of their consciences, to subsidize, at an expanded level, procedures and practices which they find abhorrent.”

“Our constitutional and jurisprudential tradition has long maintained that a ‘reasonable accommodation’ ought to be granted to the sincerely held moral and religious beliefs of citizens. This absolutist legislation offers no such accommodation. Even the Deval Patrick administration admitted that the narrow religious exemption to the existing law—which will be continued under this new law—will not apply to most religious employers.”

“The ease and speed with which this legislation sailed through both houses of the General Court—despite nominal Catholic majorities in each chamber—and the ready assent given to it by a Republican governor, ought to remind the voters of Massachusetts that one of the Bay State’s most powerful special interests is Planned Parenthood.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

NOVEMBER 17, 2017

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

To the Editor:

The Boston Globe story on signature gathering at local parishes characterized Catholic support for an initiative petition against publicly funded abortion in the Commonwealth as politics, (Catholics split over petition drives at churches, 11/13/2017).

A campaign for an initiative amendment to the state constitution is not an exercise in partisan politics. Morality and justice, not political concerns, inform Catholic efforts to defend the lives of the unborn.

The 19th century movement to abolish African slavery in America found its base in the Congregational and Unitarian churches of New England. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized the black churches of the South to advance civil rights.

No one accused them of playing politics or breaching the separation of church and state.

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein

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MEMBER ADVISORY

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2017

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

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Esther Johnson of Roslindale in Boston, who died at home on November 5th, after a long illness. A pious, orthodox and pro-life Catholic, Esther was a charter member of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, who always took time to express her support and encourage us in our work. She will be terribly missed.

Please pray also for her family, who have suffered such a grievous loss.

O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of your servants and handmaids departed full remission of their sins, that, through our devout prayers, they may obtain the pardon, which they have always desired. Who live and reign, world without end. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord. And let perpetual life shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen. May her 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

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MEDIA INTERVIEW

An interview of C.J. Doyle by Anita Carey that was published on ChurchMilitant.com on November 2, 2017.

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Pro-Life Leader Exposes Pro-Abortion Network in Boston Archdiocese

C.J. Doyle: “This collaborationist, Vichy Catholicism is unacceptable”

A prominent pro-lifer is outlining the capitulation to pro-abortion politicians by the Catholic Church that’s keeping abortion unchecked and free in the state of Massachusetts.

Church Militant spoke with C.J. Doyle, executive director of Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, about the petition calling out Cdl. Sean O’Malley and the increasing numbers of scandals. Below follows the full interview.

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CM: How long has the leadership of the Catholic Church been on the side of pro-abortion politicians in Boston? 

CJD: Catholic colleges, universities and elite secondary schools in the archdiocese of Boston have been inviting, honoring, awarding, employing and providing platforms to pro-abortion politicians since the 1970s. The library at Boston College is actually named after Tip O’Neill.

Under the leadership of Cdl. Bernard Law, however, the archdiocese itself was careful to avoid such scandals, so much so that when Cdl. Law once met with Ted Kennedy, a Boston Globe photographer had to use a telephoto lens to capture the event on film.

This completely changed in 2003 when Sean O’Malley became archbishop and brought in as his closest adviser Fr. Bryan Hehir who wrote that the Church must rebuild trust with civil society meaning the political class. As early as December 2005, under Hehir’s leadership, the Catholic Charitable Bureau of the archdiocese honored as its man of the year Boston’s pro-abortion and fanatically pro-homosexual Mayor Thomas Menino.

CJD: While it may be difficult to quantify the exact impact of the CitizenGo petition to Cdl. O’Malley which was sponsored by the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, I believe it did have an effect and was a leading indicator of the unprecedented breadth, depth and intensity of anger and outrage expressed in the pro-life community in Massachusetts towards the Catholic hierarchy, something we have never seen before since the beginnings of the pro-life movement here in the 1960s.

CM: The cardinal’s and bishop’s revision of the signature ban appeared as if they were unaware of the pro-life initiative to remove state funding for abortion. Is this the case?

CJD: The lobbying arm of the Catholic bishops in the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, was most certainly aware of the initiative petition drive to stop the public funding of abortion, as they did everything in their power to discourage it in 2015 and sabotage it in 2017. The party line propagated by the conference and the Boston chancery was that the petition drive would distract from the efforts to oppose physician-assisted suicide.

The reality, however, is more complex. The major fundraiser for the archdiocese of Boston and the chief backer of the Catholic Schools Foundation was Jack Connors, a former bundler for the Obama/Biden campaigns. The archdiocesan communications director is Connor’s friend, Terence Donilan, who worked for the pro-abortion former governor of Rhode Island, Bruce Sundlun. Donilon’s brother, Thomas Donilon, was Obama’s National Security Adviser. His other brother, Mike Donilon, was counsel to Joe Biden. His sister-in-law was chief-of-staff to Second Lady Jill Biden.

The last chairman of the former Catholic hospital network, Caritas Christi, was James Karam, campaign fundraiser for Congressman Barney Frank. The archdiocesan public relations firm is Rasky Baerlein, founded by Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Larry Rasky. The political figure closest to the archdiocese is Boston Mayor Marty Walsh who said he would turn Boston into a sanctuary city for abortions should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

The media figure closest to the archdiocese is John Allen, Jr. of Crux, who spent much of his career at the radically pro-abortion National Catholic Reporter. The cardinal’s closest adviser is Fr. Bryan Hehir, the reputed author of the “seamless garment" concept.

The point of this lengthy response is that pro-life activity, such as the initiative petition against the public funding of abortion, disturbs the comfortable accommodation which the archdiocese has achieved with the state’s pro-abortion financial, political and media elites.

CM: How do clergy damage the Church when they make public appearances with pro-abortion or scandalous politicians? 

CJD: As for the damage to the Church done by episcopal public appearances with pro-abortion politicians, the Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition published this in its statement of September 13th:

On repeated occasions, Cdl. O’Malley has been not merely amicable but laudatory to those who promote abortion. This is corrosive to pro-life work and disheartening to those involved.

If it is a strategy aimed at conversion, it is a failed strategy. All of the movement among politicians in Massachusetts on the abortion issue has been in one direction — from pro-life to pro-abortion. No one can identify a member of the congressional delegation, the legislature, the Boston City Council or a constitutional officer who has changed from pro-abortion to pro-life.

On the contrary, some have been emboldened to embrace even more extreme positions in favor of abortion. For example, when Mayor Walsh names a square after abortionist Kenneth Edelin or says he wants to make Boston a sanctuary city for abortion, he knows, absolutely, that there will be no push-back from the archdiocese of Boston.

Furthermore, the cardinal’s overtures to abortion advocates:

• Are uncharitable to the advocates themselves. The Spiritual Works of Mercy include instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful and admonishing the sinner. Saint Paul says the clergy should “convince, rebuke and exhort" (2 Tim. 4:2).
• Send a scandalous message of discouragement and confusion. Among the Catholic clergy this can only tend to blunt opposition to the Culture of Death; likewise among the laity who may be led to think that abortion is not intrinsically evil and/or that Church teaching is not important.
• Marginalize many pro-lifers. It conveys to politicians, police and the media that pro-lifers, especially the ones who minister outside of abortion facilities, are on their own and have no institutional backing. This impression is reinforced by the refusal of the archdiocese of Boston to support 40 Days for Life, an international, twice-per-year 40-day peaceful campaign of prayer at abortion facilities, fasting and community outreach. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Catholic legislators vote for buffer zones, that Catholic public officials lie about pro-lifers at public hearings, nor that a newspaper columnist falsely accuses pro-lifers of screaming obscenities.

CM: What do they have to gain by siding with pro-abortion politicians? 

CJD: What is gained is human respect, the avoidance of controversy, an end to unfavorable media coverage, financial contributions from secular elites, peaceful co-existence with dissident Catholics, legislators willing to vote money for Catholic Charities, and shout-outs, pats on the back and smiling photo-ops with disreputable, anti-Catholic politicians.

CM: What else should the bishops do to support pro-life work in the state?

CJD: The bishops can support the pro-life movement by complying with their own stated policies in enforcing the provisions of “Catholics in Political Life" and stop giving awards, honors and platforms to pro-abortion public figures. 

CM: With such entrenched opposition to true Catholicism, what can the laity do? 

CJD: The Catholic laity must make known in forceful and unambiguous terms to their pastors and to their prelates that this collaborationist, Vichy Catholicism is unacceptable. 

In a statement on Saturday, Bill Cotter, the president of Operation Rescue: Boston and the spokesman for the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, states: 

The Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition has now achieved one of its three objectives. Accomplishing the other two, persuading our prelates to stop betraying the pro-life movement by giving awards, honors and platforms to pro-abortion public figures and to fully enforce the provisions of Catholics in Political Life — the bishops’ conference document which forbids such honors — is likely to take longer and prove more difficult. What we have learned from this episode, however, is that our spiritual leaders will occasionally respond to the outrage of the faithful.

Church Militant reached out to Cdl. O’Malley’s office and the archdiocese of Boston, but they have not replied as of press time. 

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MEDIA UPDATE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2017

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

THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE IN THE NEWS

For the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, the last six weeks have been a period of intense media coverage, both local and national. The League has spoken out in defense of Catholic morality, the constitutional rights of Catholic citizens, and the moral right of faithful, pro-life Catholics not to have their struggle to protect the unborn undermined by scandalous betrayals committed by our Catholic institutions, and sadly, even by our spiritual leaders.

On one issue, the press turned to us because the Archdiocese of Boston, which has a communications office, and two high powered public relations firms working for it, avoided comment when the media sought a Catholic response on the latest aggression against the religious freedom rights of Catholic employers and taxpayers in the matter of contraceptive coverage in group health insurance.

Here is a list of some of the League’s recent media appearances:

• The League’s participation in the statement issued on September 13th by the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, urging our bishops to stop their betrayals of the pro-life cause, was mentioned in coverage by LifeSiteNews, Church Militant TV, The Boston Broadside, and twice, by the New Boston Post. I was also interviewed on the Boston Neighborhood Network program Life Matters.
• In an interview with reporter Bob Katzen on legislative efforts to lower the age of consent for abortion, I said that this special interest bill was one more tawdry attempt by Planned Parenthood to promote its abortion business, and that it would not only expand the killing of the unborn, but would undermine the integrity of the family and impede the right of parents to control the upbringing of their own children. This was quoted in a September 22nd story by the Beacon Hill Roll Call that was carried in numerous local newspapers throughout the state.
• In an interview with reporter Stephanie Ebbert, I said the the so-called contraceptive access bill was, in fact, a mandatory subsidy which would coerce the consciences of Catholics, and its so-called religious exemption was mere tokenism. My comments were printed in a story in The Boston Globe on October 3rd.
• In an interview with reporter Steve LeBlanc on the same issue, I said the bill was an assault on the consciences and pocketbooks of Catholics that would force Catholic institutions to provide involuntary financial support for practices which their religion condemns as abhorrent. My comments were quoted in an October 3rd Associated Press story that was published in Boston.com, U.S. News & World Report, The Seattle Times and the McClatchy newspapers.
• Our letter to the editor on physician assisted suicide was printed by the Boston Herald on October 4th.
• In a second interview with Steve LeBlanc, on President Trump’s executive order repealing the Obamacare mandate on contraceptive coverage, I said that no one has a moral or a constitutional right to demand that someone else pay for their abortifacients, contraceptives and sterilizations, and that Attorney-General Maura Healey — who is suing Trump — believes Catholics have no right to choose when it comes to subsidizing other people’s birth control. These remarks were quoted in another AP story on October 6th, which appeared in Boston.com, the Boston Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and on the website of CBS Boston Channel 4.
• An interview on the contraceptive access bill with reporter Caitlin Milliken of the Boston University State House Program resulted in my comments being carried in an October 8th article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and in subsequent stories in the Milford Daily News, the Metrowest Daily News and Framingham Wicked Local.
• A radio interview with reporter Charlie Butts on the contraceptive access bill was aired on October 9th on the American Family Radio Network, a summary of which was published on the website OneNewsNow.
• Another interview on President Trump’s executive order, this time with reporter Christian Wade, in which I said the President should be commended for keeping his campaign promise to defend religious freedom, saw my remarks published in a North of Boston Media Group story carried on October 11th in such local papers as The Gloucester Times, The Newburyport Daily News, The Salem News, and The Greenfield Recorder.
• A Catholic Action League Action Alert on the attempt by the Mayor of Waltham to seize the property of the Stigmatine Fathers by eminent domain will be published on November 1st in The Boston Broadside.

Through your continued support, the Catholic Action League will continue to be an effective and outspoken voice for orthodox Catholicism, and Catholic civil rights, in the hostile political and media environment of Massachusetts.

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The following is a news release issued by William Cotter, President of Operation Rescue: Boston, on behalf of the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, whose constituent organizations include the Catholic Action League. Bill Cotter is the organizer and spokesman of the Coalition.

* * * * * *

NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2017

CONTACT: WILLIAM COTTER
editor@orboston.org

AFTER PRO-LIFE PROTESTS, ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON RESCINDS BAN ON SIGNATURE GATHERING ON CHURCH PROPERTY

Following a six week protest campaign by the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, which included media visibility and an online petition drive directed at Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archdiocese of Boston has rescinded its ban on signature gathering on church property, while characterizing its backstep as a “modification” of existing policy.

On June 1st, the four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts issued a directive prohibiting the gathering of signatures for initiative petitions — promoting referendums and state constitutional amendments — on church property. The hierarchy claimed, without offering evidence, that there was “overwhelming feedback from parishioners” opposed to this practice.

The decision sparked outrage among pro-life Catholics, as it would adversely impact a campaign for an initiative amendment aimed at halting the public funding of abortion in the Commonwealth.

On October 26th, the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, released a letter retracting the ban. In that statement, Cardinal O’Malley said, “The decision to allow signature gathering will be at the sole discretion of the Pastor of that Church.” He further stipulated that the petition “must be in accordance with the teachings of the Church”; and that the location of collecting “shall be determined by the Pastor.”

The Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition is calling this “a significant reversal of church policy, following the unrelenting opposition of faithful Catholics, who saw pro-abortion politicians welcomed to church events, while pro-life supporters of Catholic teaching were relegated to the public sidewalks.”

Operation Rescue: Boston President William Cotter, speaking on behalf of the Coalition, made the following comment: “The Cardinal’s repeal of the ban essentially returns pro-lifers to the status quo ante. Those Catholic pastors who actively support the right to life will, once again, be free to promote petition drives on church property.”

“The Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition has now achieved one of its three objectives. Accomplishing the other two, persuading our prelates to stop betraying the pro-life movement by giving awards, honors and platforms to pro-abortion public figures, and to fully enforce the provisions of Catholics in Political Life — the Bishops Conference document which forbids such honors — is likely to take longer and prove more difficult. What we have learned from this episode, however, is that our spiritual leaders will occasionally respond to the outrage of the faithful.”

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MEMBER ADVISORY

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE TO HOLD ANNUAL CURLEY COMMEMORATION

November 12, 2017 will be the 59th anniversary of the death of Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor James Michael Curley. As this date falls on a Sunday, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts will hold its Annual Rosary at the Curley grave on Saturday, November 11th at 12 noon. Mayor Curley’s grave is located on the top of the hill, behind the chapel, in Old Calvary Cemetery in Roslindale, just off 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
• Louise Birmingham
• 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
• Jane M. Deery
• Robert J. Delery
• James J. Derba
• James S. DiPerri
• Marilyn Doherty
• 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.
• Hon. & Mrs. Edward T. Hanley
• 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
• Paul A. Likoudis
• Florence MacIsaac
• John J. MacIsaac
• Albert James Healy Madden
• Richard Malone
• Paul May
• Vincent Mazzarella
• Paul McCarthy
• Andrew J. McCauley, Esq.
• Celia McClory
• Mrs. Mary McEnroe
• Gino Michelutti
• William P. Monahan, Esq.
• Paul F. X. Moriarty
• John T. Mulry
• Walter T. Mulry
• Hon. James J. Nixon
• Hon. Joseph R. Nolan
• Rev. Hugh O’Regan
• Dante Pattavina
• Frances Pattavina
• Dr. Vincent 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

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NEWS UPDATE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2017

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

CARDINAL O’MALLEY AND JOE KENNEDY

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, is pictured above listening to U. S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, (D-MA), who is speaking at their joint press conference on October 3rd at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton. The Cardinal and the Congressman—whose family financed the establishment the facility in 1949—were there to announce a new pediatric mental health initiative involving Franciscan Children’s, the Archdiocese of Boston, and McLean Hospital, which is the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

A few minutes before, in media interviews, both Kennedy and O’Malley called upon Congress to do more to curb gun violence, with O’Malley saying our political leaders must be “more aggressive and efficacious” on the issue.

Kennedy, who is married to a former NARAL lobbyist, is a proponent of contraception, gender ideology, the deformity of marriage, and legal, unrestricted, and publicly funded abortion. He is an opponent of the Hyde Amendment, an advocate for taxpayer subsidies of Planned Parenthood, an adversary of conscience protections, and a supporter of the now vacated Obamacare mandate which required religious institutions, and other employers, to pay for abortifacients, contraceptives and sterilizations.

In 2017, Kennedy received the “Men for Choice” Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. As a member of the U. S. House of Representatives, Kennedy enjoys a 100% rating from both the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Kennedy has continually attempted to delegitimize the right to life position by asserting that any opposition to abortion represents the imposition of religious dogma. He has even gone so far as to say that the only rights pro-life Americans have in this matter is the right not to have abortions themselves. At congressional hearings, he demonstrates an unconcealed contempt for pro-life Christians.

In June, 2017, Kennedy had his wife and infant daughter accompany him when he marched in Boston’s depraved, pornographic homosexual “Pride Parade.”

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

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Joe Kennedy is not only a moral imbecile who abets two of the four sins which crieth to heaven for vengeance—the willful murder of the innocent and the sin of impurity against nature—but he is a mendacious demagogue and a secular fundamentalist who portrays any objection to coerced subsidies for abortion as an attempt at theocracy.”

“It is disgraceful for a Catholic prelate to treat this abortion fanatic, and enemy to the Faith of his baptism, as a respected collaborator in promoting the common good. Under the episcopate of Sean O’Malley, the scandals and betrayals in the Archdiocese of Boston not only continue, but worsen in gravity and in frequency.”

This incident was the second violation by the Archdiocese of Boston—in the last two weeks—of the prohibition against providing platforms to pro-abortion politicians contained in Catholics in Political Life. On September 28th, NARAL award recipient Marty Walsh, the Mayor of Boston, spoke, once again, at the annual Celebration of the Priesthood dinner at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.

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PRESS STATEMENT

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE HAILS TRUMP ORDER ON CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS

The following is a statement issued Friday by C. J. Doyle, Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, in response to a request for public comment from the Associated Press. AP contacted the League regarding the executive order, issued by President Donald Trump, allowing an exemption, based on moral and religious beliefs, to the Obama administration’s U. S. Department of Health and Human Services regulation—pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010—which mandated contraceptive coverage in employer sponsored group health insurance. AP also asked Doyle to comment on the decision of Massachusetts Attorney-General Maura Healey to sue the federal government.

Doyle commented: “No one has a moral or a constitutional right to demand that someone else pay for their contraceptives, abortifacients or sterilizations. President Trump is to commended for keeping his campaign promise to defend religious freedom.”

“Maura Healey, the only constitutional officer who has boasted of her endorsement by Planned Parenthood, believes that Catholics have no right to choose when it comes subsidizing other people’s birth control.”

Doyle’s statement was carried in AP stories appearing in, among other publications, the Boston Herald, Boston.com, the Miami Herald, and The Los Angeles Times.

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NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES EXPANSION OF CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Planned Parenthood’s so-called ACCESS bill, which would increase the financial burden on employers and taxpayers by expanding the state mandate for employer subsidised group health insurance coverage of contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients.

Massachusetts has had a mandate for contraceptive coverage in health insurance since Chapter 49 of the Acts of 2002 was signed into law by Governor Jane Swift in March of that year. Since the passage of the Commonwealth Care program in 2006, government subsidised contraceptives and sterilizations have been available through Mass Health, with or without co-pays, for those meeting low income guidelines.

This measure—S.499/H.536-An Act Advancing Contraceptive Coverage And Economic Security In Our State—would eliminate all co-pays and deductibles, and remove all remaining limitations in employer sponsored contraceptive coverage. Under the provisions of this bill, all FDA approved contraceptive drugs would be available over the counter without a prescription, and an enrollee could receive a twelve month supply of contraceptives at a single dispensing. This would include such potential abortifacients as the morning after pill and other oral, chemical contraceptives.

Although the proposed legislation repeats a narrow, pre-existing religious exemption, based on the federal Internal Revenue Service definition of “church controlled organizations,” a 2012 document from the administration of Governor Deval Patrick states that religious hospitals and universities would, likely, not be eligible for a religious exemption. This measure would further constrict the parameters of the exemption based on types and sources of income.

The bill, which is sponsored by state senator Harriet Chandler (D-Worcester) and state representative Patricia Haddad (D-Somerset), is being promoted by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts. A public hearing on the measure will be held today in the State House by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Financial Services.

The Catholic Action League characterized the measure as “an assault on the consciences and pocketbooks of Catholics and other taxpayers and employers, including religious institutions, who are being coerced by the government—to even a greater extent—into paying for other people’s contraceptives, sterilizations and chemical abortions.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “What the Left describes as ‘access’ is, actually, a state mandated subsidy, which burdens the consciences of those forced, against their will, to provide it. The ‘right to choose,’ evidently, does not apply to Catholic employers.”

“The religious exemption, which is narrow and nominal, is mere tokenism. A significant proportion of Catholic institutions in the state will be required to continue, at an expanded level, involuntary financial support for practises their religion condemns as abhorrent.”

“This absolutist, Planned Parenthood special interest legislation is intended to maximize contraceptive use, which comports with their population control ideology and promotes their abortion business.”

“When Massachusetts legalized birth control in 1966, liberals of that era lectured Catholics about not imposing our values on others. Today’s liberals seem to have no scruples whatsoever about imposing their values on us.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

OCTOBER 3, 2017 — Published October 12

Letters to the Editor
Waltham News Tribune/Wicked Local Waltham
254 Second Avenue
Needham, MA 02494

To the Editor:

The recent statement by Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy about her renewed attempt to use eminent domain against a Catholic religious order is a mixture of unsubstantiated assertions, calculated omissions, and presumptuous demands for compliance from the City Council, (Mayor defends request for additional funds for Stigmatine site, 9/28/2017).

The mayor fails to address the moral issue of whether her preference, and that of the School Committee, for the location of a new high school justifies the government of Waltham in dispossessing the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers from their home. Nor does she mention the potential litigation costs to Waltham taxpayers should the Stigmatines mount a constitutional challenge to this highhanded aggression.

Using the weapon of eminent domain against a constitutionally protected religious institution is unheard of in Massachusetts. The mayor should find a location for a new high school that does not require the abuse of government power, or which deprives innocent citizens of their home.

Sincerely,

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

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ACTION ALERT!!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

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

PROTEST USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN AGAINST CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS ORDER!

The Mayor of Waltham, Jeannette McCarthy, and the Waltham School Committee—despite outrage by citizens and two defeats before the City Council—are dredging up once again their attempt to seize, by eminent domain, a Catholic church and monastery.

Mayor McCarthy and the School Committee want the property of the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers as the site of a new high school. The forty-six acre site includes the Espousal Retreat House and Conference Center, the Holy Spouses Shrine, a residence occupied by priests and brothers, and open space used for religious retreats.

The use of the police power of eminent domain by a municipal government against a religious institution is unprecedented and unheard of in the Commonwealth. No one in living memory can recall such a use of raw state power against a church.

Churches in the Bay State are afforded constitutional protections guaranteed by both the the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution and, even more broadly, by Article II of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution. The mere preference of the mayor and the school committee for the location of a new high school hardly rises to the level of a compelling state interest. It does not justify the dispossession of the Stigmatines from their home. This is an abuse of the eminent domain process.

Please contact Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and demand that she stop this aggression against unoffending priests and brothers—citizens of Waltham—who have served that community for many years!

You may reach Mayor McCarthy by email at mayor@city.waltham.ma.us, by telephone at (781)314-3100, or by fax at (781)894-9581. You may also write to her at City of Waltham Mayor’s Office, City Hall, Second Floor, 610 Main Street,Waltham, MA 02452.

Please contact her today!

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MEMBER ALERT

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

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

ROBERT M. CAPPUCCI—PRO-LIFE AND PRO-FAMILY CATHOLIC IS RUNNING FOR MAYOR OF BOSTON

Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 26th, the City of Boston will hold its non-partisan Preliminary Election for Mayor and City Council. There is only one Catholic candidate on the municipal ballot who can be trusted to reliably, unequivocally and uncompromisingly defend the right to life, religious freedom and Christian morality. That candidate is Robert M. Cappucci, who is running for Mayor of Boston.

As an elected member of the Boston School Committee, Robert Cappucci was the only committeeman to vote against the distribution of contraceptives to minors in the public schools.

It has been many years since a faithful Catholic has sought municipal office in Boston. Given the direction that our society, and our Church, are heading, it may be some time before there is another such candidacy.

If you are registered to vote in the City of Boston, please do not miss this rare opportunity to cast a vote for your principles by voting for Robert M. Cappucci for Mayor!

I urge you to visit Bob Cappucci’s website at https://www.bobcappucciformayor.org/. If you want to help tomorrow, or need a ride to the polls, please Call Bob Cappucci at 617-826-5424 or Attorney Bob Joyce at 617-775-9704.

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Because there are only eight candidates seeking four positions, there will be no preliminary election for at-large city councillors. Only four of the nine city council districts will hold preliminary contests. The only district city council candidate who has the courage to support traditional moral values is longshot Roy Owens, who is running in Roxbury's District Seven.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER 24, 2017 — Published October 4, 2017

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

To the Editor:

In the Herald story on the effort to legalize assisted suicide in Massachusetts, the headline read: “Right to die co-sponsor pushes back against church,” (9/23/2017).

The Catholic Church has no political power in this state and hasn’t had any for decades. The last orthodox Catholic to serve as governor, Edward J. King, left office in 1983.

The media persists, however, in framing every debate over a moral issue, no matter how many parties are involved, as someone standing up to the Catholic Church. Perhaps the time has come to retire this phony narrative, which only perpetuates archaic, anti-Catholic stereotypes.

The co-sponsor of the suicide bill, State Senator—and likely congressional candidate—Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover), identifies herself in the story as a Catholic. Most people in Massachusetts have, by now, figured out that the only time Bay State politicians call themselves Catholic is when they are about to betray the Faith of their baptism.

Sincerely,

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

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NEWS UPDATE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017

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

CATHOLIC PARISH WELCOMES LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR KARYN POLITO AT FAMILY FESTIVAL — PRO-LIFERS KEPT ON SIDEWALK

On Sunday, September 17th, Saint Mary’s Parish in Shrewsbury—part of the Diocese of Worcester—welcomed Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito as a speaker at the church’s annual Family Festival. Polito, along with State Representative Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury), addressed parishioners attending the festival, which was held in the church parking lot. Following their remarks, they were given a photo-op with the pastor, Msgr. Michael Rose.

Polito, a nominal Catholic who has enjoyed a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, is a supporter of abortion, contraception, buffer zones, embryonic stem cell research, gender ideology and the deformity of marriage. As a state representative in 2003, she voted for a pro-life right to know measure in the Massachusetts House. Polito now says she regrets that vote and is opposed to informed consent legislation. She claims to be ‘proud’ of her NARAL rating.

In November, 2016, the homosexual Rainbow Times hailed Representative Kane’s re-election as one of the Republicans who voted to make so-called transgendered persons a protected class in Massachusetts civil rights law.

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

While Polito and Kane spoke at the parish event, faithful Catholics, collecting signatures for an initiative petition to end tax funded abortions in the Commonwealth, were relegated to the public sidewalks, forbidden to enter church property by a recent directive of the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts.

The Catholic Action League, comparing the welcome afforded Polito with the restrictions imposed on pro-life Catholics, called the episode “evidence of an appalling double standard in the clergy, where dissent is favored, and fidelity is scorned.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Hypocrisy, servility to political power, lip service and a lack of seriousness about the right to life, and a practical indifference to scandal, immorality and the mass murder of the pre-born, are all too common in our clergy and hierarchy today.”

“No one should be surprised when millions of Catholics vote for politicians committed to the destruction of innocent human life. Our own priests and prelates, by their example, signal, repeatedly, to their parishioners that pro-abortion politicians—such as Michael Capuano, John Kerry, Karyn Polito, or Marty Walsh—are respected members of the Catholic community.”

“As in the Counter-Reformation, the reform of the Church must begin with the reform of the clergy, which, in turn, must begin with the reform of the episcopate.”

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MEMBER ADVISORY

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2017

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

OUR LADY OF SORROWS, PRAY FOR US

Today, September 15th, is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, or, as it was called in the traditional liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each day of the year, faithful Catholics recite in their morning prayers, in their Rosary, and in the Leonine prayers after Low Mass, the Ave Maria of Saint Dominic — the Hail Mary.

On this day, however, it has been a pious custom to recite, while contemplating the Seven Dolours, the Ave Maria of Saint Bonaventure. It reads as follows: Hail Mary, full of sorrows, Jesus crucified is with thee. Tearful art thou among women, and tearful is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus crucified, give tears to us, crucifiers of thy Son, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The Seven Dolours are:

1. The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35)
2. The flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
3. Loss of the Child Jesus for three days in the Temple (Luke 2:41-50)
4. The Ascent of Calvary, the meeting of Our Lord and Our Lady on the Via Dolorosa (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)
5. Crucifixion and Death of Our Savior (John 19:25-30)
6. The body of Jesus is taken down from the Cross (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)
7. The burial of Jesus (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)

This devotion was revealed to Saint Bridget of Sweden. It commemorates the spiritual martyrdom of Our Lady, who stood at the foot of the Cross.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Simeon, pray for us.

Saint Bridget, pray for us.

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ACTION ALERT!!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2017

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

ONLINE PETITION TO CARDINAL O’MALLEY:
STOP THE BETRAYALS!

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is asking all faithful Catholics and all supporters of the right to life to sign the online petition calling upon Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, to stop his scandalous and repeated betrayals of the pro-life movement.

The petition, which appears on the CitizenGo website, was framed by the Massachusetts Ad Hoc Pro-Life Coalition, whose constituent organizations include Operation Rescue: Boston, Mass Resistance, and the Catholic Action League.

On September 13th, the Coalition issued a public statement (follows below) demanding that Cardinal O’Malley and the Commonwealth’s other Catholic bishops stop promoting pro-abortion politicians, reverse the ban on pro-life signature gathering on church property, and begin enforcing the provisions of Catholics in Political Life, the instruction from the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops which states:

“The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

In its statement, the Coalition cited the June 30th Special Report by the Catholic Action League, which documented nineteen incidents in the last three years in which Massachusetts prelates either authorised or participated in the granting of honors or platforms to pro-abortion public figures. Eighteen of these nineteen incidents involved Cardinal O’Malley.

Just this month, the Cardinal co-authored an op-ed article in The Boston Globe on immigration amnesty with Massachusetts Attorney-General Maura Healey, a partnered lesbian, ex-Catholic, and Planned Parenthood fanatic, who has vowed to shut down pro-life pregnancy counseling centers in the Bay State. The Cardinal’s name appeared second, after Healey’s, on the byline.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “Pro-Lifers must not become the silent enablers of their own betrayal. They must make clear to the hierarchy that this episcopal malfeasance must cease. The bishops must stop these betrayals. I urge all who believe in the sanctity of innocent human life to sign this petition.”

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SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 — Petition Statement:

A Pro-Life Appeal to Cardinal O’Malley and All Massachusetts Bishops

We the undersigned — comprising Catholic and non-Catholic individuals — address this statement to the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts, most especially to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Boston.

To publicly criticize bishops is not something that we do lightly, but the weight of this matter requires a commensurately strong statement. All of the signatories have been actively involved in pro-life efforts. As such, we value and need the support of the bishops.

Unfortunately, in recent years a disturbing trend has emerged. While there is still rhetorical and material support for the pro-life cause from Catholic prelates, too many of their actions belie their words, to the detriment of the Gospel of Life.

A recent such action is the ban on signature gathering on Church property, just as another effort to end state abortion funding gets underway.

The bishops claim that an “overwhelming” number of parishioners opposed the collection of signatures, presumably during the 2015 signature drive on the same issue. But compared to the 28,891 people who signed the petitions, which number is really overwhelming? Do those who complain about relatively rare pro-life petitions represent truly Catholic thinking, and should their objections be the basis of Church policy?

Adding to the gravity of this new policy is the context in which it resides: it follows upon the many occasions that Catholic prelates, most especially Cardinal O’Malley, have violated their own polices as set forth in the 2004 document from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholics in Political Life, which says, “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

From 2014 to the present, there have been at least nineteen occasions in Massachusetts at which honors or platforms were given to notorious supporters of abortion by Catholic institutions with either the personal participation of or authorization by Catholic bishops.

For example:

• On May 27, 2014, Jesuit administered Boston College conferred an honorary doctorate of laws on then U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who was also the commencement speaker. Kerry not only had a 100% pro-abortion voting record as a U.S. senator, but furthered his presidential ambitions by pandering to a key Democratic Party constituency with a cheap, demagogic attack on Pope Saint John Paul II. In 2004, Kerry accused the gravely ill Pontiff of “an inappropriate crossing of the line,” violating the American separation of church and state, for urging Catholics in public life to defend traditional marriage. The Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley — who was appointed by John Paul II — gave the benediction, was photographed smiling and shaking hands with Kerry, and then posed for another photograph with him.
• In October, 2014, the Missionary Society of Saint James the Apostle, whose President is Cardinal O’Malley, conferred the “Cardinal Cushing Award for Excellence in Service to Humanity” on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a proponent of legal abortion. Walsh would go on to receive the 2016 “Men for Choice” Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, defend the public funding of Planned Parenthood, and call for Boston to become a sanctuary city for abortion, should Roe v. Wade be overturned. In 2017, he named a square in Boston after the infamous late-term abortionist, Dr. Kenneth Edelin.
• On May 7, 2017, Cardinal O’Malley attended the Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the Kennedy Library in Boston, where the award recipient was Barack Obama, who had, as a U.S. senator, a 100% pro-abortion rating from both Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Obama’s administration waged a war on the Catholic Church by unjust HHS mandates imposed by Obamacare legislation, requiring Catholic entities to fund abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations, in violation of the religious freedom rights of Catholics.

Many other examples could be given. An extensive list is contained in the Special Report of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.

On repeated occasions, Cardinal O’Malley has been not merely amicable, but laudatory to those who promote abortion. This is corrosive to pro-life work and disheartening to those involved.

If it is a strategy aimed at conversion, it is a failed strategy. All of the movement among politicians in Massachusetts on the abortion issue has been in one direction — from pro-life to pro-abortion. No one can identify a member of the congressional delegation, the legislature, the Boston City Council, or a constitutional officer who has changed from pro-abortion to pro-life.

On the contrary, some have been emboldened to embrace even more extreme positions in favor of abortion. For example, when Mayor Walsh names a square after abortionist Kenneth Edelin, or says he wants to make Boston a sanctuary city for abortion, he knows, absolutely, that there will be no push-back from the Archdiocese of Boston.

Furthermore, the cardinal’s overtures to abortion advocates:

• Are uncharitable to the advocates themselves. The Spiritual Works of Mercy include instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, and admonishing the sinner. Saint Paul says the clergy should “convince, rebuke, and exhort” [2 Tim. 4:2].
• Send a scandalous message of discouragement and confusion. Among the Catholic clergy this can only tend to blunt opposition to the Culture of Death; likewise among the laity, who may be led to think that abortion is not intrinsically evil, and/or that Church teaching is not important.
• Marginalize many pro-lifers. It conveys to politicians, police, and the media that pro-lifers, especially the ones who minister outside of abortion facilities, are on their own, and have no institutional backing. This impression is reinforced by the refusal of the Archdiocese of Boston to support 40 Days for Life, an international, twice-per-year 40-day peaceful campaign of prayer at abortion facilities, fasting, and community outreach.
  It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Catholic legislators vote for buffer zones, that Catholic public officials lie about pro-lifers at public hearings, nor that a newspaper columnist falsely accuses pro-lifers of screaming obscenities.

The purpose of this statement is to implore Cardinal O’Malley, and other Massachusetts Catholic prelates:

• To stop these betrayals.
• To immediately rescind the ban on signature drives on Church property, which is undermining the pro-life cause in Massachusetts.
• To publicly adhere to and immediately enforce the principle stated in Catholics in Political Life, which says, “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

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Click here to SIGN THE PETITION at CitizenGO

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Contact:

William Cotter
President, Operation Rescue:Boston
editor@orboston.org, 781-519-9115

Other first signers:

Brian Camenker
Executive Director, Mass Resistance

Dr. David F. Constantine
Former Governor’s Councillor

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

Carmel Farrell

M. M. Finn
WCCA-TV Host, Close to Home

Jean B. Healey

Robert Joyce
Attorney at Law

Philip F. Lawler
Editor, Catholic World News

Jerry & Colbe Mazzarella

Frank McNamara
Former U.S. Attorney, District of Massachusetts

Louis L. Murray

R.T. Neary

Brendan O’Connell
President & Executive Producer, Life Matters TV

John Russo

Roy and Anne Scarpato

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MEMBER ALERT

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

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

REMEMBERING THE UNBORN KILLED IN ABORTIONS

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council said “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.” The evil fruits of these crimes are legion: for the innocent victims, a cruel, violent and unjust death; for the mothers, untold spiritual, moral, psychological, and often, physical injury; and for the perpetrators, the temporal and eternal consequences of a sin that crieth to heaven for vengeance.

Then, there is the calamitous harm to society: morals corrupted, families weakened, sensibilities coarsened, laws degraded, justice perverted, politics poisoned with lies, an entire culture deformed. Nations and whole civilizations are in danger of collapse from demographic implosion. Everything from the control of borders to the sustainability of entitlements to the provision of adequate force levels for national defense are imperiled by the absence of a reproductive birth rate.

Tens of millions of children who might have grown up to know, love and serve God, and love their neighbor, have been lost. Perhaps, the ultimate tragedy of abortion is that these children died unbaptized, while still marked by original sin. In traditional Catholic belief, expressed in the writings of the Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the victims of abortion, who are all without actual, personal, volitional sin, enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness after death, but do not attain the Beatific Vision.

As Catholics, we ought to support every worthy pro-life effort to oppose this hideous evil, and to make known to society the suffering of the innocent which this evil entails. One such initiative is coming to Metropolitan Boston next Saturday. Please join in this work of mercy!

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MEDIA UPDATE

FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017

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

K OF C FUNDED CRUX SLAMS PRO-LIFERS, AGAIN

Crux, the Catholic news website funded by the Knights of Columbus, has renewed, once again, its criticism of the pro-life movement. In a June 20th article entitled “Academy for Life no longer an ‘enclave for the ideologically pure,’” Contributing Editor Austen Ivereigh defends the appointment of a pro-abortion Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Nigel Biggar, to the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Ivereigh disparages objections from pro-life former members of the Academy to Biggar’s appointment—asserting that Biggar is opposed to “absolutism”—and describes, approvingly, the efforts of Pope Francis and the academy president, homosexual friendly Archbishop Vincent Paglia, to “break free of the stranglehold of a pro-life activism closely tied to traditionalist and conservative family-values politics...” He then reports that Francis wants to broaden out the pro-life stance away from a “narrow focus on bioethics and sexuality, calling for the promotion of a quality of human life that integrates spiritual and material values, with a view to an authentic ‘human ecology.’”

Ivereigh goes on to quote liberal philosopher Rodrigo Guerra Lopez’s complaint that the pro-life movement lacks charity and compassion.

In a second article on July 19th, “Head of Vatican’s Academy of Life: Dialog is love, not compromise,” Ivereigh repeats the usual litany of abuse from the Left against pro-life advocates, quoting Paglia, who scolds the pro-life movement for not doing more about gun violence, the arms trade, environmental pollution, and capital punishment. Ivereigh, whose tone towards the pro-life position throughout both articles is disdainful and dismissive, claims that the academy, founded by Saint John Paul II in 1994, suffered from a “culture of ideological purity, even fanaticism,” rendering it “ineffective” and “unattractive.”

Ivereigh is not the first Crux columnist to fire cheap shots at pro-lifers. Another Crux Contributing Editor, Charles Camosy, a board member of the pro-contraception group Democrats for Life, has a long history of directing carping criticisms towards the pro-life movement.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Does anyone at the Knights of Columbus headquarters in New Haven actually read Crux? Do they know what they are paying for? Crux is a liberal, dissenting Catholic website run by a liberal, dissenting Catholic editor, John Allen, who spent much of his career working for the radically left-wing, pro-abortion National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper that has repeatedly attacked the Knights of Columbus.”

“Crux, which was founded in 2014 by America’s most anti-Catholic major newspaper, The Boston Globe, was a financial failure for the Globe, scheduled for closure, when, unfathomably, the Knights of Columbus rescued it from a well deserved extinction. Given John Allen’s always favorable coverage of Cardinal Sean O’Malley—which includes touting him for Pope—and O’Malley’s close relationship with the Knights, the actual savior of Crux may well have been the Archbishop of Boston.”

“As for the expressions of contempt by Ivereigh and Archbishop Paglia towards faithful Catholic struggling to stop the genocide of the unborn, these are exercises in intellectual dishonesty of the most tawdry character. No one ever complains that opponents of the death penalty are not doing enough to halt euthanasia, or that disarmament advocates are not speaking out about partial birth abortion. This fraudulent argument, selectively applied, that the pro-life position cannot be authentic unless it embraces the preferred causes of secular liberalism is one more sordid attempt by proponents of child murder to defame the defenders of life.”

“Liberal Catholics loathe and despise the pro-life movement because they reject Catholic teaching about the sanctity of innocent human life from conception to natural death. Perhaps more compelling, however, they hate the pro-life movement because the world hates it. Modernist Catholics follow fashion, conform to the culture, and crave human respect. Many of them are bourgeois, social climbing snobs, who seek acceptance by and assimilation with cultural elites. The sight of pious Catholics praying the Rosary in front of abortuaries not only inflames the flickering embers of their troubled consciences, but embarrasses them with the very segments of society which they aspire to join.”

“The revolutionary transformation of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which includes the appointment of pro-abortion members, is being engineered by Pope Francis—whose intellectual formation seems to be rigidly embedded somewhere in the late nineteen sixties—and his functionary, Archbishop Paglia. They clearly aim to revive the long discredited, so-called seamless garment approach, which would dilute, divert, diminish, and, ultimately, trivialize opposition to abortion, by reducing it to one consideration in an extended list of social concerns, which require careful balancing, lest a single issue receive too much emphasis.”

“This would define down the term pro-life to the point where it would be meaningless. Under this rubric, the late Ted Kennedy would have been pro-life because of his support for subsidized housing and socialized medicine. That, of course, is, precisely, the intention. Liberal Catholics want the color of ecclesiastical approval and the semblance of moral respectability while they support their pro-abortion, pro-homosexual friends on the political left. The pro-life movement ought, at all times, to resist this charade and expose it for the fraud which it is.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JULY 21, 2017 — Published July 29

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

To the Editor:

The Globe editorial defending the 1981 Supreme Judicial Court decision Moe v. Hanley—which created a right to tax funded abortions for the indigent in Massachusetts—contained an interesting argument, (Don’t ban public funding of abortions in Mass., 7/20/2017).

The editorial claimed that a proposed initiative amendment to overturn the court decision, which, itself, had overturned an act of the Legislature, was “an attempt to circumvent the courts...”

Just to be perfectly clear, it is appropriate, in this view, for an appointed court to nullify a law passed by an elected legislature, but it is somehow improper for the voters, through a ballot question, to nullify a decision by a court.

For decades, conservatives actually believed that the courts were circumventing the will of the people. Now, at last, we see the real problem. The people are trying to circumvent the will of the courts.

You might call it deplorable.

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein

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ACTION ALERT!!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2017

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

OPPOSE RADICAL SEX ED BILL FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Tomorrow, Thursday, July 20th, the Massachusetts Senate will vote on SB 2113, AN ACT RELATIVE TO HEALTHY YOUTH, the so-called Health Curriculum Frameworks bill. This radical measure would require every school district in the Commonwealth to conform to a state mandate whereby children from K through 12 would be taught that fornication is acceptable, the use of contraceptives is responsible, and that sodomy, so-called transgenderism, and other aberrant behaviors are healthy and normal.

Among the provisions of this bill is one that would teach “the importance of effectively using contraceptives and barrier methods” and “the affirmative recognition that people have different sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions.”

This obscene proposal is nothing less than a state sponsored assault on the Faith, morals, purity and innocence of children. It is an attack on the authority of parents and the integrity of the family. Although the bill has, on paper, a parental notification clause, ostensibly allowing parents to withdraw their children from this instruction, this is a fig leaf. Such opt out provisions rarely, if ever, apply. Public school bureaucrats contrive a plethora of tactics to ignore, frustrate or evade parental rights, objections and concerns.

Catholic teaching has always held that parents are the primary educators of children. This measure would usurp the God given right of parents to control the moral and religious upbringing of their own children. The great Catholic founding father of independent Ireland, Eamon De Valera, wrote that the family is “antecedent and superior to the state.” Our corrupt Massachusetts political class, beholden to the population control movement and organized homosexualism, has an opposite view.

Please contact your state senator today and demand that he or she oppose this depraved and authoritarian measure. By going to the home page of the state senate, you can learn the telephone number and email address of your senator. You can, also, call the main number of the Legislature at (617) 722-2000 and ask for your senator’s office.

Let us remember the wisdom of Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Please contact your state senator before tomorrow afternoon!

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JULY 10, 2017

The MetroWest Daily News
33 New York Avenue
Framingham, MA 01701

To the Editor:

In your editorial asserting the guilt of Australian Cardinal George Pell, you refer to him—before you call him a sociopath—as a “Vatican princeling” (OUR VIEW: Pope Francis’ toleration of sexually abusive clergy leaves a stain, 7/5/2017).

What, exactly, is that? Might it be a term of derision written by a bigot to express contempt for the Catholic Church?

That’s my guess.

Sincerely,

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

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NEWS UPDATE

SATURDAY, JULY 8, 2017

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

ATTEMPT TO SEIZE LAND OF RELIGIOUS ORDER BY EMINENT DOMAIN DEFEATED

An unprecedented attempt by a municipal government in Massachusetts to seize, by eminent domain, a 46 acre parcel of land owned by a Catholic religious order, has been defeated.

The School Committee of the City of Waltham voted on December 7th of last year to select the property owned by the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers as the site for a new high school. The land includes the Espousal Retreat House and Conference Center, the Holy Spouses Shrine, a residence occupied by priests and brothers, and open space used for religious retreats.

In February of 2017, when the order refused to sell their property, Mayor Jeannette McCarthy submitted a proposal to the Waltham City Council to seize the land by eminent domain, notwithstanding the constitutional protections afforded religious institutions. Despite a city appraisal estimating the value of the property at 22.7 million dollars, and a second appraisal, conducted on behalf of the Stigmatine Fathers, placing its value above 25 million dollars, the city offered only 15 million dollars in compensation.

The Stigmatine Fathers resisted the city’s attempt to expropriate their home, with the Mayor’s proposal provoking determined and vocal opposition from the Catholic community in Waltham. In the end, the City Council, in a vote on May 22nd, rejected, by a margin of 10 to 4, the Mayor’s highhanded attempt at coercion. This followed a 12 to 3 negative vote, the week before, by the Council’s Committee of the Whole.

The Catholic Action League called Mayor McCarthy’s tactics “an astonishing aggression against innocent, unoffending citizens, and an egregious abuse of the eminent domain process, unheard of in Massachusetts in living memory.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The City of Waltham was not building a highway or a reservoir. The School Committee’s mere preference for the location of a new high school hardly rises to the level of a compelling state interest. It certainly, does not provide any justification for dispossessing the Stigmatines of their home.”

“The great Catholic historian, Hillaire Belloc, once observed that members of the National Assembly in revolutionary France viewed the Catholic Church as a moribund institution, which should be, quickly, put out of its misery. Politicians in Massachusetts seem to have the same attitude. They are, already, fighting over the estate, even before the patient has died.”

“The Catholics of Waltham are to be congratulated for their principled, vigorous, and, ultimately, successful resistance to a dangerous misuse of government power, directed against a Catholic religious institution which has served that community, faithfully, for many years.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JULY 8, 2017

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

To the Editor:

Reading the Globe’s editorial on why a Christian baker should be punished for refusing to service a same sex ceremony, one wonders if progressives feel any restraint, at all, in enforcing their ideology on the rest of us, (Now making a cake is forced speech? C’mon, July 6, 2017).

First, liberals use unelected judges to impose a moral revolution on society in the form of genderless marriage, something unheard of in the recorded history of the planet. Then, they insist that recently enacted anti-discrimination laws trump longstanding constitutional guarantees to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

Now, they view with satisfaction when Christian bakers, printers, florists, and photographers are driven out of business by confiscatory fines and extortionate civil settlements for refusing to violate their consciences. What is the unlawful discrimination these business owners are engaged in? Acting on the beliefs held by everyone, everywhere from the beginning of time until fifteen years ago.

Are liberals so blinkered that they see no irony in demanding an end to discrimination, while pursuing tactics which would effectively exclude conscientious Christian believers from entire professions?

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein

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NEWS UPDATE

TUESDAY, JULY 4, 2017

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

A VICTORY FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE BAY STATE

A Catholic shrine in Massachusetts has prevailed over a municipal government in a state Supreme Court case about the religious exemption to local property taxes.

As the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts reported last April, the Board of Assessors of the City of Attleboro in Bristol County claimed in 2012 that some of the land and buildings belonging to the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette were not being used for religious purposes, and were, therefore, not tax exempt. The assessors asserted that a visitors center and maintenance shed, along with two parcels of land leased to secular non-profit organizations for a wildlife sanctuary and a battered women’s shelter, were subject to local property taxes.

All of the property of the shrine, which is administered by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, has been tax exempt since the founding of the shrine in 1953.

After a petition for an abatement was denied in 2013, the shrine appealed to the State Appellate Tax Board, which upheld the assessors’ decision in a September, 2015 ruling. The case then went before the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth in April of 2016. On March 22nd of this year, the SJC, in a unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants, overturned the finding of the Appellate Tax Board, and granted partial relief to the shrine.

In a surprisingly vigorous affirmation of the extent of the tax exemption for religious institutions, Gants wrote in Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, Inc. v. Board of Assessors of Attleboro, that “We recognize that a house of religious worship is more than the chapel used for prayer and the classrooms used for religious instruction...The board defined far too narrowly the scope of the religious exemption...even a church cannot live on prayer alone.”

The court ruled that the visitors center and maintenance shed met the “dominant purpose test” and were exempt from taxation, while the land leased to secular non-profits, though not eligible for a religious exemption, could be tax exempt under the laws pertaining to public charities.

The Catholic Action League called the decision “a welcome, though unexpected, finding from a liberal court, not known for its sympathy to claims of religious liberty.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “No government agency should be the judge of its own cause. Cities and towns are not disinterested parties when it comes to their own revenue streams. They have a financial interest, for reasons of taxation, in narrowing the legal understanding of what constitutes a religious purpose in land use. This encourages the dangerous contemporary habit of defining down freedom of religion to freedom of worship.”

“The recent wave of church closings in the Commonwealth has given rise to the predatory practice of Bay State municipalities attempting to cash in by immediately converting closed churches, even those still occupied by protesters, to taxable property.”

“The Supreme Judicial Court has issued a timely and warranted rebuke to municipal bureaucrats—and their political masters—hungry to acquire new objects of taxation to feed the insatiable appetite for larger government payrolls.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JUNE 30, 2017

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

To the Editor:

The column by Peter Gelzinis on the Vatican cardinal accused of molestation was remarkably sloppy in its mangling of the facts (O’Malley urged to speak up on abuse, 6/30/2017).

Contrary to Gelzinis’ assertion, abuse survivors did not leave the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors because of “Pell’s continuing presence on the commission.” Pell never served on that commission. Nor was Pell, as Gelzinis claimed, the “treasurer of the Vatican bank,” or the “cardinal archbishop of Australia.”

Gelzinis would do well to use more than one source for his column, and verify for himself the elementary facts of the issue, but then, when it comes to Catholicism, balance, fairness and accuracy have never been priorities for Peter Gelzinis.

Sincerely,

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

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SPECIAL REPORT

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2017 — Updated September 12, 2017

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

CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS HONOR OPPONENTS OF CATHOLIC MORALITY

May is the month of Our Lady. It is also the month when Catholic educational institutions in Massachusetts—and their parent religious orders—advertise their rejection of Divine and natural law by hosting as commencement speakers, and conferring honorary degrees upon, proponents of abortion, contraception, and sodomy.

• The commencement speaker at Jesuit administered Boston College, who was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree, was U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-Pennsylvania). Casey, who claims to be pro-life, is a supporter of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and the Obamacare mandate requiring religious employers to subsidize abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations. He actually asserts that the morning after pill does not cause an abortion. Casey also defends the deformity of marriage.
• BC also honored Hollywood actor Chris O’Donnell, the star of various R-rated movies, and the co-star of the film Kinsey, which respectfully portrayed the atheist bisexual “sexologist” voyeur Alfred Kinsey, the notorious degenerate and predator whose fabricated research did much to mainstream deviance in American society. The Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, attended the ceremony and was photographed with O’Donnell and Casey.
• The commencement speaker at Boston College Law School was the Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Geraldine S. Hines. An appointee of former Governor Deval Patrick to both the Court of Appeals and the SJC, Hines is a longtime member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Marxist affiliated National Lawyers Guild. Upon her retirement in 2018, she will become a Rappaport Visiting Professor at BC Law.
• Merrimack College—administered by the friars of the Order of Saint Augustine—hosted as its commencement speaker Kenneth Cole, described as a “fashion industry icon” known for his philanthropic support for progressive causes, LGBTQ causes, and “equality.” An honorary degree was also awarded to University of Massachusetts President and former Congressman Marty Meehan, who, during his fourteen year career in the U. S. House of Representatives, (1993-2007), received a 100% rating from both the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America.
• Regis College—administered by the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston—conferred an honorary doctorate of laws degree on John Fish, Chairman and CEO of Suffolk Construction, who is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Boston College. Fish is a major, six-figure donor to pro-abortion politicians in Massachusetts. His company was embroiled in controversy when it made illegal contributions to Hillary Clinton. The college’s commencement speaker was Dr. Knatokie Ford, a Senior Policy Advisor to former President Barack Obama.

I. A Corporate Culture of Betrayal

The events recounted above are not anomalous or aberrational. Nor are they of recent origin. The practice of Catholic institutions of higher learning—along with Catholic charities, religious orders, fraternal organizations and elite secondary schools—bestowing awards, honors, and platforms upon public figures, particularly politicians and judges, who promote the mass killing of pre-born children, the corruption of minors through contraceptives, and the deconstruction of traditional marriage is overt, pervasive, and longstanding.

Far from being exceptional, the custom of nominally Catholic institutions to honor the enemies of the Faith is now normative. The example of Boston College Law School is instructive. This is the eighth consecutive year that BC Law has had a pro-abortion commencement speaker. Since 2010, this Jesuit affiliated school has invited the following supporters of Roe v. Wade to address its graduates: U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA); Massachusetts Chief Justice Roderick Ireland; Mrs. Victoria Kennedy; U.S. Senator Mo Cowan (D-MA); Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy; Obama Political Strategy Director David Simas; U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH); and now, as reported above, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine Hines.

BC Law is not unique. If one followed the history of Catholic educational institutions in Massachusetts since the 1970s, one would discover repeated, indeed, continuous examples of commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients who are rejectionists when it comes to Catholic moral teaching. The abandonment of the unborn to infanticide, and the perfidy towards faithful Catholics struggling to defend the sanctity of innocent life is, for Catholic institutions, the religious orders which sponsor them, and the Catholic elites who fund them, both systemic and routine. Catholic higher education is mired in a corporate culture of corruption, heresy and betrayal.

II. No Pro-Life Catholics Need Apply

The selection of abortion proponents for honors is not random or coincidental, nor is it merely a matter of indifference. Nor is it entirely contingent upon other factors, such as wealth, celebrity and political office, though these exert a powerful influence. Catholic institutions seem to have an unstated policy of deliberately excluding from recognition orthodox Catholics who publicly defend Christian morality. They refuse to honor faithful Catholics in politics, even when such choices would be easy and obvious.

Three of the most dedicated and effective proponents of the right to life in elected office in Massachusetts were the late Governor Edward J. King, former Senate President William M. Bulger, and the late State Representative Charles R. Doyle (no relation to this writer). All three were graduates of Boston College. William Bulger is a Triple Eagle—a graduate of Boston College High School, Boston College, and Boston College Law School. Yet none of these three outstanding Catholic gentlemen in public life were ever honored by their alma mater. They were, apparently, unsuitable to stand in the company of John Kerry, Janet Reno, and Tip O’Neill.

The only pro-life political figure in recent decades to be invited to deliver a Boston College commencement speech was former Republican Congressman Ray LaHood in 2011. At the time of his selection, however, LaHood was serving in the cabinet of President Barack Obama as U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Magnanimously, BC was prepared to overlook his pro-life background while he was working for America’s most pro-abortion president.

Eleanor McCullen of Operation Rescue: Boston, and the late John J. Hurley of the Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston, both won landmark U.S. Supreme Court victories affirming the constitutional rights of pro-life and pro-family Catholics. If Catholic institutions were actually Catholic, who would be a more logical choice for an honorary doctorate of laws degree than one or both of these Catholic heroes? There was no such degree for Hurley and there will be none for McCullen. Such honors are reserved for third level Obama functionaries like Jon Favreau, David Simas, and Knatokie Ford.

The Catholic Charitable Bureau of the Archdiocese of Boston twice honored the late Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who among other derelictions, was pro-abortion. Former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, who was pro-life, and went on to become the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, never received comparable recognition.

III. The Negligence of the Religious Orders

One of the more disturbing, but almost entirely overlooked, aspects of this malfeasance in Catholic institutions is the spiritual negligence of the religious orders which founded and still sponsor these colleges and universities. One never hears of an objection to a commencement speaker or degree recipient from a community superior. There is never even a rumor of tension between a college president and the provincial of his or her order. The general of the order in Rome never intervenes.

All of the major teaching orders that have institutions in Massachusetts—the Jesuits, the Augustinians, the Holy Cross Fathers, the Sisters of Saint Joseph, and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur—have been compromised by this corruption.

While numerous factors are at work here, the toxic amalgam of modernism and homosexuality, so destructive in the diocesan clergy, seems even more acute and pernicious in religious life. The affirming presence of Franciscan friars in Boston’s depraved, pornographic “Pride Festival,” the invitation extended by the Benedictine monks of Glastonbury Abbey to the sulphurous Barney Frank, and the recent, mandatory “Pride Day Assembly,” celebrating homosexuality and propagating LGBTQ ideology in Jesuit administered Boston College High School, speak to the severity of this corporate, institutional decadence.

IV. The Complicity of the Bishops

The Catholic hierarchy in Massachusetts, most especially in the Archdiocese of Boston, might be likened to a police force in a Third World country, which not only fails to enforce the laws against corrupt officials, but actually combines with them to perpetrate corrupt acts. Our bishops are on a continuum which began with cowardice disguised by hypocrisy, and has now descended to treachery, unconcealed, even by shame.

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

This statement is now a dead letter, negated, in practice, by some of the very bishops who voted to authorize it.

• On January 6, 2014, Cardinal O’Malley spoke at the inauguration ceremony—held at Jesuit administered Boston College—for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a proponent of abortion and contraception, who, as a Massachusetts state representative from Dorchester in 2006 and 2007, played a leading role in the defeat of the Protection of Marriage Amendment. In his remarks, O’Malley identified Walsh as a Catholic. Walsh, in his address, advocated for homosexual rights, and spoke of praying, the day before, at Boston’s Old South Church.


Former Mayor Menino and Cardinal O’Malley at Catholic Charities Teen Center in 2014. (Photo: Gregory L. Tracy)

• On May 12, 2014, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston dedicated a bench at their Teen Center at Saint Peter’s Church in Dorchester to former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, an opponent of Catholic morality on a broad range of issues. Cardinal O’Malley spoke at the event, and was photographed smiling and shaking hands with Menino.
• On May 23, 2014, the Bishop of Worcester, the Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, gave the benediction at commencement exercises for the Jesuit administered College of the Holy Cross. The speaker and honorary degree recipient was Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who, in January of that year, in an article in The Daily Beast, excoriated Pope Benedict XVI, called the Church, “damaged and hypocritical,” and said Catholic education was based on “guilt, shame and fear.”


BC commencement 2014: Cardinal O’Malley greets commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient Secretary of State John Kerry.

• A few days later, on May 27, 2014, Jesuit administered Boston College conferred an honorary doctorate of laws on U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who was also the commencement speaker. Kerry not only had a 100% pro-abortion record as a U. S. Senator, but furthered his presidential ambitions by pandering to a key Democratic Party constituency with a cheap, demagogic attack on Pope Saint John Paul II. In 2004, Kerry accused the gravely ill Pontiff of “an inappropriate crossing of the line,” violating the American separation of church and state, for urging Catholics in public life to defend traditional marriage. The Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley—who was appointed by John Paul II—gave the benediction, was photographed smiling and shaking hands with Kerry, and then posed for another photograph with him.
• In October, 2014, the Missionary Society of Saint James the Apostle, whose President is Cardinal O’Malley, conferred the “Cardinal Cushing Award for Excellence in Service to Humanity” on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a proponent of legal abortion. Walsh would go on to receive the “Men for Choice” Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, defend the public funding of Planned Parenthood, and call for Boston to become a sanctuary city for abortion, should Roe v. Wade be overturned. In 2017, he named a square in Boston after the infamous abortionist, Kenneth Edelin.
• On October 30, 2014, upon learning of Mayor Menino’s death, Cardinal O’Malley issued a statement asserting that Menino—who said abortion was just “choice,” and that pro-lifers were motivated by “hate”—“placed family, faith and public service above all else.” The cardinal went on to say that “generations of Boston citizens benefited from his care and concern,..” He then added “...we give thanks for a life so well lived...”
• On November 3, 2014, Cardinal O’Malley presided at the funeral of former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino in Sacred Heart Church in Hyde Park. According to The Boston Globe, at least ten priests were present on the altar. One of them, Father John Connolly, compared Menino to Our Savior, saying “Tom Menino loved others the way Christ loved him.” Menino, who was the grand marshal of the homosexual pride parade, (and boycotted the Saint Patrick’s Day parade), was a proponent of abortion, the deformity of marriage, the distribution of condoms to minors in the public schools, domestic partner benefits for city employees, and so-called transgendered rights. He appointed the head of an abortion clinic, Dr. Elizabeth Reilinger, Chairwoman of the Boston School Committee. Every year, Menino sponsored a “Gay Prom” in City Hall, where confused teenagers could experience same-sex encounters in the presence of adult homosexuals. At a 2005 Catholic Charities dinner, Menino actually said: “What moves me most about being a Christian is what Jesus taught us about being religious. He did not give priority to piety. He didn’t make holiness the big thing. And he did not tell us to go around talkin’ up God, either.” The Cardinal told the congregation that Menino was a good Catholic who never missed Mass and had a wonderful family. He then had his photograph taken with Vice-President Joe Biden. After Menino’s death, New England Cable News Reporter Greg Wayland revealed that Menino once told him in an interview that he envisioned a future American church independent of and separate from Rome.
• On November 21, 2014, Mayor Marty Walsh joined Cardinal O’Malley and spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Our Lady of Good Voyage Shrine in Boston’s Seaport District.
• On March 30, 2015, Cardinal O’Malley joined President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden for the dedication of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
• On September 17, 2015, Mayor Walsh addressed the assembled clergy of the Archdiocese of Boston at the Annual Dinner in Celebration of the Priesthood at the Seaport World Trade Center.
• On October 29, 2015, Mayor Walsh joined Cardinal O’Malley for the dedication of Archdiocesan sponsored affordable housing on the campus of the former Saint Kevin’s Parish in Dorchester.
• On December 2, 2015, Mayor Walsh joined Cardinal O’Malley for the rededication of the Dorchester Lower Mills Campus of Saint John Paul II Academy.
• On January 25, 2016, the Archdiocese of Boston announced that Mayor Walsh would join Cardinal O’Malley for a July pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Knock in Ireland. Walsh withdrew following a scheduling conflict.
• On April 19, 2016, the Laboure Center—administered by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston—held its Spring Reception with Cardinal O’Malley. The Honorary Co-Chairpersons of the event were Mayor Walsh and his partner Lorrie Higgins.
• On October 20, 2016, Cardinal O’Malley attended the Inaugural Franciscan Dinner, held on behalf of Boston’s Saint Anthony’s Shrine. The Honorary Co-Chairmen of the event were two abortion proponents, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.
• Also on October 20th, the Cardinal attended the “Let It Shine Gala” for Regis College, which is administered by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston. Prominent abortion advocates featured at the event included Governor Baker, former Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O’Neill III, and state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg. The event’s “Special Guest” was Obama/Biden bundler Jack Connors.
• On May 7, 2017, Cardinal O’Malley attended the Profiles in Courage Award ceremony honoring former President Barack Obama at the Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.
• On May 22, 2017, Cardinal O’Malley attended the Boston College commencement honoring Senator Robert Casey. O’Malley, in his blog, described the Planned Parenthood supporter as a former Jesuit volunteer.
• Update—9/1/17—On September 1, 2017, an op-ed article on immigration was published in The Boston Globe, co-authored by Cardinal Sean O’Malley and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The constitutional officer with the closest ties to Planned Parenthood, Healey, a partnered lesbian and former Catholic, received both a 100% rating and an endorsement from the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund when seeking election in 2014. Her campaign, that same year, received a $1,693.00 contribution from the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. In her campaign statement on so-called reproductive rights, Healey vowed to shut down pro-life pregnancy counseling centers, claiming they were deceptive and predatory, and accused pro-life sidewalk counselors of trying to shame and coerce women. As Attorney General, she issued a Gender Identity Guidance which originally asserted that houses of worship could be considered “public accommodations” subject to Massachusetts civil rights law.

Of the nineteen violations, detailed above, of the explicit prohibitions contained in Catholics in Political Life, the offending prelate in eighteen of them was the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley. The number would be higher if we included honors to pro-abortion figures by Catholic institutions in the Archdiocese of Boston that did not include the personal participation of the Cardinal. All of the incidents in 2014 and 2015 occurred while O’Malley was serving as Chairman of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Cardinal remains, rhetorically, pro-life, though even that minimalism is problematic. Some of his rhetoric seems to pander to the prejudices of feminists, the media, liberal Democrats, and other opponents of the right to life by reinforcing their invidious stereotypes of pro-lifers. In October, 2007, while speaking from the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common to the Walk for Life, the Cardinal told the assembled crowd, many of whom were carrying their rosaries: “No violence, no, no, never violence.”

On January 21, 2014, at the National Prayer Vigil for Life at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, the Cardinal warned pro-lifers that being “judgmental and condemnatory” was contrary to the Gospel of Life. He went on to say that “We must never allow that [pregnant woman considering an abortion] to perceive the pro-life movement as a bunch of angry self-righteous Pharisees with stones in their hands, looking down on her and judging her.” Margery Eagan could not have said it better.

In the officials he appoints, the employees he hires, the consultants he retains, the advisors he listens to, the affluent elites he solicits, the politicians he ingratiates himself with, in the decisions he makes, in his personnel, policies and practical governance, the Archbishop of Boston is, effectively, pro-abortion.

The Cardinal is not merely amicable, but laudatory to those who promote abortion. He is not simply complaisant towards Catholic institutions which collaborate with the Culture of Death, but cooperates in their betrayals. He has just, for the second time in two years, sabotaged a signature gathering campaign for a pro-life initiative amendment, and he lectures the pro-life movement in the language of its adversaries. The facts speak for themselves.

V. The Pro-Life Response

The pro-life community must not be the enabler of its own abuse or the facilitator of its own betrayal. It must make known to our spiritual leaders that their behavior is morally objectionable, a grave scandal, a source of confusion to ordinary Catholics, and profoundly demoralizing to the faithful Catholics in the pro-life movement. It is a betrayal of the innocent unborn, slaughtered by the millions, and of those struggling to save them. Non-Catholics of goodwill, who might be attracted to the Church’s pro-life message, are instead, repelled.

The bishops have converted no one by their toadying. If Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is an example, the regime of appeasement and conciliation has only emboldened him to embrace even more extreme positions in favor of abortion. All of the movement among politicians in Massachusetts on the abortion issue has been in one direction—from pro-life to pro-abortion. No one can identify a member of the congressional delegation, the Legislature, the Boston City Council, or a constitutional officer who has changed from pro-abortion to pro-life.

The pro-life community must make it clear that providing or participating in awards, honors and platforms to pro-abortion public figures is unacceptable to the pro-life movement, is irreconcilable with being identified as pro-life, and is incompatible with participation in pro-life events and activities.

Our prelates have a choice to make, and they must no longer be permitted the disloyalty and duplicity of pretending to be pro-life while conducting themselves in a manner that any rational person would reasonably conclude is either indifferent to or supportive of legal abortion.

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“The Apostle tells us to rejoice, but in the Lord, not in the world. Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world, says Scripture, will be reckoned an enemy of God. As a man cannot serve two masters, so one cannot rejoice both in the world and in the Lord.”
— From a sermon by Saint Augustine, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church

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NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES MAYOR WALSH FOR HONORING KENNETH EDELIN

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today denounced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for renaming the corner of Harrison Avenue and Worcester Square in the city’s South End as Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin Square.

Edelin, the infamous abortionist, was convicted in 1975 of manslaughter by a Suffolk County jury for suffocating a 24-week-old infant after a failed saline abortion at Boston City Hospital. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth in 1976.

Edelin went on to become Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and later, Chairman of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He would repeatedly accuse a mostly Irish American, Roman Catholic jury of racism and sectarian prejudice. “ It was the religious climate; it was the racial climate...,” and “They got a black physician...,” Edelin said.

Mayor Walsh, a nominal Catholic, was joined City Councilors Annissa Essaibi George, Tito Jackson, and Ayanna Pressley, former governor Deval Patrick, and representatives of Planned Parenthood for the dedication ceremony on June 15th.

The Catholic Action League called the event “a depraved celebration of mass murder, a cynical whitewash of a serial killer, and a callous insult to faithful Catholics and all who believe in the sanctity of innocent human life.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “In a civilized society, this Mengele-like creature would have been punished for his hideous crimes. Instead, what was once the most Catholic city in America now commemorates him as a pioneer of so-called reproductive rights. Thursday’s event is further evidence of the collapse of Catholicism in Boston, its thorough de-Christianization, and its emergence as a secular, post-Catholic and anti-Catholic community.”

“Marty Walsh, who is running for re-election, has decided that he will not be outflanked on his left. He has adopted the most extreme margins of pro-abortion politics. Walsh has rallied to defend taxpayer subsidies of Planned Parenthood, accepted the ’Men for Choice’ Award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, and has called for Boston to become a sanctuary city for abortions, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.”

“If there are any mitigating circumstances in the apostasy of Walsh, it is that he has never heard a word of reproof from his enablers and promoters in the Archdiocese of Boston, who can, reliably, be counted upon to remain silent in the face of this latest affront to Catholic principles and sensibilities.”

# # # # # # #

The man who preferred charges against Kenneth Edelin was Garrett H. Byrne (1897-1989), who was District Attorney of Suffolk County for 27 years, from 1952 to 1979. He is best remembered for his successful prosecution—begun one day before the expiration of the statute of limitations—of the perpetrators of the biggest robbery in American history, the Great Brinks Job.

Byrne was a thoroughly decent man, a dedicated prosecutor, a pious Catholic, and a public official of unimpeachable integrity. He was so profoundly affected by the heinous character of this monstrous physician’s ghastly crime, that his friends, like State Representative James J. Craven, actually worried about his health during the case.

As recounted by author David F. Pierre, Jr. in his book, Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe’s Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church, Byrne’s early investigation of a pedophile ring earned him the opposition of The Boston Globe and the wrath of homosexual activists, hastening the end of his long career.

Neither the City of Boston nor the Catholic Church has ever named any place or erected any thing to preserve the memory of this good man, who may justly be regarded as one of the proto-heroes of the pro-life movement.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

JUNE 14, 2017

Letters to the Editor
The Pilot
66 Brooks Drive
Braintree, MA 02184-3839

To the Editor:

The claim made in the bishops’ statement stopping signature gathering on church property, that the “overwhelming feedback” from parishioners on the practice was negative, is not supported by the facts (Mass. bishops prohibit signature drives on church property, 6/9/2017).

Over the past fifteen years, literally thousands of faithful Catholics, have, without complaint, signed initiative petitions in front of Catholic churches in defense of everything from traditional marriage to the right to life. This incontestable fact is ignored in favor of a sweeping assertion, based, at best, on anecdotal evidence, purportedly from pastors, which is unverified and unquantified.

Perhaps, there could have been some reasonable accommodation of concerns if there had been some warning, discussion or dialog. Instead, the bishops issued a directive which was abrupt, preemptive, unilateral, and entirely unforeseen.

The only persons injured by this improvident decision will be loyal Catholics struggling to protect the innocent unborn, Christian morality and the religious freedom rights of the Catholic community.

Pro-life Catholics do not ask for much from their spiritual leaders. They would simply like to be treated by their bishops with the same level of respect and solicitude which the Archdiocese shows towards, say, Marty Walsh.

Sincerely,

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

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ACTION ALERT UPDATE

SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 2017

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

CAPPUCCI MAKES BALLOT!

Robert M. Cappucci, the only pro-life and pro-family candidate running for municipal office in Boston, has filed enough certified signatures of registered voters to be on the ballot for the 2017 city election. According to The Boston Globe, the Cappucci campaign filed more than 4,000 signatures with the city Election Department. Three thousand signatures were needed to qualify for the ballot.

Cappucci, who served on the elected Boston School Committee from 1988 to 1992, where he was the only vote against condom distribution and sex education programs in the Boston Public Schools, is running for Mayor of Boston. He is the first candidate since the death of City Councilor, and former City Council President, James M. Kelly in 2007, to represent traditional moral values in a Boston city election.

Congratulations to Bob Cappucci on the first success of his campaign, and congratulations to Colbe Mazzarella, Bob Joyce, and Earl Sholley, who did such an effective job in collecting signatures. Thanks also to Brian Camenker of MassResistance, who did so much to publicize the effort. Finally, thanks to all the members of the Catholic Action League who responded to our Action Alert by contacting Colbe Mazzarella and volunteering their time.

Now, at last, faithful Catholics in Boston will have someone to vote for in the preliminary election in September!

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NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 2017

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

CATHOLIC BISHOPS BAN SIGNATURE DRIVES — PRO-LIFE CAMPAIGN IN JEOPARDY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is criticizing the Bay State’s four Catholic bishops for imposing an immediate ban on signature gathering on church property. The likely target of this decision, and the one to suffer the most deleterious impact, is an initiative petition campaign sponsored by two pro-life organizations, the Massachusetts Alliance To Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortion and the Renew MA Coalition.

The effort, led by Attorney Thomas M. Harvey, is aimed at the passage of an initiative amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution which would overturn the 1981 Moe v. Hanley decision by the Commonwealth’s Supreme Judicial Court, which created an even more expansive right to abortion, and the public funding of abortion, than that guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

To get on the ballot, the campaign needs the certified signatures of nearly 65,000 registered voters in the Commonwealth. The most favorable venue for signature gathering for this effort is the front of Catholic parishes. Both the Archdiocese of Boston and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference sought to hamper this campaign during its first attempt in 2015.

In their directive, which removes all discretion from individual pastors, the bishops assert that they received “overwhelming feedback from parishioners” opposed to signature drives on church property. They also said that “Church functions are a place to experience the fullness of community and parish life. In particular, Holy Mass is a place to encounter God through the reception of the Eucharist. The celebration of Holy Mass is a place for prayer, reflection, Reconciliation and hope.”

The directive was signed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and the Bishops of Worcester, Springfield and Fall River, the Most Reverends Robert J. McManus, Mitchell T. Rozanski and Edgar M. da Cunha.

The Catholic Action League is characterizing the directive as “a calculated act of obstruction, intended to sabotage an initiative which the archdiocese had previously opposed.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The consequences of this improvident decision will not be content neutral. NARAL and MassEquality do not gather signatures in front of Catholic churches. The only persons disadvantaged by this will be faithful Catholics struggling to defend religious freedom, traditional morality and the right to life.”

“There was no attempt to ‘dialog’ with the groups adversely affected by this, nor was there any ‘transparency’ in the decision making process. This is, at least, the third time since 2008 that the hierarchy has sought to impede a referendum or initiative amendment by pro-life or pro-family organizations. What we are witnessing is another troubling example of the longstanding hostility which the hierarchy and elite Catholic institutions display towards grass-roots Catholic activists who would disturb the comfortable accommodation between the Church and the state’s liberal political culture.”

“Catholic institutions, with the approval and participation of the hierarchy, routinely confer honors and awards upon, and provide platforms to public figures opposed to Catholic moral teachings. Just last month, Cardinal O’Malley attended the Boston College commencement which featured U. S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), a proponent of the public funding of Planned Parenthood.”

“The leader of the Campaign for Catholic Schools, and a major donor and advisor to the archdiocese is Obama fundraiser Jack Connors. The last Chairman of the former Catholic hospital system, Caritas Christi, was James Karam, a prominent supporter of Congressman Barney Frank. The longtime public relations firm for the archdiocese was Rasky Baerlein, founded by Larry Rasky, a close political ally of former Vice-President Joe Biden. The Cardinal’s Communications Director is Terence Donilon, brother of President Obama’s National Security Advisor, and a former aide to Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun, a supporter of legal abortion.”

“The episcopate of Sean O’Malley has been characterized by an unprecedented public deference towards elected officials who reject Catholic moral principles. The late U. S. Senator Edward Kennedy and the late Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, were extolled as faithful Catholics by the Cardinal.”

“Current Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a NARAL award recipient and Planned Parenthood defender who said he wants to make Boston a sanctuary city for abortions should Roe be overturned, was given the Cardinal Cushing Humanitarian Award by the Missionary Society of Saint James the Apostle, whose president is Cardinal O’Malley. This was done while O’Malley was serving as Pro-Life Chairman for the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

“Pro-life Catholics in Massachusetts have, for decades, faced a hostile media culture and political environment. Now, with this decision by the state’s Catholic bishops, who do not want to be thought of as culture warriors, their isolation has just increased, and their struggle has become lonelier. Shame on the bishops!”

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ACTION ALERT!!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017

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

PRO-LIFE CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF BOSTON, ROBERT M. CAPPUCCI, NEEDS HELP COLLECTING NOMINATION SIGNATURES

Former Boston School Committeeman Robert M. Cappucci, who is solidly pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom, is running for Mayor of Boston. As an elected member of the Boston School Committee from 1987 to 1991, Bob Cappucci was the only official on the thirteen member board to consistently oppose condom distribution and intrusive, immoral sex education programs in the Boston Public Schools.

To qualify for the ballot, Bob Cappucci needs to file the certified signatures of 3,000 registered voters in the City of Boston with the city Elections Department by 5pm on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017. As a practical matter, to avoid challenges and disqualifications, he must collect more than 4,500 signatures to ensure an adequate margin of safety.

Bob Cappucci needs your help with his signature gathering campaign. If you are interested in assisting this life-long practicing Catholic and daily communicant in offering a pro-life alternative to Boston’s corrupt and incestuous political oligarchy, please contact his campaign’s signature coordinator, Colbe Mazzarella at 617-970-0928 or at mazzarellac@gmail.com.

For many years now, once Catholic Boston has become a political wasteland for anyone who believes in the right to life, traditional morality, and religious freedom. Nominal Catholics in elected office defend Planned Parenthood, support the corruption of minors with contraceptives, promote the deformity of marriage, and enable the disorder of “transgenderism.” They even march in depraved, pornographic processions celebrating pride in sodomy.

Despite the awards and honors conferred upon him by Cardinal O’Malley, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh remains a dedicated enemy of Catholic morality and the constitutional rights of Catholic believers. Using threats and profanities, he muscled Saint Patrick’s Day Parade organizers into admitting homosexual militants into a celebration of a Catholic saint. Walsh rallied for Planned Parenthood, received a “Men for Choice” award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, and even advocated turning what was, at one time, the most Catholic city in America into a so-called sanctuary city for abortions, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

The long suffering remnant of moral sanity and Catholic fidelity who still live in the city of James Michael Curley and John W. McCormack deserve the choice which Robert Cappucci is willing to present. Please help him if you can!

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, MAY 8, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CRITICIZES CARDINAL O’MALLEY FOR ATTENDING KENNEDY GALA HONORING BARACK OBAMA

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley for attending last night’s ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, where former U. S. President Barack Obama was honored with the 2017 Profile in Courage Award. The award, created by the Kennedy family, is conferred by the Kennedy Library Foundation.

As a presidential candidate in 2008, and as an incumbent president seeking reelection in 2012, Barack Obama was endorsed by both the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America. As a United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008, Obama received a 100% rating from both organizations. In an April, 2013 speech, President Obama asked God to bless Planned Parenthood. In the closing days of his administration, he signed an executive order prohibiting states from defunding Planned Parenthood.

As an Illinois State Senator from 1997 to 2004, he received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood Illinois Action. While a member of the Illinois Legislature, Obama opposed born-alive legislation, which would have guaranteed medical care to children who survived abortions.

Mr. Obama also received perfect ratings from such supporters of abortion, contraception and population control as the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Population Connection, the Population Institute, and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

In a regulatory mandate issued by the Obama Administration’s U. S. Department of Health and Human Services to enforce the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 — known as Obamacare — all employers, including religious institutions, were required to subsidize sterilizations and birth control drugs and devices, including abortifacients, as part of their employee group health insurance coverage. This forced one order of Catholic nuns to file a lawsuit against the Obama Administration — Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell — to protect their religious freedom rights.

Former President Obama, who acknowledged Cardinal O’Malley’s presence in his acceptance speech, went on to describe congressional support for his Affordable Care Act as a profile in courage.

The Catholic Action League characterized Cardinal O’Malley’s attendance at the event as an “appalling betrayal of the pro-life movement, of the innocent unborn, and of those Catholics and other Christians struggling to defend First Amendment guarantees of religious liberty.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Barack Obama was, by any objective indicator, the most pro-abortion president in the history of this country, at least, since abortion became a public issue in the 1960s. He was also, arguably, the president most hostile to the protections found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights guaranteeing religious freedom.”

“Catholic prelates ought to avoid giving scandal, and, at all times, ought to bear witness to the truth. Sean O’Malley did neither last night. The message O’Malley sends by his attendance at this celebration of Barack Obama is that support for the mass killing of pre-born children, and attacks on the conscience rights of Christians, are morally respectable, are no obstacle to public honors, and, implicitly, are no barrier to the votes and campaign contributions of Catholics.”

“No rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion when the former Chairman of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is photographed smiling at an event hailing Planned Parenthood’s favorite president. Once again, Catholic principles are cast aside, and the whole world can see the fawning servility of the American Catholic hierarchy to wealth, celebrity, and political power.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

APRIL 23, 2017

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

To the Editor:

In the news story on the opening of the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Voyage in Boston’s Seaport District, reporter Lisa Wangsness refers, curiously, to Saint Peter as“the founder of the church,” (The Archdiocese is used to closing churches. Now, it’s opening one, 4/21/2017).

No Catholic would ever make such a claim. For two thousand years, Catholics have understood that the Founder of the Church was Our Savior, Jesus Christ. Saint Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, was His first vicar.

By the way, it is not a new church. It is a new church building, replacing the chapel of the same name which closed Easter Sunday so the property could be redeveloped by John Hynes. Nor, as was reported in the first paragraph of the story, is it the first new Catholic church in Boston in more than 60 years. Following a September, 1980 fire, a new Saint William’s Parish Church, now closed and sold, was constructed in Dorchester.

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

MARCH 16, 2017

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

To the Editor:

There is some inconsistency in columnist Yvonne Abraham’s complaint that the Allied War Veterans Council should not be allowed to define what it means to be Irish in Boston on Saint Patrick’s Day (The help of the Irish, 3/16/2017).

After all, she does not seem to object when politicians, newspapers and homosexual groups instruct us on how to observe the feast day of our patron saint.

The premise of Abraham’s column is mistaken. Ultimately, Saint Patrick’s Day is not merely about Irish culture, but about the Catholic Faith which that saint brought to Ireland---a Faith which came to form and define that nation’s identity, and guarantee that it would be separate from the identity and culture of Britain.

Catholicism, however, and its moral teachings, are the last things which the media, OUTVETS, our political elites, and for that matter, Yvonne Abraham wish to celebrate, or even acknowledge, on Saint Patrick’s Day.

Sincerely,

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

Attention: Matthew Bernstein

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NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2017

CONTACT: BRIAN CAMENKER, (781) 890-6001, www.massresistance.org

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

OUTVETS ADMITTED TO BOSTON’S SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE AFTER THREATS OF VIOLENCE

Mass Resistance and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts have received multiple reports from within the Allied War Veterans Council—organizers of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade—that the homosexual group OUTVETS was admitted to the 2017 parade only after numerous threats of violent protests disrupting the parade, potentially causing injuries and worse, were directed at Council members on social media.

Reports were also received that the Boston Police found these threats to be credible, and told Council members that they could not guarantee that they could contain the potential violence or maintain a secure perimeter around the parade route. According to sources, the Boston Police also told parade organizers that if they went forward with the parade without OUTVETS, the Council would be responsible for the ensuing violence. The police also suggested that the parade might have to be cancelled for public safety reasons.

If these reports are accurate, this is the second time in three years that the City of Boston has threatened to cancel the parade, as it was revealed in recent court filings that Mayor Marty Walsh threatened to withdraw the parade permit if homosexual groups were not allowed to march in 2014.

Mass Resistance and the Catholic Action League are characterizing these reports as “an appalling example of the unscrupulous methods and extreme measures which the Walsh Administration is willing to resort to in fulfilling its campaign pledges to the homosexual groups who supported the election of Marty Walsh as mayor.”

Mass Resistance President Brian Camenker stated: “If groups critical of homosexuality threatened violence towards a gay pride parade, they would be investigated by the FBI for everything from federal hate crimes to domestic terrorism. I have, personally, spoken to three current and former officials of the Allied War Veterans Council who have corroborated these allegations. The U. S. Attorney’s office needs to investigate these reports to determine if the civil and constitutional rights of parade organizers were violated.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “This is sheer thuggery by the Walsh Administration. A nine to zero United States Supreme Court decision has been, effectively, nullified by a city government engaging in unlawful threats, bullying, intimidation, ruthless pressure tactics, and the use of law enforcement to coerce citizens into forfeiting their constitutional rights. One of the most disturbing aspects of this controversy is that the leadership of the Boston Police now seem invested in implementing the political agenda of the Walsh Administration. Does the rule of law still apply Boston used to be called ’The Cradle of Liberty.’ Now, it resembles a banana republic, with a Peronist mayor.”

Interfering with the exercise of constitutional rights is a crime in Massachusetts (MGL Chapter 265, Section 37), and since 1991, has been a hate crime (Chapter 434 of the Acts of 1991).

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

MARCH 9, 2017

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

To the Editor:

Amid an unreasoning political correctness, Attorney Chester Darling is a voice of sanity (Sexual politics, coercion have no place in this annual tradition, March 9, 2017).

The politicians and columnists who demand that the homosexual group OUTVETS participate in Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade have yet to explain, rationally, why those who castigate Catholic morality as bigotry should be allowed to march in a parade in honor of a Catholic saint.

Darling, who is a Methodist, reminds us that Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Boston, something which the Catholic priests and prelates of Boston, in the context of this controversy, at least, have been silent about for the last twenty-five years.

Sincerely,

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

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NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE COMMENDS PARADE ORGANIZERS FOR DEFENDING THE CATHOLIC CHARACTER OF SAINT PATRICK’S DAY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is commending the Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston—the organizers of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade—for defending the Catholic character of Saint Patrick’s Day.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Veterans Council said: “Since its founding in 1901, the Parade has been a celebration of country, community, and the Catholic Faith. The question at hand is not one of inclusion or discrimination. The Council is accepting of all peoples and organizations, but will not permit messages that conflict with the overall theme of the Parade.”

The statement was issued in response to the firestorm of controversy which followed the Council’s decision to prevent the homosexual group OUTVETS from marching in the 2017 parade.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1992, states: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC 2357)

The Catholic Action League called the Veterans Council statement “an act of courage, integrity and fidelity, not only to their religion, but to the legacy of John J. ‘Wacko’ Hurley, the longtime Council Commander who fought for twenty-three years to preserve the traditional celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day in Boston.”

Hurley, represented by Attorney Chester Darling, won a 9 to 0 victory before the United States Supreme Court in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Group of Boston, upholding the right of parade organizers to control the content and message of the parade.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The overt message of OUTVETS, affirming homosexuality as a source of pride, is radically discordant, indeed, irreconcilable, with a celebration honoring the Catholic Faith and a Catholic saint. Saint Patrick was not a proponent of homosexual rights. Those who preach tolerance and respect for diversity ought to learn to tolerate and respect the religious convictions, moral sensibilities and constitutional rights of Christians who believe in traditional morality.”

The Catholic Action League, and its predecessor organization, have supported the legal position of the Allied War Veterans Council since 1992.

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NEWS RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017

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

ALLIED WAR VETERANS COUNCIL REFUSES TO ALLOW HOMOSEXUAL GROUP TO MARCH IN BOSTON’S SAINT PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

Last night, by a vote of 11 to 4, the Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston—the organizers of Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade—refused to permit the homosexual group OUTVETS to march in the 2017 parade, which will be held on Sunday, March 19th.

On February 15th, the Irish Echo newspaper reported that the two homosexual activist groups that marched in the 2015 and 2016 parades, Boston Pride and OUTVETS, had failed to apply for this year’s parade. Boston Pride issued a statement over the weekend citing “other priorities.” OUTVETS, an organization which had no corporate existence prior to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s decision to reopen the parade controversy in 2014, issued a statement today asserting that they “assumed” the veterans council vote was because of their LGBT status.

As of this afternoon, it remains unclear whether the vote by the veterans council represented a reaffirmation of their longstanding position to prevent groups who identified themselves by their sexual behavior from marching, or was simply a refusal based on process issues pertaining to filing deadlines for this year’s parade and rules violations relating to emblems in last year’s parade.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Whatever the reason, a parade named in honor of a Catholic saint should never be used as a venue for those who despise and reject Catholic morality, and castigate such morality as bigotry, prejudice and homophobia. The venerable name of Saint Patrick should not be exploited and trivialized by those who have contempt for the Catholic Faith, and have no interest in the ancient Catholic culture and heritage of Ireland.”

“Mayor Walsh’s posturing about not allowing discrimination is gainsaid by a 9 to 0 United States Supreme Court decision, which upheld the right of parade organizers to control the message and content of their own parade, which the court found to be a constitutionally protected expression of free speech. Walsh’s vision of inclusion does not, evidently, apply to Catholics who believe in traditional morality.”

“The conduct of the Walsh administration in the parade controversy, which, reportedly, included threats to parade organizers to withhold city permits if the mayor’s political allies in the homosexual community were not allowed to march, bears a striking resemblance to a current prosecution by the U. S. Attorney’s Office of two indicted mayoral aides, who allegedly threatened to withhold city permits for a Boston music festival if organizers refused to hire the mayor’s allies in organized labor.”

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NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE HAILS TRUMP APPOINTMENT OF JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH TO THE SUPREME COURT

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is hailing the decision of President Donald Trump to appoint Judge Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. President Trump announced his nomination of Gorsuch at 8:00pm this evening.

Judge Gorsuch, an Episcopalian, is, in the tradition of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an originalist and a textualist in his approach to the Constitution. In a 2005 article in National Review, Gorsuch wrote that “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers, rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda.”

As an appeals court judge, Gorsuch has upheld, in the Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor cases, the First Amendment guarantee of the Free Exercise of Religion, holding that the Affordable Care Act mandate for contraceptive, abortifacient and sterilization coverage in employee group insurance programs require employers to “violate their religious faith by forcing them to lend an impermissible degree of assistance to conduct their religion teaches to be gravely wrong.”

Prior to his 2006 appeals court appointment, Gorsuch authored a book opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, in which he argued that “all human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” Early in his career, Gorsuch clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White, a Democrat and a JFK appointee, who wrote the dissenting opinion in Roe v. Wade.

The Catholic Action League commended President Trump for his “swift and faithful fulfillment of his campaign promise to appoint a like-minded successor to Justice Scalia,” calling Judge Gorsuch “a jurist of integrity who respects both the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and the restraints the Founders expected of the judicial branch.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The appointment of Neil Gorsuch represents a refreshing departure from the corrupt, bi-partisan tradition of appointing activist judges who think their office empowers them to impose their ideological preferences on the rest of society. It would seem that Judge Gorsuch actually believes that jurists ought to adhere to an honest reading of the Constitution, and be bound by that, rather than manipulate the language of the Constitution to invent rights which comport with their own social prejudices.”

”Liberals will, of course, declare Judge Gorsuch unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. For them, the only jurists qualified to serve on the court are those who give lip service to the fantasy that the Fourteenth Amendment—a document written in the eighteen sixties—contains a right to kill a child in the womb. Senate Republicans should move quickly to confirm the President’s nomination of Judge Gorsuch, using, if necessary, a simple majority vote.”

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