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

To the Editor:

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

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

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

Sincerely,

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

MEDIA UPDATE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To the Editor,

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

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

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2012

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

RESPONSE TO "HATE CRIME IN DORCHESTER"

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

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

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

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

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Madam Attorney General:

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

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

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

Thank you.

Sincerely,

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

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2012

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

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CONDEMNS
OBAMA BIRTH CONTROL MANDATE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2012

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

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

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

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

    Funeral arrangements are pending.

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

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

To the Editor:

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

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

Sincerely,