MEDIA UPDATE

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2024

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

LEAGUE’S ANNUAL ROSARY AT CURLEY GRAVE RECEIVES NATIONAL COVERAGE IN CATHOLIC PRESS

The Annual Rosary of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, held each year in November at the grave of Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor James Michael Curley, has just received national (and international) coverage in the Catholic press.

Mayor Curley’s anniversary—his Dies natalis in caeli—is November 12th. The Rosary is held on the Saturday prior to that date, which this year, fell on November 9th.

Matt McDonald, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the New Boston Post, was present in Boston’s Old Calvary Cemetery to report on the event for the National Catholic Register, one of the highest circulation Catholic newspapers in the United States.

Among the attendees interviewed by McDonald were former Boston Mayor and U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Ray Flynn, League Executive Director C.J. Doyle, Curley scholar and Suffolk University Professor Larry Overlan, Attorney Robert Joyce, the former President of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, and longtime League members Gerard and Dana Marrocco.

McDonald also cited the short but perceptive biography of Curley by former Massachusetts Senate President (and University of Massachusetts President) William Bulger.

McDonald’s engaging and informative article—replete with gifted photography—was published by the Register on November 30th.

The next day, McDonald’s article was re-printed on the website of EWTN Great Britain.

Catholicism.org also reported on McDonald’s story.

The Catholic Action League was quoted in a second Matt McDonald story—this time on Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s belated decision to include Catholic school students in the city’s free museum pass program.

That story was published by the National Catholic Register and the Catholic News Agency on December 9th.

The League’s widely reported statement, calling for the prosecution of the thugs who disrupted the Boston Men’s March To Abolish Abortion, was published in the December print edition of the Boston Broadside.

On December 5th, C.J. Doyle was interviewed on WSRN Radio 620 AM, in Washington, for the program Levin At 11. Doyle discussed the positions on the right to life of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and other Administration appointees.

Finally, the League’s News Analysis on the peril faced by Christians as a consequence of the Biden engineered regime change in Syria, was carried on Catholicism.org on December 9th.

The Catholic Action League would like to extend its sincere thanks to Matt McDonald and to the National Catholic Register for the splendid coverage they afforded us regarding our annual commemoration of Boston’s Mayor of the Poor.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2024

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

BIDEN CELEBRATES FALL OF SYRIA, BUT CHRISTIANS FACE PERIL

Lame duck, neo-liberal U.S. President Joe Biden is celebrating the collapse of the regime of Bashar Al Assad, the former President of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Assad fled into exile, to Moscow, yesterday, as Islamist revolutionaries—including Salafi Jihadist elements—entered the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The rebel commander is Abu al-Golani, who spent five years as a U.S. prisoner in Iraq. A former member of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda—the terrorist group responsible for 9/11—he now, reportedly, receives funding from both the U.S. and Israel.

Biden called the fall of Assad “a fundamental act of justice,” and “a moment of historic opportunity for the...people of Syria.”

It was only under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that regime change in Syria became an American foreign policy objective.

In 2013, acting on advice from the Israeli and Jordanian governments, and on that of his own CIA, Obama authorized the billion dollar, covert Operation Timber Sycamore, to remove Assad from power. Later, in 2016, Obama sent U.S. Special Forces to intervene in the Syrian Civil War.

In his first term, although initially supportive of intervention, President Donald Trump ultimately cancelled Timber Sycamore and decided to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria, only to be slow-footed by the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Saturday, President-Elect Trump, referring to the Syrian conflict, declared that “The United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight,” a position reiterated yesterday by Vice-President-Elect J.D. Vance.

Syria’s Christians—Greek Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholics, and Oriental Orthodox—view the fall of Assad with apprehension. Under 54 years of Baathist rule by Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, the country’s Christian minority was not only protected, but given participation in the civic life of the country.

The American, European and Israeli backed destabilization of Syria has brought death, flight, repression, persecution, kidnappings and ethnic cleansing to that nation’s ancient Christian community.

There have been massacres in Christian villages by Islamists. At least 120 churches have been destroyed in the war, with others seized and converted into military headquarters by jihadists.

Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, the Christian population of that country has been devastated, falling by 80%, from 1.5 million in 2011 to less than 300,000 today.

The Acts of the Apostles tell us that it was in the Syrian city of Antioch (now part of Turkey) that the followers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians.

The Conversion of Saint Paul took place on the road to Damascus. In the first century AD, there were more Christians in Damascus, than in Jerusalem.

Seven Popes and the last Greek Father of the Church, Saint John Damascene, were from Syria. Even today, in the 21st century, some Syrian Christians still speak Aramaic—the language of Our Savior.

The Catholic Action League called the Biden supported Islamist victory in Syria “another American engineered disaster pointing towards the extinction of a native Christian presence in the region where the Catholic Faith was born.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C.J. Doyle made the following comment: “What the Obama and Biden administrations did in Syria duplicates the mayhem caused by three Bush administrations in Iraq, where the Christian population has similarly imploded, falling by 90% since the American invasion of that country.

“The last American President who successfully intervened on behalf of the Christians of the Middle East was General Dwight Eisenhower, whose Eisenhower Doctrine was invoked in 1958—66 years ago—to preserve the independence, security and stability of then Christian majority Lebanon.

“In the last 35 years, successive American administrations have seemed determined to turn the Holy Land and the Levant into a Christian museum, pursuing policies inimical to the survival of Christian communities.

“Does modern America really want to be remembered as the Great Power which accomplished what the Caliphs failed to achieve—the de-Christianization of the Middle East?

“Finally, the fall of Assad is also a setback for the beleaguered population of the world’s first Christian state, Armenia, whose countrymen have suffered ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Azerbaigian strongman, Ilham Aliyev.

“Aliyev’s patron is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose position in the region will be strengthened by the victory of his allies in Syria.”

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NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2024

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

REVERSAL BY MAYOR WU — CATHOLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS TO BE ADMITTED TO BOSTON’S MUSEUM PASS PROGRAM

Months after the Catholic Action League, Boston City Councilors, and aggrieved parents denounced the policy of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to exclude non-public school students from the city’s free museum pass program, the Mayor has decided to listen to her critics.

On January 30th, in her State of the City Address, Mayor Wu announced a free museum pass program for the city’s K through 12 public school students. Entitled BPS Sundays, the program allowed the admission, without charge, on the first and second Sundays of each month, of Boston Public School students and their families to six of the city’s preeminent cultural institutions.

The participating institutions include the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science, the Children’s Museum, the New England Aquarium, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Franklin Park Zoo.

The initial program excluded, however, private and parochial school students, home-schooled students, and even public school students who attended charter schools or who participated in the suburban METCO program.

At that time, the Catholic Action League called the exclusion “arbitrary and discriminatory.”

In a statement, League Executive Director C. J. Doyle said, “No Boston child should be penalized because their parents made the lawful decision to enroll that student in a school which is not controlled by the city government and which is not staffed by the Boston Teachers’ Union.”

In February, two members of the Boston City Council—former Council President Ed Flynn and Councilor At-Large Erin Murphy—filed a resolution to expand the program to encompass all of Boston’s school children.

Yesterday, after months of criticism, Mayor Wu finally abandoned the exclusion rule to embrace all of the city’s school age children. Rebranding the program Boston Family Days, Wu also announced the addition of three new participating cultural institutions: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and the Museum of African American History.

The Catholic Action League called Wu’s decision to include all students “a belated but nonetheless appropriate redress of an initial injustice.”

C.J. Doyle made the following comment: “There are twenty Catholic schools in the City of Boston, with an enrollment approaching 7,000. These students are residents of Boston, and their parents are citizens, voters and taxpayers in the city.

“At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has found that the denial of neutral public benefits to the students and parents of religious schools is unconstitutional, the Wu Administration’s exclusion policy was, at best, tone-deaf, and almost certainly, unlawful. It would not have survived a court challenge.

“Mayor Wu did the right thing in finally opening the program to these students and their families. Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy ought to be commended for their defense of the rights of Catholic school students in the City of Boston.”

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2024

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts wishes to extend to all of its members and supporters, and to their families, a Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Although Thanksgiving is a festival of what has been called America’s civil religion, and is non-Catholic in its origins, it is a benign tradition, consistent with natural law, and imbued with Christian aspirations, which fosters a filial piety towards one’s country. Most importantly, it reminds us of our solemn duty to render gratitude to Almighty God.

Our first President expressed this pious purpose with these wholesome sentiments:

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

G. Washington

The Father of our Country was unique among the Founders in seeming to have a sympathetic disposition towards the Catholic Faith and the Christian civilization—Latin Christendom—which it created in Europe.

His request for prayers for those sovereigns who had shown kindness to America is directed, clearly, for the benefit of the Eldest Son of the Church, His Most Christian Majesty, King Louis XVI of France, and the Most Catholic King, His Most Catholic Majesty, King Charles III of Spain.

The fleets, armies, supplies, munitions and funds of these two Catholic monarchs made the independence of America possible.

The Christian King was much in need of prayers in October of 1789. The French Revolution had begun just three months before. This proclamation speaks to the nobility which defined the character of George Washington.

In giving thanks to God, President Washington invokes “the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed...” As one side in America’s cultural cold war remains implacably hostile to the latter, let Washington’s words remind us to add to our prayer of thanksgiving, a prayer of petition for the liberty and exaltation of Our Holy Mother, the Church.

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NEWS UPDATE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2024

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

REMARKS OF C. J. DOYLE TO THE BOSTON MEN’S MARCH TO ABOLISH ABORTION

On Saturday, November 16, 2024, C. J. Doyle, the Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, addressed the Third Annual Boston Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally For Personhood.

Doyle’s remarks were delivered from the historic Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common.

The enclosed link contains a video of Doyle’s speech. It runs for five minutes and 34 seconds.

NOTE: The District Attorney of Suffolk County referred to was Garrett Byrne, not Garrity.

Media coverage of Doyle’s speech and the subsequent call by the Catholic Action League to prosecute the thugs who attempted to disrupt the march, and prevent pro-lifers from exercising their constitutional rights, included WBZ TV/CBS 4 Boston, NBC 10 Boston, NECN, LifeNews, The Boston Globe and the Boston Broadside.

Doyle was also quoted in another Boston Globe story on the final collapse of Catholic healthcare in eastern Massachusetts with the sale of the Steward hospitals.

The statement issued by the Catholic Action League condemning Joe Biden for bestowing the nation’s highest civilian honor—the Presidential Medal of Freedom—on the former CEO of Planned Parenthood, was carried by Breitbart, LifeNews and Catholicism.org.

Doyle’s November 16th speech was the second time he addressed a pro-life gathering from the Parkman Bandstand.

On October 7, 2007, Doyle addressed the Respect Life Walk and Rally, delivering what became known as the ‘Culture of Betrayal’ speech, which received national media attention.

Finally, the Catholic Action League would like to express its sincere thanks to Jim Havens, President of the National Men’s March to Abolish Abortion and Rally for Personhood, for the gracious invitation, extended to C.J. Doyle, to speak to the assembled pro-life participants in the march.

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NEWS RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2024

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

LEAGUE CONDEMNS BIDEN AWARD TO FORMER CEO OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD

In a thumb-in-the-eye to the Catholic Church and all pro-life Americans, lame duck President Joe Biden—an alleged Catholic—has conferred the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on the former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Cecile Richards.

The closed door ceremony was held earlier today in the White House.

According to the Washington Times, “The ceremony was not listed on Mr. Biden’s public schedule, nor was his decision to award the medal to Ms. Richards publicly announced until after the presentation. Members of the media were not invited to watch the ceremony, which was not live-streamed on the White House website.”

Biden hailed Richards for her “absolute courage and conviction,” calling her “a leader of the utmost character,” who “carved an inspiring legacy that endures.”

Without awareness of irony, Biden spoke of “the countless lives she has made better...”

Richards directed the nation’s largest killing machine, and its lobbying and political arm, from 2006 to 2018. During that time, she presided over the destruction of nearly 3.9 million innocent pre-born children.

It was during Richards’ tenure as CEO that Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in fetal body parts was exposed.

The Catholic Action League called the award by Biden “an appalling betrayal of the Faith of his baptism, and a demonically evil act, which celebrates the willful murder of the innocent, the first of the four sins which ‘crieth to heaven for vengeance.’”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “At the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, mass murderers received a just penalty for their crimes against humanity.

“In Joe Biden’s America, a mass murderer has just been given the country’s highest award.

“How any priest or prelate at Washington’s Saint Matthew’s Cathedral can give a moral monster like Biden Holy Communion staggers the imagination.

“The Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, ought to excommunicate Joe Biden, but he is far too busy closing down Latin Masses to take cognizance of Biden’s latest assault on the beliefs and sensibilities of Catholics.

“Biden’s embrace of the moral equivalent of Adolf Eichmann should put paid to the pretense that some Catholic politicians are ‘personally opposed’ to abortion, but do not wish ‘to impose their religion upon others.’

“No one who has the slightest ethical discomfort with abortion could possibly honor the killer of nearly four million babies.

“In whatever lucid moments which remain to him, Joe Biden ought to ponder the warning given to political leaders by Pope Pius XI about abortion, who wrote ‘And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them [unborn children], but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven.’”

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NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2024

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

LEAGUE CALLS FOR PROSECUTION OF THUGS WHO TRIED TO DISRUPT THE MEN’S MARCH

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is calling upon Bay State Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden to file criminal charges, related to constitutional rights violations, against the extremists thugs who tried to disrupt the Men’s March to Abolish Abortion, which was held earlier today in Boston.

Hundreds of pro-life marchers were physically obstructed in Kenmore Square by left-wing mobs, forcing the Boston Police to intervene. Later, there were repeated attempts to acoustically suppress the message of pro-life speakers on Boston Common using drums, whistles, bullhorns and various noisemakers.

At least nine arrests were made for disorderly conduct, including one for hurling urine—a tactic used against pro-lifers before. There was an unconfirmed report that there were an additional five arrests for assaulting police officers.

Counter-protestors included the Mass Feminist Struggle Committee, Clown March Boston, and the Boston Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, the Socialist Alternative, the Revolutionary Communist Party, and the Stonewall Liberation Organization.

Pro-life marchers were peaceful and prayerful, reciting the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary as they processed from Planned Parenthood in Allston to the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common.

When pro-lifers offered a prayer, in gratitude, for the police, the extremists were triggered, and began screaming obscenities towards the Parkman Bandstand.

Chapter 265, section 37 of the Massachusetts General Laws—Violations of Constitutional Rights, states No person, whether or not acting under color of law, shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate or interfere with, or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with, or oppress or threaten any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth or by the constitution or laws of the United States.

Since 1991, constitutional rights violations have been classified as hate crimes under Massachusetts law.

In the past, Massachusetts courts have held that blockades or obstructions constitute the use of force.

The Catholic Action League called the attempted disruption of the Men’s March “a direct and premeditated attack on the First Amendment rights of Catholic citizens to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the free exercise of religion, and the freedom to petition the government for the redress of grievances.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “It is a disgrace, a scandal and an outrage that, in America’s most historically Catholic city, Catholic men cannot march through the streets of Boston, reciting the Rosary, without being harassed, heckled, insulted, abused, obstructed, impeded and shouted down.

“Public officials must denounce this assault on the Bill of Rights, and the media must be willing to identify these so-called counter-protestors for what they are: violent hate groups bent on violating the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.”

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MEMBER ALERT

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2024

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

SUPPORT THE MEN’S MARCH TO ABOLISH ABORTION!

On Saturday, November 16, 2024, the third annual Men’s March To Abolish Abortion And Rally For Personhood will be held in Boston.

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is encouraging all League members, all faithful Catholics and all persons of goodwill to support this vitally important endeavor.

We also urge all pro-life Catholic men, who are physically able, to participate in the march, and urge all supporters of the right to life to attend the rally on Boston Common in front of the Parkman Bandstand.

The struggle to protect innocent human life from that form of mass murder known as legal abortion is waged in politics, popular culture, legislation and the courts.

It is foremost however, a spiritual combat, and the weapon which the Men’s March will bring to the Boston Common—the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary—is our single greatest strategic asset.

The overturning of that artifice of constitutional fiction known as Roe v. Wade has, it would seem, provoked the wrath of the Father of Lies, and that wrath is reflected in the rage of his followers here in the Bay State.

A so-called Reproductive Justice Unit has been established in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and it will target pro-life pregnancy care centers.

Meanwhile, after more than two years, those who vandalized Worcester’s pro-life crisis pregnancy centers remain at large and unpunished.

Under Governor Maura Healey and Chancellor Marty Meehan—two nominal Catholics—the University of Massachusetts system has become a veritable Fort Knox of abortion pill reserves, a government depository of 15,000 dosages of lethal Mifepristone.

Not content to expand child killing in the Bay State, Governor Healey is also determined to suppress pro-life voices and institutions.

Healey’s Department of Public Health is perpetrating a vicious, unprecedented and taxpayer funded disinformation campaign—on behalf of the Governor’s major donor class in the abortion industry—to demonize pro-life pregnancy care centers.

Despite the 2022 victory before the U.S. Supreme Court, the conflict is far from over, and has now moved to new battlefields.

The pro-life community must rise to meet the challenges confronting it in post-Roe America.

Please join us on November 16th.

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NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2024

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

LEAGUE CALLS FOR HATE CRIME PROSECUTION AFTER ARSON FIRE AT CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today is calling upon Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey to initiate a hate crime investigation into the arson fire at a historic Catholic parish church in the Town of Franklin.

The fire began in the sacristy, late in the afternoon of Wednesday, October 23rd, at Saint Mary’s Church, which was built in 1927. Although the blaze was knocked down quickly, it caused extensive smoke damage to the nave, rendering the interior of the church unusable for worship.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office declared the incident to be arson. Cleaning and repairs could take up to a month to complete.

Saint Mary’s is a church of the Archdiocese of Boston.

This incident is the seventh criminal attack directed against a Catholic church in Massachusetts since the beginning of 2023. In the last five years, there have been 47 episodes of arson, graffiti, theft and vandalism against Catholic churches, schools, cemeteries, pregnancy centers and religious iconography in the Commonwealth.

Section 127A of Chapter 266 of the Massachusetts General Laws makes it a crime to destroy, deface, mar or injure a church or synagogue in the state. Since 1994, violations of this chapter have been classified as hate crimes.

In a departure from previous statements, where offenders were routinely referred to as “poor souls” in need of prayers and mental health counseling, the Archdiocese of Boston is now actually calling for the punishment of the perpetrator.

“While we are a forgiving people, we do believe that whoever is responsible should be held accountable for the damage done and for the great risk to human safety that could have occurred,“ said the RCAB in its press statement.

The Catholic Action League called the incident “a depraved, viciously evil and premeditated act of violence, which could have caused the loss of human life, millions of dollars in property damage, the destruction of a beautiful and historic edifice of worship, and untold grief to thousands of people who regard Saint Mary’s as their spiritual home.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “After more than 50 unpunished attacks on Catholic institutions in this state in the last decade, it is time for someone to go to prison for trying to burn down a Catholic church in Massachusetts.

“The Catholic Church and the Catholic community must insist upon effective action and strict accountability from police, prosecutors and public officials in responding to what can be described, quite reasonably, as an epidemic of criminal violence against Catholic property in the Bay State.

“Like other American citizens, Catholics should be able to engage in their constitutional right to the free exercise of their religion without fear, intimidation or impediment from vandals and arsonists.”

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MEMBER ADVISORY

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2024

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

LEAGUE TO HOLD ANNUAL ROSARY AT CURLEY GRAVE

November 12, 2024 will be the 66th anniversary of the death of U. S. Congressman, Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor James Michael Curley. The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts will hold its Annual Rosary at the Curley grave on Saturday, November 9th, 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 in Purgatory, 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:

• Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Ahern
• Joseph Arena
• Helene Armeno
• Catherine Barden
• Joseph M. Beard
• Mr. and Mrs. Emile J. Beauregard
• Joseph L. Begnoche
• Hon. Angelo Berlandi
• Robert M. Berlo
• Barbara M. Bersaw
• Louise Birmingham
• Marilyn Birnie
• Robert W. Boehm
• Gloria Brackett
• Elisabeth Bresnahan
• Mary S. Bulger
• Mary Louise Burckhart
• Rev. William C. Burckhart
• David R. Burke
• Leona Carlsen
• Mr. and Mrs. Bertrand G. Chasse
• Mr. and Mrs. George A. Coleman
• Hon. and Mrs. John F. Collins
• Hon. David F. Constantine
• Rev. Msgr. Leonard A. Coppenrath
• Hon. Francis X. Coppinger
• Hon. John J. Costello
• Martin J. Costello
• Charles O. Coudert
• Leo J. Coveney
• Hon. and Mrs. James J. Craven, Jr.
• Joseph B. Craven, Jr.
• Dr. Philip T. Crotty, Jr.
• Ann Cutress
• Hon. Michael A. D’Avolio
• Rev. Msgr. John Dillon Day
• Jane M. Deery
• Robert J. Delery
• James J. Derba
• James S. DiPerri
• Marilyn Doherty
• Cora Anne Donovan
• Paul I. Dooley
• Francis A. Doyle, Sr.
• Gregory and Marie Dunn
• Dorothy D. Edson
• William S. Farrell
• Dennis F. Finn
• Robert J. Flanagan
• Thomas A. Flatley
• Thomas J. Flatley
• Carmine F. Grassini
• Yvonne Goddard
• Roger B. Gill
• Charles P. Gourlis
• Thomas Hamill
• Edward B. Hanify, Jr.
• Christine Hanley
• Hon. & Mrs. Edward T. Hanley
• Mrs. Marion Hardy
• Jean B. Healey
• Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Healy
• H. Noel Hebard
• Rev. Cornelius J. Heery
• Professor Robert Hickson, Ph.D.
• Esther Johnson
• Rev. Harold J. Johnson
• Frederick M. Kelley
• Brian D. Kelly
• Hon. James M. Kelly
• Eugene F. Kiely, Jr.
• H. E., Edward J. King
• Alfred A. Lagan
• H. E., Bernard, Cardinal, Law
• Frederick G. Lewis
• Paul A. Likoudis
• Anthony & Rita Lombardi
• Frederick D. Long
• Rev. Charles Stanley MacIsaac, OS
• Florence MacIsaac
• Mr. and Mrs. John J. MacIsaac
• Albert James Healy Madden
• Richard Malone
• Paul F. May
• Francis R. Mazzaglia
• Gerald Mazzarella
• Vincent Mazzarella
• Paul McCarthy
• Andrew J. McCauley, Esq.
• Celia McClory
• Rev. Myron McCormick, OFM
• Mrs. Mary McEnroe
• John F. McManus
• John A. McNeice, Jr.
• Gino Michelutti
• William P. Monahan, Esq.
• Paul F. X. Moriarty
• Rosemary Motta
• John T. Mulry
• Walter T. Mulry
• Hon. James J. Nixon
• Hon. Joseph R. Nolan
• Mary F. O’Brien
• Owen L. O’Malley
• Rev. Hugh H. O’Regan
• Dante Pattavina
• Frances Pattavina
• Dr. Vincent Pattavina
• Rev. Gilbert S. Phinn
• Frederick C. Pulsifer
• Janet E. Ray
• Thomas F. Reynolds
• Gerald M. Ridge
• Most Rev. Lawrence J. Riley, S.T.D.
• John S. Ring
• Barbara Ann Rockett, M.D.
• Richard F. Russo
• George T. Ryan
• Rev. William F. Salmon
• Roy R. Scarpato
• Thomas P. Schimp
• John J. Shaughnessy
• Elinore C. Sheils
• Francis N. Sheils
• Hugh B. Sheridan, Jr.
• Joan D’Arcy Sheridan
• John W. Spillane, KHS, Esq.
• Dr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Stanton
• Virginia Teehan
• Peter L. Travers, Jr.
• Chester F. Tyminski
• Hon. John T. Tynan
• Bro. Bartholomew Varden, CFX
• Wilfrid A. Villarrubia
• Rev. Francis X. Wallace
• Thomas A. Walsh
• Thomas A. Welch
• L. Thomas White

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

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

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

October 30, 2024

Letters to the Editor
The Boston Globe
One Exchange Place, Suite 201
Boston, MA 02109-2132
letter@globe.com

To the Editor:

Unsurprisingly, former Catholic Joan Vennochi is upset because the Catholic diocese in New Hampshire cancelled a week long Special Needs event at a church youth camp, reportedly due to the display of homosexual Pride flags by some participants, (A fight over values and a Pride flag means the end of a Catholic camp, 10/28/2024).

Vennochi, who evidently believes that the Church has no right to uphold its own values, in one of its own institutions, claims the issue is about the failure of the Church to show “love and charity,” making, instead, “harsh and discriminatory judgements.”

What she really means, of course, is that the Church should abandon its historic beliefs, and conform, as she has, to modern secular culture.

Vennochi needs to be more candid about her own views. If she believes what the Bible and the Catholic Church teach about same sex relations is false, harmful and ought to be repudiated, she should just say so, and stop resorting to euphemisms about “love and inclusion.”

Sincerely,

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

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NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2024

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

CATHOLIC BISHOP TRIES TO SABOTAGE STUDENT OPPOSITION TO TRANSGENDERISM

In a growing national trend, girl athletes at a Catholic school in New Hampshire decided to strike a blow for fairness and sanity in women’s sports by refusing to compete against an opposing team whose players included a gender dysphoric male.

Members of the girls soccer team at Bishop Brady High School in Concord decided to forfeit their match against Kearsarge Regional High School, whose goalie is the six foot high junior Maelle Jacques, a biological male.

Jacques won first place in the New Hampshire girls high jump competition in February, defeating every every female athlete in the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association indoor track and field championship.

Exacerbating the controversy is the presence at the games of Marc Jacques—Maelle’s father—a convicted sex offender, who was free pending a December report date for the beginning of a five year federal prison term.

Jacques was arrested again on October 18th for an alleged bail violation. He is now in federal custody.

The courageous stand taken by the girls of the Bishop Brady soccer team received the enthusiastic support of their parents and their classmates.

It did not however, receive the support of their Church.

David Thibault, the Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Manchester, told the girls that “We don’t believe it is right to just forfeit a game when playing a team with a transgender athlete because we have an issue that is not being handled properly by another party.”

Thibault went on to warn that “Parents and fans should not protest, even silently, but attend games in goodwill, seeing the deep, inherent dignity of each and every player.”

Thibault works for the Bishop of Manchester, the Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci. According to one media source, Libasci huddled with his legal team to craft a statement opposed to the student/parent boycott.

Despite the infidelity of their own bishop, the girls refused to play, and diocesan opposition collapsed amid widespread public support for the girls and national and international media attention.

Riley Gaines and Moms For Liberty were among the public defenders of the Bishop Brady girls.

In what proved to be an integrity shredding, multi-car public relations train wreck, the Diocese of Manchester repeatedly changed both its story and its position.

After first discouraging the boycott, a diocesan spokeswoman then claimed, implausibly, that the forfeit only occurred because “There simply weren’t enough players available for this game.”

In the end, the diocese conceded “Any student who discerns to opt out playing for their own reasons is supported and never penalized.”

The Catholic Action League called the bishop’s conduct “a shameful betrayal of brave young Catholic women who were determined, at cost to themselves, to do the right thing, according to the lights of their well formed consciences.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “It would seem that the students and parents of Bishop Brady High School have a better understanding of Catholic morality and Christian anthropology than the Bishop of Manchester and his diocesan bureaucrats.

“Unlike the leadership of the Church in Manchester, they also have the courage of their convictions.

“There are two likely explanations for the bishop’s behavior. The first is the fear of adverse publicity from a hostile media—spurred on by the LGBTQ lobby—who would tag him as a ‘culture warrior,’ for defending the girls.

“The second is the malign and disproportionate influence of the same sex attracted in the upper ranks of the Catholic clergy.

“If Bishop Libasci wishes to be shepherd and not a hireling, he should apologize to the girls and their parents, publicly commend them, and announce that their act of courage will now be the standard and policy for all Catholic schools in the Diocese of Manchester.”

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NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024

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

WORCESTER BISHOP URGES NO VOTE ON QUESTION FOUR

The Bishop of Worcester, the Most Reverend Robert J. McManus, is urging Catholics and other persons of good will to vote No on Massachusetts Ballot Question Four.

Question 4 is a proposed law by initiative petition, entitled Limited Legalization and Regulation of Certain Natural Psychedelic Substances.

If passed, Massachusetts would become the third state in the Union—after Colorado and Oregon—to decriminalize the growth, production, possession and use of various controlled substances, including such dangerous drugs as mescaline and so-called magic mushrooms.

Opponents point out that the measure would endanger public health, substantially increase the incidences of impaired driving, and through its provision allowing home production for personal use, create an expansive black market in illicit drugs.

The Bishop warned that “The use of such...drugs can alter one’s perception of reality, cause extreme feelings of euphoria or despair and can worsen mental health issues.”

The brief but forthright statement by Bishop McManus, issued on October 10th, can be found here. There is also an informative October 16th article in the Worcester diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Free Press.

The Catholic Action League called the Bishop’s intervention “another compelling example of his heartfelt pastoral solicitude for his flock.”

League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Once again, as in the Rainbow flag controversy at Nativity School, and in his Catholic identity policy for parochial schools, the courageous Bishop McManus has acted alone, without the support of his fellow members of the Massachusetts hierarchy.

“The Massachusetts Catholic Conference—representing the four Catholic dioceses in the Bay State—has posted the Bishop’s statement on its website, but has taken no official position on the ballot question.

“Nor has there been any comment from Cardinal Sean O’Malley or the Archdiocese of Boston, a fact that most Boston Catholics, by now, probably find unsurprising. The Archdiocese is, apparently, too preoccupied preparing for its October 26th webinar on climate change.

“The Catholic Action League is pleased to echo the sentiments of so many faithful Catholics in this state when we say ‘Thank God for Bishop Robert McManus!’”

Election Day in the Commonwealth is Tuesday, November 5, 2024.

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HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2024

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

Hundreds of communities, 16 American states, and numerous countries, on three continents, in two hemispheres, have traditionally celebrated the life and legacy of Christopher Columbus on October 12th. That was the day, 532 years ago, when the Admiral of the Ocean Sea first sighted the New World as his ships approached what is now the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

In 1892, Benjamin Harrison became the first American President to recognize October 12th as Columbus Day. It was an act of reparation to Italian Americans, and a gesture of conciliation to the Kingdom of Italy, following the lynching of eleven Italians by a nativist mob in New Orleans in 1891.

The next President to honor the Great Explorer was William Howard Taft, who delivered an address at the unveiling of a statue of Christopher Columbus outside of Union Station in Washington in 1912.

Despite opposition from the Ku Klux Klan, which derided Columbus celebrations as a “Papal fraud,” the Seventy-third Congress passed a resolution on April 30, 1934, establishing Columbus Day.

It authorized the President of the United States to “issue a proclamation designating October 12 of each year as Columbus Day and calling upon officials of the Government to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on said date and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies expressive of the public sentiment befitting the anniversary of the discovery of America.”

Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937. In 1971, the celebration of October 12th anniversary was moved to the second Monday in October.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt began the White House tradition of issuing annual statements praising the Discoverer of America. That tradition ended in 2021, when the occupant of the White House, Joseph Biden, issued a proclamation lamenting the “painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

The current attempts to demonize Columbus have little to do with the actual history of 15th century Hispaniola and everything to do with the woke politics of the 21st century America.

This campaign of execration is not founded upon solicitude for native peoples, but upon revulsion for the United States, contempt for Americans of European culture and ancestry, and odium fidei—hatred of the Catholic Faith. Its purpose is not the redress of grievances, but the perpetration of culturecide as a prelude to revolution.

Christopher Columbus was a gifted visionary, a brave explorer, a skillful navigator, and a pious Catholic who once stood before the King and Queen of Spain wearing the robes of a Franciscan tertiary.

Widespread slavery pre-existed the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, as did human sacrifice, cannibalism, heart extraction, ritual castration, occult diabolism, the kidnapping and concubinage of women, and aggressive, plundering and pandemic warfare.

Columbus and his successors delivered native peoples from savage barbarism, cruel oppression, gruesome horrors, hideous atrocities and endemic violence. Columbus, who sought the peaceful conversion of natives, brought the blessings of the Catholic Faith and Christian civilization to the New World.

Spanish Catholic colonization of the New World, in all probability, saved millions, perhaps tens of millions, of innocent lives. Modern anthropology estimates that there were 250,000 annual victims of human sacrifice at the hands of the Aztecs alone.

Christopher Columbus should be honored as a hero, not only for the European discovery of America, but for rescuing the people of two continents from pagan societies whose demonic regimes practiced and celebrated mass murder.

He was not only Columbus the Explorer, he was Columbus the Liberator.

*****

In the last few days, headlines have filled the press, the internet, and the broadcast and cable media touting claims that DNA evidence now proves that Christopher Columbus was of Sephardic Jewish ancestry.

If this is true, we should not be shocked by it. In 15th and 16th century Spain and Portugal, many Catholics—including Churchmen—were so-called New Christians, descendants of Jewish conversos who embraced Catholicism as the Iberian Peninsula was liberated from the rule of Muslim invaders.

Moreover, being a New Christian was not incompatible with citizenship in the Republic of Genoa. Although Genoa was an independent city-state, Spain ruled almost half of Italy in the 15th century, so New Christians could be found throughout the country.

Nonetheless, until confirmation of these claims is forthcoming, Catholics and Americans should remain profoundly suspicious of any attempt to separate Christopher Columbus from his long presumed Italian, and specifically Genoese, antecedents.

As a faithful Catholic whose voyages of discovery resulted in the Christianization of the Americas, and ultimately, in the founding of the United States, Columbus remains a singular object of virulent hatred by the new barbarians committed to the destruction of what remains of Western Civilization.

These barbarians know that the chief obstacle to their campaign of damnatio memoriae is the determined loyalty of Italians, especially Italian Americans, to the name and legacy of Christopher Columbus. Detaching Columbus from his Italian defenders is all too convenient for the purposes of the Woke Left.

*****

One 19th century Italian Catholic who extolled the character and achievements of Christopher Columbus was Gioachinno Pecci, known to history as Pope Leo XIII.

His laudatory encyclical on the Columbus Quadricentennial was Quarto Abeunto Saeculo. “Columbus is ours,” said the Pontiff, and so he shall remain.

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2024

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

SAINT ELIZABETH’S HOSPITAL SOLD TO ABORTION PROVIDER

Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton—the flagship institution of the former Caritas Christi/Steward Health Care chain of Catholic hospitals in the Archdiocese of Boston—has been sold to the Boston Medical Center, which performs more abortions than any other Bay State hospital.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Induced Termination of Pregnancy Report, Boston Medical Center was responsible for 1085 procured abortions in 2022 (the last year for which statistics are available).

Only Planned Parenthood and two other abortion clinics kill more pre-born children in the Commonwealth than BMC. It performs surgical abortions through the second trimester, and administers abortion pills to women through the tenth week of gestation.

Boston Medical Center also performs a whole range of “Gender Affirming” surgeries and sterilizations, does genetic screenings, distributes contraceptives and engages in In Vitro Fertilizations.

Following the collapse of Steward Health Care, the approval of the sale by a federal bankruptcy court, and state seizure of the property by eminent domain, BMC assumed ownership of Saint Elizabeth’s on October 1st.

That date marked the end of 161 years of acute Catholic medical care in eastern Massachusetts. Unlike Steward, the new owners will not be bound by contractual agreements to retain the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That means that the hospital will be secularized.

Boston Medical Center also acquired a second former Caritas/Steward hospital, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton.

In August, the website of the Archdiocese of Boston deleted all references to the now former Catholic hospital system. Its news section contains no report, comment or explanation on the ending of more than a century and a half of archdiocesan affiliated Catholic health care in six Massachusetts counties.

The Catholic Action League called the transfer of Saint Elizabeth’s and Good Samaritan to Boston Medical Center “a scandal, a tragedy and a crime.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Two long serving Catholic medical centers, founded by faithful Christians and dedicated to the Author of Life, will now become part of the Culture of Death.

“The shameful, slow motion destruction of the former Caritas hospitals, from 2008 to 2024, represents the greatest single loss of institutional infrastructure in the more than 200 year history of the Catholic Church in Boston.

“Public, legislative and media attention regarding this catastrophe has focused, rightly, on the now disgraced Steward founder and CEO Ralph de la Torre.

“It was the Archbishop of Boston however, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who originally appointed de la Torre, who welcomed him and praised him as President of Caritas Christi, who believed him when he said he would preserve the system’s Catholic identity, and who sold the hospital network to a private equity fund on de la Torre’s recommendation.

“That equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, promptly turned the system over to de la Torre’s Steward Health Care Company, which raped it and ran it into the ground.

“Serious Catholics should feel outrage over this loss, over the complicity of the Archdiocese of Boston, and over the cowardly refusal of our spiritual leaders to offer any public accounting of how this appalling and unprecedented disaster was inflicted upon the Catholic community of Boston.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

OCTOBER 3, 2024

The Washington Times
3600 New York Avenue NE
Washington, DC 20002
yourletters@washingtontimes.com

To the Editor:

In a story on feminist protests outside the Synod of Bishops in Rome, Washington Times reporter Emma Ayers described Angela Myer, a non-Catholic who campaigns against the Catholic Church, as a “Female Catholic priest,” (Pope Francis urges unity as advocates for women’s ordination press cause at Vatican gathering, 10/2/2024).

Ms. Myers’ deluded assertions notwithstanding, there is no such thing as a female Catholic priest, nor could there be. Following the example of Our Savior, women have never been admitted to the priesthood throughout the 2,000 year history of Catholicism.

Any attempt to administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to a woman would be both invalid and illicit.

A June 1, 2021 revision of the Code of Canon Law, approved by Pope Francis, explicitly criminalizes the attempted ordination of a woman, warning, “Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.”

While priestesses can be found in pagan sects and in some Protestant denominations, female clerics are, as Pope Saint John Paul II definitively declared, an impossibility for Catholics.

Sincerely,

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

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

Letters
Boston Herald
PO Box 4004
Westford, MA 01886
letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

To the Editor,

Boston Herald Editor Joe Dwinell’s cloying tribute to Cardinal Sean O’Malley ignored some troubling aspects of the prelate’s leadership of the Archdiocese of Boston, ( Appreciation: ‘May God bless Boston’ and Cardinal Sean, 9/22/2024).

Contrary to church law and church teaching, O’Malley actually authorized awards for such pro-abortion politicians as former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the late Mayor Thomas Menino.

He applauded and congratulated former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry—a man who once publicly rebuked Pope John Paul II—when Boston College conferred an honorary degree on Kerry.

Just in the last few months, O’Malley showcased Governor Maura Healey, who is demonizing crisis pregnancy centers, at fundraisers for Catholic Charities and the Catholic Schools Foundation.

Boston’s socially liberal corporate elites may view Cardinal O’Malley as a hero. For many pro-life Catholics however, the Cardinal’s legacy is one of callous and repeated betrayals.

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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PRESS STATEMENT

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

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

LEAGUE CRITICIZES BC PROFESSOR’S LGBT ‘EMPOWERMENT’ STUDY

Reporter Gavin Farinholt of The College Fix contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment from League Executive Director C. J. Doyle about a faculty member at Jesuit administered Boston College receiving a $2 million government grant to promote homosexualist ideology.

Paul Poteat, a teacher and researcher at BC’s Carolyn and Peter Lynch School of Education and Human Development, received the tax money through an agency of the U.S. Department of Education.

C. J. Doyle made the following comment:

“The so-called Empowerment Program for the Individual and Collective Health of LGBTQ+ students, which is being developed by Boston College Professor Paul Poteat with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, is founded on the fraudulent premise that same-sex attracted students need special interventions because they face alleged ‘unsafe learning environments.’

“The evidence cited to support this specious assertion are claims that homosexual students have higher drop-out rates, more incidents of truancy, and poorer overall academic performance than other students. These behaviors, of course, must never be attributed to the sexual disorders afflicting these students, but must always be blamed upon external and adverse socio-cultural conditions.

“When homosexual advocates say these students face unsafe environments, what they really mean is that any institutional reluctance to uncritically and unhesitatingly affirm their sexual identity and lifestyle choices is a form of oppression, or even violence, against LGBTQ students.

“What they seek is to capture the American educational system, make it an organ of LGBTQ ideology and propaganda, and suppress all dissenting voices.

“The template for this campaign began in Massachusetts 31 years ago, in 1993, when Governor William Weld’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth issued its first report, claiming, falsely, that there was widespread harassment against homosexual students in Bay State public schools, allegedly resulting in higher suicide rates for same-sex attracted students.

“Among the incidents of harassment cited in the Commission’s report was one student’s refusal to socialize with homosexuals.

“As Boston’s Fenway Community Health Center documented during this period, the principal form of violence against homosexuals has always been domestic violence from other homosexuals.

“The Commission’s purported solution to this non-existent problem was the establishment of Gay/Straight Alliances—now called Gender/Sexuality Alliances—in the Commonwealth’s public high schools.

“As I pointed out in 1993, this enterprise would inevitably result in limitations upon free speech and discrimination against religious believers.

“As for the participation of a Boston College faculty member in this project, it is appalling, but unsurprising. It is one more example of the apostasy, heresy, and pervasive rejection of Catholic moral teaching which has long characterized the Jesuit administered university.

“BC forfeited what little remained of its Catholic identity many years ago.

“Contrary to the explicit prohibitions contained in Catholics in Political Life, Boston College has a long and disreputable history of conferring awards, honors and platforms on public officials who support and promote legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortions.

“Commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients have included such prominent proponents of abortion as former U.S. Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, U.S. Senator Robert Casey, Jr. the late Attorney General Janet Reno, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and former Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

“The university library is named after a pro-abortion political figure, the late Democratic U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill, Jr.

“The BC faculty has included such notorious Catholic dissidents—apostate Catholic rejectionists, really—as the lesbian ex-Catholic Mary Daly, the feminist Linda Sowle Cahill, and the ex-priest, Thomas Groome.

“Groome is a Professor of Theology at BC, though church law forbids former priests from teaching theology at Catholic universities.

“Boston College has university offices, student organizations, and academic resources dedicated to supporting and affirming homosexuality and transgenderism, including a restricted access website ominously entitled ‘An Unofficial Guide to Transgender Healthcare for BC Employees.’

“In accordance with the 1967 Land O’Lakes Statement, Boston College became a secular, non-profit, Chapter 180 Massachusetts corporation in 1972, as The Trustees of Boston College, Incorporated.

“It was a corrupt, heterodox, modernist institution when I graduated from BC in 1975. Like other Jesuit colleges and universities, Boston College has functioned as a counter-magisterium to the Catholic Church, teaching at least three generations of modern Catholics how to become professionally successful and materially prosperous cultural conformists.

“What would be surprising, and unusual, and historic, would be a story about a BC faculty member who supported Catholic teaching.

“I would make one final point about BC, which I think a number of conservative Catholics fail to grasp.

“It is not just a matter of moral and theological heterodoxy—as atrocious as that is.

“BC has abandoned its founding mission, which was to serve the Catholic community of Greater Boston.

“There are no commuters left at Boston College. Lower middle class and working class Catholic students in Boston attend UMass, and Suffolk and Northeastern universities, because they cannot afford BC, and there is no welcome for them there.

“As of 2022, 87% of students were classified as affluent. Incongruously, 38% are considered what the University calls AHANA—students of color, LGBTQ and the historically marginalized.

“Only about two-fifths of the BC student body comes from New England, and only about 70% are Catholic. Seven percent come from overseas.

“Boston College has become an institution for the cosmopolitan rich, and they boast about it, proudly proclaiming that they are no longer ’a streetcar college’ for Irish-American boys, but an ‘internationally respected research university and a center of academic excellence.’

“They are not only heretics, they are social climbing snobs.”

Gavin Farinholt’s article, quoting the Catholic Action League’s Press Statement, was published today, September 30th.

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MEMBER ADVISORY

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

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

C. J. DOYLE TO SPEAK AT ANNUAL SAINT BENEDICT CENTER CONFERENCE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

On Saturday, October 12, 2024, Catholic Action League Executive Director C. Joseph Doyle will address the Annual Saint Benedict Center Conference in Richmond, New Hampshire.

Doyle’s talk is entitled The Triumph of Tradition. He will discuss one of the few positive signs in today’s Church—the expanding movement for the restoration of the traditional Catholic Faith and for the revival of the immemorial Latin Mass.

Doyle will explain how this movement is continuing to flourish despite, in some measure—ironically—because of, the opposition of Pope Francis.

He will also contrast the Pontiff’s unsuccessful efforts at the suppression of a now mature and burgeoning traditionalism with the near total proscription of the ancient liturgy in the years after Vatican II.

The Conference, which will showcase eight speakers, will be held on Friday, October 11th and Saturday, October 12th at the Saint Benedict Center, at 95 Fay Martin Road in Richmond.

Doyle’s talk will be at 4pm on Saturday the 12th. At 7:30pm, following dinner, there will be a panel discussion and a question and answer session featuring all the speakers.

The Master of Ceremonies will be the popular national radio host, Mike Church, of the Crusade Channel.

For more information about this important event, you may click on the following link.

Please join us in October for an edifying experience of Catholic piety, insight, and comradery!

Thank you.

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MEMBER ADVISORY

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2024

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

OUR LADY OF SORROWS,
PRAY FOR US

The Catholic Church commemorates, by two feasts, the spiritual martyrdom suffered by Our Lady in union with the Passion of her Son.

The first, during Lent, on Friday in Passion Week, is the Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Septem Dolorum Beatae Mariae Virginis).

The second feast is that of today, September 15th, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Each day of the year, faithful Catholics recite, in their morning prayers, in their Angelus, in their Rosary, and in the Leonine prayers after the Latin 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. The 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. The 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. Jesus is laid in the Tomb (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)

In the Gospel of Saint Luke, Simeon, after seeing the Infant Jesus in the Temple, prophesies to Mary “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.”

Saint John, in his Gospel, recounts “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen.”

Devotion to the Sorrows of Our Blessed Lady has always been part of Catholic piety. As early as the fourth century, two Doctors of the Church were dedicated to this devotion.

The Lamentation of the Virgin Mary is attributed to Saint Ephrem the Syrian, while in the West, Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, composed a homily on Our Lady before the Cross.

The origins of the current feast can be found in the mystical vision of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servites in 1239, and in the private revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373).

A feast of the Servite Order (Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary) since 1668, it was extended to the entire Latin Church by Pope Pius VII in 1814.

In 1908, Pope Saint Pius X raised it to a solemn feast and fixed the date as September 15th.

Associated with this devotion is the magnificant hymn, the Stabat Mater, attributed to Jacopone da Todi (1230-1306).

Let us pray for the intercession of Our Lady, as Catholics stand at the foot of the Cross, while the Church—the Mystical Body of Christ—is crucified for the sins of its leaders and its members.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Simeon, pray for us.

The Seven Holy Founders, pray for us.

Saint Bridget, pray for us.

Servant of God, Pius VII, pray for us.

Saint Pius X, pray for us.

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SPECIAL REPORT

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

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

THE DEMISE OF CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE IN EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS

In the last two weeks of August, both Brian Fraga of the National Catholic Reporter, and Chris Serres of The Boston Globe, reached out to the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking information on the League’s opposition, in 2010, to the sale of the Archdiocese of Boston’s Catholic hospital system, Caritas Christi Health Care—then the second largest healthcare system in New England—to the now collapsing Steward Health Care.

In response to their inquiries, I sent them the following report. With the closing of Carney Hospital on August 31st, and with a federal bankruptcy court approving the sale of the four remaining hospitals yesterday, I thought it would be timely to now release that report to our members.

The Current Crisis

The bankruptcy and collapse of Steward Health Care—the consequence of greed, mismanagement and apparent self-dealing by the company’s leadership and profiteering by its former corporate parent—will result in the sale and secularization of four former Caritas Christi hospitals and the closure of the oldest Catholic medical institution in New England, Carney Hospital, which has served the Catholics of Boston since 1863.

When the Archdiocese of Boston sold Caritas Christi Health Care to Steward in 2010, one of the conditions of the sale was that Steward would continue to operate the hospitals in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, promulgated by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

While there has been extensive media coverage of the Steward catastrophe, there has been no mention in the news media of the fact that the sale of the Steward hospitals means the end of Catholic health care in eastern Massachusetts.

None of the public players in the current crisis—Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the Steward management, the potential buyers or voices in the media—have even hinted that the Ethical and Religious Directives might continue when the hospitals are sold.

This final secularization will be an irreparable loss for the Catholic community in Greater Boston, depriving faithful Catholics of the comfort and security of knowing that their health care institutions are infused with Christian values and are informed by a Catholic ethos which respects the sanctity and inviolability of human life.

Strangely, the Archdiocese of Boston has issued no public comment on this disaster, nor has it made any attempt—to our knowledge—to salvage what remains of Catholic health care from the Steward dissolution.

Perhaps conscious of its own responsibility in this debacle, the Church has kept a prudent silence while this crisis has unfolded. It is understandable that the archdiocese would not want to embarrass Cardinal O’Malley, who is retiring, by raising issues which might attribute this cascade of failure to improvident decisions made by him fourteen to sixteen years ago.

The Approval of the Caritas Sale

The sale of Caritas Christi in 2010 required the approval of the Caritas Christi Board of Governors, the Archdiocese of Boston (the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, Inc., a Corporation Sole) and the Holy See.

In state government, it required the approval of the Massachusetts Public Health Council, which was the authority tasked with issuing licenses to the new owners of the hospitals. The Public Health Council is a constituent agency of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Its members, in 2010, were appointed by then Governor Deval Patrick.

It also required the final approval of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth, which acted on the recommendation of the Attorney General, Martha Coakley, in her capacity as the Constitutional Officer responsible for the regulation of Public Charities in Massachusetts.

Coakley, however, was not a disinterested party in this matter. She was the recipient, in November of 2009, of a substantial campaign contribution from then Caritas CEO Ralph de la Torre. Her decision to recommend SJC approval of the sale would enrich her campaign donor. Coakley announced her support for Steward’s acquisition on October 6, 2010.

The Catholic Action League

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts opposed the sale of Caritas Christi to Steward Health Care in 2010.

I testified, in opposition to the sale, at three public hearings in the summer and fall of 2010.

The first hearing, at Brighton High School on June 22nd, was before Attorney General Coakley and representatives of the Department of Public Health. On that occasion, I pointed out that the sale “...means that the future of nearly a century and a half of Catholic health care in Greater Boston will be in the discretionary authority of a secular, non-Catholic, for-profit, out of state, capitalist corporation.”

The second hearing, on July 1st at the Carney Hospital in Dorchester, was also before the Attorney General and officials of the DPH. The third hearing, on October 13th at Suffolk Law School in Boston, was before the Public Health Council, which, apparently unconcerned with optics, approved the sale, immediately, upon the conclusion of the hearing.

The League also issued nine news releases and one action alert on the sale, sent two letters to the editor of The Boston Globe, and participated in perhaps two dozen media interviews on the subject.

Concerns About the Catholic Identity of the Hospitals

Our first concern with the sale was that the Catholic identity of the then six hospitals might be either abandoned or compromised by Steward.

This would deprive the Catholic community of authentically Catholic health care institutions where Catholic medical ethics were practiced, where the sanctity of human life was protected from conception to natural death, where there were adequate provisions for the pastoral care of patients, and where the conscience rights of Catholic doctors, nurses and healthcare workers were respected and preserved.

The details of the transaction raised serious questions about the long term viability of the system’s Catholic identity.

First of all, there was only a three year so-called ‘protected period’ when the hospitals could not be sold or closed. There was also a concurrent three year so-called ‘maintenance period’ when major cuts to services and staff could not be implemented.

Finally, there was a termination clause which allowed Steward, for a 3% buyout, to end the system’s Catholic character if it found that character to be ‘materially burdensome,’ as determined by the sole discretion of Steward.

Cardinal O’Malley repeatedly claimed that the Catholic identity of the hospitals would be protected. He was contradicted however, by the Chairman of the Caritas Board of Governors, James Karam, who testified at the July, 2010 Carney hearing that he told Cardinal O’Malley that he could not guarantee the future Catholic identity of Caritas, but could guarantee that the hospitals would be closed without the sale.

Frankly, the Catholic identity of the former Caritas hospitals lasted, at least formally, longer than we expected.

It did so however, in a somewhat attenuated form. No one has ever made the assertion that the Ethical and Religious Directives have been rigorously enforced under Steward. Much of the Catholic iconography of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital has disappeared since 2010, and Carney Hospital has been seen flying the Rainbow flag during ‘Pride Month’ in June.

Concerns About Catholic Health Care Administered by a For-Profit Entity

Our second major concern was the seeming contradictions inherent in a for-profit entity administering Catholic health care. As I pointed out at the June, 2010 Brighton hearing, this could adversely affect both the community orientation of the hospitals, and affordable access and charitable care for the indigent, the uninsured and the under-insured.

It would also have implications in labor relations, as the Catholic social principle of the just wage, or the family wage, would be replaced by the free market law of supply and demand, in employee decisions.

We knew, obviously, that Attorney General Coakley was a determined and longstanding proponent of legal abortion. In a January 2010 interview on WBSM radio—when questioned about the conscience rights of pro-life medical personnel—she responded, memorably and callously, ‘You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.’

We understood, lucidly, that Coakley would not therefore be responsive to our concerns about the pro-life Catholic identity of the hospital system.

We had some hope however, that she would listen to the voices of progressives on the political Left—including some of her own primary voters and supporters—who were raising the same social justices issues that the League was about the propriety of handing over a non-profit Catholic hospital system to the creation of a private equity firm.

Some pro-life Catholics, citing Coakley’s abortion advocacy, demanded that Coakley recuse herself from this process. We did not agree with that approach.

To paraphrase a remark about Ronald Reagan, we thought we should let Coakley be Coakley, and perhaps, following her own progressive instincts, there was a chance that she would disapprove of the sale on social justice grounds.

Sadly, Martha Coakley ignored objections from both the Right and the Left.

While we saw the acquisition of Caritas Christi by Cerberus Capital Management—through its subsidiary, Steward—as deeply problematic and dangerous to the future of Catholic health care, we never could have imagined the systemic rape of the network that occurred under Steward’s malfeasant leadership.

Who Was Responsible for Ralph de la Torre?

In March, 2008, Attorney General Coakley engineered what appeared to be a remarkable coup involving the Catholic Church in Massachusetts.

Exploiting fiscal and management issues then afflicting Caritas, Coakley used her Public Charities oversight powers to persuade/pressure/force the archdiocese out of the ownership, governance and daily operations of Caritas Christi, which became, effectively, an independent non-profit organization affiliated with, but no longer administered by, the Catholic Church.

This was, undoubtedly, the single largest alienation of ecclesiastical property in the history of the Church in Boston. There seemed to be however, at least publicly, very little resistance from the archdiocese against this act of dispossession.

Did the Archdiocese of Boston, in financial crisis after paying $151 million to settle sexual abuse cases, already view Caritas Christi as a liability that needed to be discarded? We cannot be sure.

Under the new governing arrangement, the Archbishop of Boston ceased to be the Chairman of the Board of Governors. The archdiocese was allotted three of sixteen seats on the board.

The archbishop retained reserve authority over Catholic identity, medical ethics, the aforementioned board appointments, and most importantly, over any transactions involving sale or transfer of property.

This transition occurred on May 22, 2008.

Ralph de la Torre—now the focus of congressional investigations, intense media scrutiny, and possible criminal probes over his role in the destruction of Steward Health Care—was named CEO of Caritas Christi on April 2, 2008, by the Caritas Christi board, then chaired by the appointee of Cardinal O’Malley, James Karam.

Karam, like de la Torre, would transition from Caritas to Steward. He would later become Chairman of the Steward insurance company, TRACO.

The Cardinal hailed de la Torre, saying “It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome Dr. de la Torre to Caritas Christi. His leadership, combined with the new governance system of Caritas Christi, begins a new chapter in the system’s history, one that will result in a stronger system that is well poised to continue our long and proud tradition of serving the needs of all patients.”

After twenty years, Cardinal O’Malley’s decision making process is not obscure. In matters pertaining to Catholic Charities and Caritas Christi, he sought the counsel of his Secretary for Health and Social Services, Monsignor J. Bryan Hehir.

For personnel appointments, the Cardinal relied, often, on the advice of the late Jack Connors.

Was it Msgr. Hehir, Jack Connors, James Karam or some combination of the three who recommended de la Torre?

The search committee, established by Cardinal O’Malley in 2006, to find a new President for Caritas Christi Health Care, included both Msgr. Hehir and Chairman Karam.

The question remains of why the archdiocese made the unprecedented decision to convey a Catholic hospital system to a capitalist corporation.

Was de la Torre—looking to the future—already nest feathering with Cerberus while CEO of Caritas? Reasonable people might reasonably draw that conclusion.

Were de la Torre and Karam the principal proponents of the sale, or were there other voices? What was Monsignor Bryan Hehir’s position on the transaction? Did Jack Connors play a role?

To sum up, in 2010, the Archdiocese of Boston transferred ownership of a hundred and fifty year old, local, non-profit, Catholic hospital system to a newly created, out-of-state, for-profit, secular corporation controlled by a hedge fund.

What, possibly, could go wrong?

#######

Brian Fraga’s story in the National Catholic Reporter was published on August 28th. The Boston Globe story will appear sometime in September.

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2024

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

POPE APPOINTS PROVIDENCE BISHOP RICHARD HENNING AS ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON

This morning, August 5, 2024, Pope Francis appointed the Bishop of Providence, the Most Reverend Richard G. Henning, as the new Archbishop of Boston and Metropolitan of the Province of Boston. He will succeed Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who turned 80 on June 29th.

The Archdiocese of Boston comprises five counties in eastern Massachusetts, while the Province of Boston encompasses seven dioceses in four New England states—Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Henning, 59, graduated from Saint John’s University and Immaculate Conception Seminary, in New York. He received his licentiate from the Catholic University of America and his doctorate from the Angelicum in Rome.

After returning to Rockville Centre in 2007, Henning became a seminary professor and a parish administrator, and later, in 2012, a seminary rector.

From June of 2018 until November of 2022, Henning served as Auxiliary Bishop of Rockville Centre. He was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Providence on November 23, 2022, succeeding to the See of Providence, six months later, on May 1, 2023.

He will be the tenth Ordinary, and the seventh archbishop, of the Diocese of Boston, which was established in 1808.

The Catholic Action League called Henning’s appointment “an unexpected choice, given rumors about the vetting of candidates from the more progressivist wing of the American hierarchy.”

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

“The Catholic Action League wishes to offer its prayers for, and extend its congratulations and best wishes to, Archbishop-elect Richard Henning on his appointment by the Pope to the See of Boston.

“Archbishop Henning faces the daunting task of reversing a two decade downward spiral of church closings, school closings, parish consolidations and significant losses of institutional infrastructure—which included the final collapse of the Catholic hospital system and the shuttering of the only Catholic adoption agency in Greater Boston—that marked the 21 year tenure of Cardinal O’Malley as archbishop.

“He also must find a way to improve the finances of the archdiocese, which, though it has climbed out of deficit spending to achieve an operating surplus, still relies on the on-going liquidation of real estate assets to help balance its annual budget.

“The League hopes that Archbishop Henning will reverse the non-compliance policy of his predecessor regarding Catholics in Political Life, the directive of the national bishops conference which prohibits Catholic prelates and Catholic institutions from giving ‘awards, honors and platforms’ to ‘those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.’

“When it came to violations of this prohibition, Cardinal O’Malley has been one of most egregious offenders in the American episcopate. This fact, perhaps, can be attributed to his reliance on advice from establishment- connected, left-of-center major donors, like the late Jack Connors.

“O’Malley actually gave awards to such pro-abortion political figures as the late Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and former Boston Mayor and U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

“Recently, O’Malley showcased Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey at fundraisers for Catholic Charities and the Catholic Schools Foundation, despite her attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, some of which are sponsored by O’Malley’s own archdiocese.

“Faithful, pro-life Catholics hope that Archbishop Henning will be his own man, a captive of neither chancery bureaucrats nor deep-pocketed contributors.

“They also hope and pray that his tenure will be marked by the promotion of a Culture of Life, and not by episcopal complicity in a corporate culture of institutional betrayal.”

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NEWS RELEASE

FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024

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

LEAGUE CONDEMNS STEWARD HEALTH CARE PLAN TO CLOSE CARNEY HOSPITAL

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned the decision by the for-profit, Dallas based, Steward Health Care Company to close the oldest Catholic hospital in New England, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, which was founded in 1863.

Steward, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, said it plans to close Carney by the 31st of August. It will also close the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.

Steward, created by Cerberus Capital Management, acquired the six former Caritas Christi hospitals, including Carney, from the Archdiocese of Boston in 2010.

As a condition of the sale, Steward agreed to continue to operate them in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Just three days ago, Governor Maura Healey said there were “qualified bidders” for all Steward hospitals. Now, Steward claims that there are no qualified bids for Carney.

It remains unclear how Steward can meet the end of August termination date, given the extended time mandate and public hearing requirement for hospital closures demanded by Massachusetts Department of Public Health regulations.

The Catholic Action League said the closure of Carney Hospital would be “an appalling loss to the Catholic community, to the people of Dorchester, and to all of those served by the Carney, and who served at the Carney, for so many years.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “For a century and a half, generations of Catholic families in Boston found the Carney Hospital to be a welcoming haven for quality and compassionate medical care, infused with the values, ethics and charity of the Catholic Faith.

“Now, due to the greed, mismanagement and self-dealing of Steward’s leadership, a legacy institution for Boston’s Catholics—part of their patrimony before there even was an archdiocese—is about to be discarded.

“The ultimate responsibility for this foreseeable debacle rests with the improvident decision of the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, to sell a local, longstanding, non-profit Catholic hospital system to a newly created, out-of-state, for-profit health care corporation owned by a private equity firm—a hedge fund—Cerberus Capital Management.

“In that decision, O’Malley listened to the advice of Caritas CEO Ralph de la Torre and Caritas Chairman James Karam, both of whom ended up working for Steward.

“The sale was approved by Governor Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts Public Health Council, and by Bay State Attorney General Martha Coakley, who, in doing so, enriched one of her campaign contributors—Ralph de la Torre.

“Governor Maura Healey has said, ‘This is not over.’ Greater Boston’s Catholics should hold Governor Healey to her word.”

In 2010, C. J. Doyle testified, at hearings held by Attorney General Martha Coakley, and by the Massachusetts Public Health Council, in opposition to the sale of Caritas Christi to Steward Health Care.

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PRESS STATEMENT

FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024

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

THE KAMALA HARRIS RECORD ON ABORTION AND ANTI‑CATHOLICISM

On July 22nd, reporter Valerie Richardson of The Washington Times contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment from Executive Director C. J. Doyle regarding Catholic concerns about a possible Kamala Harris presidency.

Later that day, Doyle issued the following statement:

“Kamala Harris is a radical, left-wing demagogue who is even more aggressive in promoting abortion, and even more extreme in her hostility to religious freedom rights, than Joe Biden.

“In 2016, when she ran for the U.S. Senate in California, Harris was endorsed by, and received campaign financing from, NARAL, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Emily’s List PAC, and various state and national Planned Parenthood officials.

“As a U.S. Senator, she received a 100% rating from both the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the former NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“While in the Senate, Harris was one of the original sponsors of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have imposed an all trimester federal regime of unrestricted abortion in the United States, nullifying all existing state and federal laws limiting abortion.

“As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018, Harris questioned a Catholic judicial nominee, Brian C. Buescher, about his membership in the Knights of Columbus—the world’s largest Catholic fraternal order and charitable organization.

“Harris wanted to know if Buescher was aware that the Knights opposed ‘marriage equality’ and ‘a woman’s right to choose.’

“This vile insinuation of dual loyalty—promoting the bigoted assumption that fidelity to the Catholic Religion was a disqualifier for federal office—represented a willful subversion of the explicit language of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, which says, clearly, ‘...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.’

“Harris was a Senate sponsor of the so-called Do No Harm Act, which would have nullified the conscience protections and religious liberty guarantees of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. She also supports the so-called Equality Act, which would, once again, eviscerate the RFRA, this time in the cause of gender ideology.

“Enabling infanticide, Senator Kamala Harris, in 2020, voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. She also voted, cruelly, against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

“As Attorney General of the State of California in 2015, Harris co-sponsored, the Reproductive FACT Act, which mandated that pro-life pregnancy care centers—including those part of the religious ministry of a church—provide information about, and make referrals for, abortion.

“The California law was struck down, as unconstitutional, by the U.S. Supreme Court in NIFLA v. Becerra.

“The Biden Administration’s prosecution of pro-life activists was preceded by Kamala Harris’s decision, as California Attorney General, to prosecute pro-life whistleblower David Daleiden, for exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in fetal body parts.

“As Vice-President, Harris became the first national office holder to tour an abortion facility.

“She has endorsed the campaign by Democrat attorneys-general to demonize, restrict and ultimately suppress pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

“In addition to her abortion militancy, the Canadian educated Kamala Harris seems to suffer from a troubling incomprehension of the nature of America’s constitutional system.

“She has not only shown herself hostile to First Amendment free speech and free exercise guarantees, and to the religious test prohibition of Article VI, but once suggested that state legislatures must seek ‘pre-clearance’ from the Justice Department before passing bills related to abortion—a clear violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

“Harris even once delivered a speech on the Declaration of Independence without mentioning the right to life.

“When it comes to America’s founding documents, whether the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, they all seem alien to the thinking, experience and aspirations of Kamala Harris.

“From the destruction of the unborn, to the suppression of America’s constitutional liberties, to the erosion of federalism, a Kamala Harris presidency would threaten the continued existence of America as a free and civilized society, defined by the rule of law, and anchored in our traditions of nationhood.”

The Valerie Richardson article, quoting C. J. Doyle, was published by The Washington Times on July 23rd.

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NEWS RELEASE

SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2024

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

THE MOST ANTI-CATHOLIC PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY WILL NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION

Today, the 46th President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden, announced he would not seek re-election, following a pressure campaign which saw 37 Democratic members of Congress calling for him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

A nominal and dissident Catholic whom former allies in the media often described as “devout,” Biden was the second baptized Catholic to hold the nation’s highest office. He was also America’s first Catholic Vice-President.

Biden was, without exception, the country’s most anti-Catholic chief executive. None of his predecessors ever demonstrated his determined, broad ranging and systemic hostility to Christian morality, natural law and the religious freedom rights of the Catholic community.

• Despite having supported the Hyde Amendment as a U.S. Senator and Vice-President, Biden reversed his position in 2019. Joseph Biden believed Catholic taxpayers should be forced to pay for the killing of unborn children in Medicaid, in Obamacare, in subsidies for Planned Parenthood, in U.S. foreign aid, in the funding of UN agencies, in the military and under Title X of the Public Health Service Act.
• Joseph Biden opposed the Hobby Lobby decision and rule, and sought to force employers, including Catholic religious orders, to subsidize abortifacient contraceptives as part of employer sponsored group insurance coverage.
• Joseph Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services sought to strip pro-life—largely Catholic—physicians, nurses, pharmacists, hospital administrators and other health care workers of conscience protections.
• Joseph Biden sought to circumvent post-Dobbs state laws banning abortion by having the U.S. Department of Defense subsidize out of state travel for members of the Armed Forces seeking abortions.
• Joseph Biden recently perverted a pro-life federal law—The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to force hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to perform so-called “Emergency abortions.”
• Joseph Biden believed that Catholic businessmen and businesswomen should be forced to service same sex ceremonies.
• Joseph Biden opposed parental rights and parental choice in education, adversely impacting the ability of Catholic parents to secure a Catholic education for their children.
• Joseph Biden supported passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have made homosexuals and lesbians a protected class in federal civil rights law.
• Under the Administration of Joseph Biden, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See perpetrated a deliberate insult to the Catholic Faith by flying the homosexual “Pride” flag from the window of its chancery in Rome.
• Joseph Biden supported the deformity of marriage and the redefinition of the family before President Barack Obama did.
• The Biden Administration attempted, without congressional authorization, to expand Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—which prohibits discrimination against women in sports—to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.
• Joseph Biden proclaimed Easter Sunday, 2024, to be Transgender Day of Visibility.

Finally, it should be remembered that as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987, Joseph Biden was one of the two principal political actors—the other being the late Senator Edward Kennedy—responsible for stopping the Senate confirmation of President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bork would have been the fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Casey decision of 1992.

That means, between them, Biden and Kennedy were responsible for the more than 39 million abortions which were perpetrated from the Casey decision of 1992 to the Dobbs ruling in 2022.

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

“As a pretended Catholic, Joseph Biden is a fraud, a disgrace and a Quisling. While his policies are likely to continue under any Democratic administration, at least the injury that is being done to the Catholic Americans will not be compounded by the insult of a hypocrite who touts his late son’s Rosary as a token of his dishonest pretension of Catholicity.

“He should now resign as President. He is unfit to continue, morally, physically and intellectually.

“Joseph Biden has been the most corrupt president in American history, the most extreme and the most incompetent. America will be well rid of him.”

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PRESS STATEMENT

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2024

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

THE FINAL COLLAPSE OF CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE IN GREATER BOSTON

Steward Health Care—created by Cerberus Capital Management—is the secular successor of Greater Boston’s once extensive Catholic hospital system, Caritas Christi Health Care.

As a condition of the 2010 sale of Caritas to Steward, the latter agreed to continue to operate the hospitals in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Steward also agreed to retain the Catholic names of the hospitals, along with their religious iconography and pastoral services.

Now, Steward is imploding into scandal, bankruptcy and dissolution, the consequence of mismanagement, profiteering by Cerberus and possible self-dealing by Steward executives.

CEO Ralph de la Torre acquired not one, but two yachts during his tenure at Steward. Meanwhile, earlier this year, a young mother died at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston because of the lack of a critical piece of medical equipment.

That equipment was repossessed by the manufacturer after Steward failed to pay its bills.

On July 17th, veteran reporter Alice Giordano of The Epoch Times contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment from Executive Director C. J. Doyle.

Doyle issued the following statement:

“As we pointed out at the time, the Archdiocese of Boston transferred ownership of a century old, local, non-profit, Catholic hospital system to a newly created, out-of-state, for-profit, non-Catholic corporation controlled by a hedge fund.

“What, possibly, could go wrong?

“The Catholic Action League warned that the 2010 sale would adversely impact charitable care for the poor and affordable access for all, diminish the community orientation of the hospitals and replace Catholic social teaching in employee relations with the free market law of supply and demand.

“Now with the collapse of Steward, the loss of what remains of the Catholic identity of the former Caritas Christi institutions will deprive the Catholic community of a hospital system where Catholic medical ethics are practiced and will put at risk the conscience rights of Catholic doctors, nurses and healthcare workers.

“Although the sale of Caritas Christi was approved by the Supreme Judicial Court, Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Public Health Council and the Holy See, responsibility for the decision to sell off the Catholic hospitals rested with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston.

“It was the largest single loss of institutional infrastructure in the history of the Archdiocese of Boston.

“Despite multiple warnings, O’Malley deferred to the opinions of two individuals, at least one of whom was not a disinterested party.

“The first and foremost adviser to the Cardinal on the sale was Caritas CEO Ralph de la Torre, who became CEO of Steward, and enriched himself by the deal.

“De la Torre was an Obama/Biden bundler and fundraiser for Coakley. He was appointed CEO of Caritas—with the approval of O’Malley—through the backing of liberal billionaire and archdiocesan money man Jack Connors.

“The second advocate of the sale was James J. Karam, an associate of the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy and former Congressman Barney Frank, whom O’Malley appointed Chairman of the Caritas Christi board. Karam would later serve on the board of Steward.

“Governor Maura Healey is pushing for the speedy sale and reallocation of Steward assets, and the continued operation of the hospitals under new management.

“Given her militant advocacy for abortion, her close and longstanding relationship with Planned Parenthood, and her professed intention to shut down crisis pregnancy centers in the Bay State, it is reasonable to assume that Healey is looking forward to the complete and final secularization of the Steward hospitals.

“If Healey has her way, will abortions, vasectomies and ‘gender’ surgeries now be performed at Saint Elizabeth’s?”

In 2010, the Catholic Action League Executive C.J. Doyle testified in opposition to the sale of Caritas Christi to Steward Health Care on three occasions—twice at public hearings held by Attorney General Martha Coakley, and once at a public hearing before the Massachusetts Public Health Council.

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, JULY 15, 2024

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

DONALD TRUMP PICKS J.D. VANCE, A CATHOLIC, AS HIS RUNNING MATE

Former President Donald J. Trump has selected U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his vice-presidential running mate. Vance is a 2019 convert to the Catholic Faith.

A Republican National Convention vote nominating Vance will be a formality.

Vance will be the eighth Catholic in American history to receive a major party nomination for Vice-President.

Previous Catholic nominees were Republican Congressman William Miller in 1964; Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie in 1968; Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton, who was nominated but withdrew and was replaced by former Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver in 1972; Democratic Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro in 1984; Democratic Senator Joe Biden in 2008; and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan in 2012.

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is describing Vance as “an elected official who is firmly in the mainstream of American Catholic politics, that is to say, one who is privately Catholic, but in his public positions, has conformed to the dominant secular culture.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “When Vance first ran for public office in 2022, as a U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio, he was a supporter of the right to life.

“‘I am pro-life. I’ve always been pro-life,’ Vance said during a 2022 campaign debate.

“As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2022, he hailed the Dobbs decision as ‘an amazing victory,’ and endorsed federal action on abortion, saying ‘some minimum national standard is totally fine with me.’

“Vance previously supported the Texas abortion ban—which allowed only a life of the mother exception—and condemned rape and incest exceptions, saying ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.’

“Once he was in contention for the vice-presidency however, Vance suddenly decided that his professed pro-life principles were expendable.

“Now, echoing President Trump, Vance says abortion is a state issue, supports rape and incest exceptions, and defends the 2024 Supreme Court ruling in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which upheld the legal availability of the abortion drug mifepristone, which Vance now calls a ‘medication.’

“‘...the Supreme Court made a decision that the American people should have access to that medication. Donald Trump has supported that opinion. I support that opinion,’ Vance said.

“According to the Guttmacher Institute, Mifepristone killed 642,700 innocent children in 2023. It is now the most common form of abortion in America, accounting for 63% of U.S. abortions.

“As Donald Trump distances himself and the Republican Party from the pro-life positions of his previous administration, one would have hoped that pro-life Catholics in Congress would demonstrate some resistance to this defection. Instead, Catholic senators like J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio have been trimming their sails to gain a place on the ticket with President Trump.

“Vance, it would seem, has received his reward.

“Faithful Catholics exhort Christians in politics to take as their model and example Saint Thomas More, who sacrificed his life rather than betray his conscience.

“As J.D. Vance’s shameless betrayal demonstrates, America’s Catholic political class already has a model to emulate. That would be Vidkun Quisling.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, JULY 15, 2024

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

PRO-LIFE POSITIONS DISCARDED FROM THE 2024 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

We remain grateful that the hand of God stayed the assassin’s bullet, and will persevere in praying for President Trump and for our Republic.

The new 2024 Republican Party Platform will be voted upon tonight, Monday, July 15th, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

As a follow-up to our news release of July 12th, on the removal of pro-life language from the 2024 Republican National Platform, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts would like to provide, to the Catholic community and to all supporters of the right to life, a more detailed list of all the pro-life positions excised from the 2024 platform.

The following is a compendium of pro-life and pro-family positions from the 2016 and 2020 Republican Platforms which have now been deleted from the proposed new 2024 Republican platform:

• Support for the Human Life Amendment
• Opposition to the public funding of abortion
• Opposition to the public funding of Planned Parenthood
• Opposition to the sale of fetal tissue and fetal body parts
• Opposition to federal subsidies for healthcare which includes abortion coverage
• Support for the appointment of judges who respect the sanctity of innocent human life
• Opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide
• Support for legislation requiring fathers to support their children from conception to adulthood
• Support for the funding of ultrasounds and adoption assistance
• Support for state laws requiring parental consent, informed consent, waiting periods and clinic regulation
• Support for federal born alive legislation
• Opposition to infanticide
• Support for federal Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection legislation
• Support for federal legislation banning dismemberment abortions
• Support for federal legislation banning sex selection abortions
• Support for federal legislation banning abortions based upon disability
• Opposition to embryonic stem cell research and to the federal funding of such research
• Opposition to federal funding for the harvesting of human embryos
• Support for federal legislation banning human cloning
• Support for crisis pregnancy centers
• Support for the repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which restricts the free speech of churches
• Opposition to U.S. v. Windsor, which removed the ability of Congress to define marriage in federal law
• Opposition to Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same sex marriage
• Support for the right of religious charities and adoption agencies to act in accordance with their beliefs
• Support for the conscience rights of those who refuse to serve same sex ceremonies
• Support for the conscience rights of doctors, nurses and pharmacists
• Support for a federal ban prohibiting the transportation of a minor across state lines to procure an abortion

The above is a longstanding, carefully considered, internally consistent and exactingly thorough list of 27 morally principled, politically defensible and practically attainable pro-life legislative and public policy goals, some of which are popular in polling, and most of which are politically serviceable.

Now, after many years of inclusion, they are all gone from the party platform—just gone. The fact that even politically popular pro-life positions have been abandoned, suggests that for the Trump Campaign, any reference to the right to life is now a political no-go area.

This comprehensive list has been replaced by a generic statement: “We proudly stand for families and life,” and an ambiguous reference to the Fourteenth Amendment, which, under current jurisprudence, does not recognize the legal personhood of the unborn.

This abandonment is arguably, the worst defeat in the modern history of the pro-life movement. Astonishingly, the leaders of some establishment pro-life organizations have actually endorsed the new platform.

Are they worried about Joe Biden being re-elected, or are these political actors masquerading as pro-life champions worried about being denied a seat at the table (or a place on the payroll) in a future Republican administration?

Despite British Prime Minister William Gladstone being their ally, Irish Home Rulers—who, 130 years ago, controlled more than 80 seats in the Westminster House of Commons—refused to permanently align themselves with a single other party, candidate or coalition partner.

That way, they reasoned, their support would never be taken for granted.

It is a lesson, apparently, which American pro-lifers never learned.

The following are email message boxes for the Republican National Committee and for the Office of President Donald J. Trump.

Please use them to register your opposition to a new Republican Platform which recklessly abandons a forty year consensus of determined commitment to the right to life.

Thank you.

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NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2024

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

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP GRAZED BY GUNSHOT IN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is calling for prayers for the safety and speedy recovery of former President Donald J. Trump, who was grazed by a gunshot in an assassination attempt, while speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania this afternoon.

Blood was visible on the former President's ear and face, but he seemed otherwise uninjured.

The Catholic Action League called the incident “the ultimate attack on democratic institutions.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Our prayers are with the former President and his family. All Americans must unequivocally condemn this savage act of barbarism.

“After eight years of demonizing Donald Trump as a fascist, a racist, a traitor, an authoritarian, an asset of Putin and a threat to democracy, it would seem that the inevitable occurred this afternoon.

“In 1994, when John Salvi shot up two Massachusetts abortion clinics, killing two abortion workers, the mainstream media and the political Left were quick to assign blame to the rhetoric of the pro-life movement.

“Perhaps the time has come for them to apply the same standard to themselves.

“Given today’s event, the attempt by Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MI) to deprive President Trump of U.S. Secret Service protection with his proposed DISGRACE Act (H.R. 8081) takes on a more sinister connotation, suggesting either malice or recklessness, or both.

“One final consideration: Given this incident and the history of the Kennedy family, the Biden Administration must reverse its decision to deny Secret Service protection to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”

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NEWS RELEASE

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2024

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

PRO-LIFE WATERLOO —
MORAL REVOLUTION IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

In 2024, for the first time in more than a half a century, the Republican Party Platform will not include support for the Human Life Amendment. For twelve presidential election cycles, from 1976 to 2020, the party endorsed a federal constitutional amendment to protect the right to life of pre-born childen.

Since 1984, Republicans have also called for the extension of Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to the unborn.

Now, in 2024, all of that has been discarded at the insistence of the Donald Trump Campaign.

The explicit pro-life language of the 2016 and 2020 platforms, which read: “...we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.” has also been excised from the 2024 platform.

Incredibly, the new 2024 Republican Platform, for the first time in history, actually endorses contraception—most hormonal forms of which are abortifacient—and human embryo destructive In Vitro Fertilization.

In another defeat for proponents of Biblical and natural law morality, the defense of traditional marriage has been jettisoned, along with the claim for conscience rights for those who refuse to serve same sex ceremonies.

The states’ rights abortion platform, adopted on July 8th, reads: “We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People. We will oppose Late Term Abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”

In a closely related development, a Trump favorite, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, has apparently been dropped from the VP shortlist.

President Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News that the North Dakota six week abortion ban, which Burgum signed into law, is “a little bit of an issue.”

So, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, a strong pro-life position is now a disqualifier for Republican national office.

Two current prospects for Vice-President—U.S. Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Marco Rubio (R-FL)—have abandoned their previous pro-life positions to endorse the continued legality of the lethal abortion drug mifepristone, which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, killed 642,700 innocent children in 2023.

Mifepristone is now the most common form of abortion in America.

The Catholic Action League called the new Republican platform a “catastrophic defeat for pro-life America, the consequence of a moral revolution in the Republican Party.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “What generations of Big-Tent Rockefeller Republicans have failed to do—eviscerate the party’s forthright pro-life platform—the Trump Campaign accomplished overnight, with barely a murmur of opposition from establishment pro-life groups.

“Pro-lifers who acquiesce in this do themselves, the cause and President Trump, for that matter, no favors.

“Political figures who dynamite their base imperil their future.

“The more President Trump, and other Republican leaders, distance themselves from the pro-life movement, the greater the likelihood of alienating the base, dividing the party, depressing turnout, diminishing enthusiasm, and reducing the number and commitment of grass roots, ward and precinct level campaign workers.

“This could have tragic consequences in November.

“President Trump believes, obviously, that given the depravity of Biden and the Democrats, pro-lifers have nowhere to go. This makes them a powerless interest group, devoid of leverage or influence, who can be ignored with impunity.

“He must be disabused of this notion. Countervailing pressure is the order of the day.

“Pro-lifers should complain long and loudly about this pro-abortion coup on the Republican Platform Committee. They should warn that this could be a deal breaker for many of their activists.

“Instead of making excuses, it is time for pro-life leaders to speak to the Trump Campaign in what the Soviets used to describe as a ‘frank and comradely manner.’

“President Trump, of all people, certainly understands direct language.”

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HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2024

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

THE FIRST PUBLIC PRAYER BY CATHOLICS FOR THE UNITED STATES

On the occasion of the 248th anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, it is edifying to recall how our Catholic ancestors supported and sustained that independence when our republic was in its infancy, and when our community of the Faithful was the object of legal disability and public disdain.

As Catholics, we should continue to support and sustain that independence today against the imposition of alien ideologies inimical to our Faith and deleterious to our liberties, and against the incursion of totalitarian movements committed to the destruction of what our forebears called the Great Republic.

Many are familiar with the liturgical public prayer for the United States, authored by Bishop John Carroll in 1791. The first recorded public prayer by an American Catholic for our country however, was recited in Boston in 1789.

It was composed by Abbe Claude de la Poterie, the first Administrator of the Church of the Holy Cross in Boston, which opened in 1788. This was not the imposing Patrick Keeley cathedral of today, nor the famous Charles Bulfinch cathedral—which the diocese so improvidently abandoned in 1860.

This was a small brick church, a former Huguenot meeting house, built in 1716. It was located near the corner of School Street and Province Street, adjacent to the Province House, which had been the official residence of the crown appointed governors of the Royal Province of Massachusetts Bay.

It was in this church, in the year of Our Lord 1788, that the first regular public celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass began in Boston.

Father de la Poterie’s prayer is presented below:

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2024

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

LEAGUE SLAMS HEALEY ADMINISTRATION ASSAULT ON PRO-LIFE PREGNANCY CARE CENTERS

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today denounced the disinformation campaign, launched this morning by the Administration of Governor Maura Healey, which defames pro-life pregnancy care centers.

Beginning today, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health will run ads, in English and Spanish, on billboards, radio stations, public transit and social media platforms claiming, without evidence, that crisis pregnancy centers routinely deceive women, “pressure” women into continuing their pregnancies and “potentially” put their health at risk.

Among the reprehensible tactics imputed to pro-life centers by the DPH, was the assertion that such centers have pictures of babies and children in their waiting rooms.

The one million dollar tax funded campaign was crafted by the DPH in conjunction with the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation, the sister organization of the former Bay State chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Governor Healey said “We are committed to protecting and expanding access to safe and legal abortion. That includes protecting patients from the deceptive and dangerous tactics that anti-abortion centers often use to stop people from accessing comprehensive reproductive services.”

Predictably, the campaign has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, Reproductive Equity Now and the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund.

Ironically, one of the allegedly deceptive and dangerous centers listed by the DPH is Pregnancy Help, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Boston, the same archdiocese which arranged, just last month, for Maura Healey to speak at the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis.

The archdiocese also feted Healey at the Catholic Schools Foundation Annual Gala in April, and at the Catholic Charities Spring Celebration in May, where she praised Cardinal O’Malley.

The Catholic Action League called the Healey Administration campaign “the public demonization of the pro-life movement, by an elected official endorsed by Planned Parenthood, who is using tax dollars to protect her donor class in the abortion industry.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “When she first ran for Attorney General in 2014, Maura Healey vowed to shut down crisis pregnancy centers in the Commonwealth. She is now working to fulfill that promise.

“Every woman in a troubled pregnancy who is frightened away from a pregnancy care center is another potential customer for Planned Parenthood.

“Healey owes Planned Parenthood quite a lot. In 2015, she said her endorsement by PP was a ‘game changer for my campaign.’

“Pregnancy care centers offer women compassionate alternatives to abortion. This latest campaign demonstrates the cynical hypocrisy of decades of rhetoric about ‘choice.’ It is now clear, that for abortion proponents, only one choice is permissible.”

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MEMBER ADVISORY

FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2024

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

THE FATIMA CENTER TO HOLD CONFERENCE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

On Saturday, June 22, 2024, The Fatima Center will hold a conference in Bedford, New Hampshire. The theme of the conference will be the Transformative Power of the Holy Eucharist and the First Saturday.

The Fatima Center is the renowned, International Marian Apostolate founded by the late Father Nicholas Gruner, which is dedicated to promoting the full message of Our Lady of Fatima.

Following the recitation of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first talk, entitled The Holy Eucharist and Our Lady, will be delivered by the well known missionary priest, retreat master and rector, Father Elias Mary, of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

The second talk, entitled, The First Saturday: It Can Save The World!, will be given by David Rodríguez, the Content Director, and for many of us, the public face, of The Fatima Center.

The conference will be held at Saint Elizabeth Seton Church, at 190 Meetinghouse Road, in Bedford.

There will be a question and answer period after the talks. Light refreshments will be served.

The Conference is being sponsored by the Men of Our Lady and the Rosary.

For more information about this important Catholic event, contact Joe DiZillo at (603) 494-5902.

As the situation in the Church and the world deteriorates, the Message of Our Lady of Fatima has never been more urgent, more timely, and more necessary for the salvation of souls, for the restoration of the Faith and for the very preservation of what remains of Christian Civilization.

Please join them on June 22nd!

Thank you.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

MAY 28, 2024

Letters
Boston Herald
PO Box 4004
Westford, MA 01886
letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

To the Editor,

In his article on Governor Maura Healey’s decision to stockpile 15,000 doses of the lethal abortion drug mifepristone, Herald reporter Chris Van Buskirk used the language of Reproductive Equity Now when he referred to the abortion inducing pill as a medication, (Massachusetts mifepristone stockpile sits dormant after Maura Healey spent nearly $700K, 5/28/2024).

A medication is used to prevent, treat or relieve the symptoms of a disease. It is not designed to kill people.

Mifepristone is a poison, not a medication.

Sincerely,

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

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NEWS RELEASE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2024

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

LEAGUE CRITICIZES CATHOLIC CHARITIES FOR HOSTING GOVERNOR MAURA HEALEY

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Catholic Charities of Boston for featuring Governor Maura Healey as a speaker at its Spring Celebration, which is being held this evening at the Boston Harbor Hotel.

During tonight’s gala, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, will be the recipient of the organization’s Justice and Compassion Award.

The statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—Catholics in Political Life—prohibits Catholic institutions from offering “awards, honors or platforms” to those “who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

A partnered lesbian, Maura Healey is a supporter of legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion, same sex marriage and gender ideology.

Each time that Healey sought elected office, she was endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, which she credited as “a game changer” for her first campaign.

As a candidate, as Attorney General, and as Governor, Healey has been part of the abortion industry campaign to malign, restrict and even suppress pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, some of which are affiliated with the Catholic Church in Massachusetts.

The Catholic Action League called the decision to showcase Maura Healey at an archdiocesan event “a grave scandal, a callous betrayal of Catholic moral principles and a cruel stab in the back to the pro-life movement.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The primary reason for Healey’s presence tonight is obvious. Last July, the Healey/Driscoll Administration awarded Catholic Charities of Boston an unprecedented grant of one million dollars.

“Just two months ago, the Healey/Driscoll Administration allocated additional funds to Catholic Charities for migrant resettlement and job training.

“Besides the financial interest and the apparent indifference to Catholic moral teachings, tonight’s event also underscores the longstanding policy of the Archdiocese of Boston to cultivate at least one ally in the Massachusetts political establishment.

“First it was Mayor Tom Menino, who received two awards from Catholic Charities. Then it was Mayor Marty Walsh, and now it is, evidently, Governor Maura Healey, who was featured at three other Catholic venues (including the Vatican) in the last two months.

“It would seem, that for the Archdiocese of Boston, institutional interest trumps Catholic orthodoxy every time.”

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NEWS RELEASE

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2024

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

MASS AG LEADS CAMPAIGN TO CRUSH PRO-LIFE CENTERS

Reports today in LiveAction and LifeSiteNews reveal that the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Andrea J. Campbell, is leading a network of seventeen state attorneys general—all Democrats—in a campaign to target and ultimately suppress pro-life pregnancy care centers.

Called the ‘Reproductive Rights Working Group,’ the organization includes representatives from the National Abortion Federation—the trade association of abortionists—and the pro-death National Women’s Law Center, which is funded by Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation and the pharmaceutical industry.

Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts is the Chairwoman.

A press release issued by the group claimed that it is “working to strengthen state-level protections for abortion, contraception and gender-affirming care.”

Andrea Campbell is quoted in the release as saying that one of the group’s goals is to “increase regulation of anti-abortion centers.”

The group is committed to creating so-called reproductive justice units in the office of every state attorney general. These units will be the mechanisms through which crisis pregnancy centers will be investigated and prosecuted.

When Campbell ran for Attorney General of Massachusetts in 2022, she said she wanted to “expose crisis pregnancy centers...” and hold them “accountable.”

In that election, Campbell was endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, who described her as a “champion for reproductive freedom.”

In an October 2nd, 2023 statement, announcing the appointment of the Commonwealth’s first Director of Reproductive Justice, Campbell said that her new office would tackle “misinformation and disinformation that prevents access to [abortion] care.”

She later told reporters that the unit “would use every tool at its disposal, from grants and civil actions, right up to criminal enforcement,” to defend and expand abortion.

The Catholic Action League called the so-called Reproductive Rights Working Group “another example of the totalitarian instincts, utilitarian ethics and sociopathic sensibilities of America’s neo-Communist Left, which prefers lawfare to elections, and regards the Bill of Rights as an archaic, Eurocentric irrelevancy.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Whether it is Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bill to have the Federal Trade Commission investigate and regulate crisis pregnancy centers, or Andrea Campbell’s campaign to multiply Reproductive Justice Units, the objective is the same.

“That goal is to force pro-life pregnancy care centers into bankruptcy and closure by imposing a heavy regulatory burden upon them, and by condemning them to costly litigation in order to defend themselves from government lawsuits and civil enforcement proceedings.

“If that fails, the next step will be, as Campbell has indicated, criminal prosecution.

“All of this is a textbook example of corrupt, special interest politics. These elected officials are not representing the public, but are acting as agents of their donor class, from Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

“New York Attorney General Letitia James—after suing Donald Trump and the NRA—has already filed suit against 11 crisis pregnancy centers in the Empire State in the matter of abortion pill reversals.

“James is accusing them of making ‘false and misleading statements,’ and ‘spreading dangerous misinformation.’

“This lawsuit will be the precedent, the test case and the template of the coming persecution.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, MAY 20, 2024

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

CATHOLIC COLLEGES CELEBRATE THE ABORTION INDUSTRY

In the past eight days, three Catholic colleges in Massachusetts conferred honorary degrees upon leaders of medical institutions which either kill unborn children or train abortionists to do so.

On May 12th, Assumption University in Worcester conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters upon Doctor Michael F. Collins, the Chancellor of the UMass Chan Medical School.

Just last year, in May of 2023, following demands from medical students, the school expanded its abortion curriculum.

According to the school’s Office of Communications, “Abortion has been added for the first time to lectures as part of the reproductive health curriculum for first- and second-year medical students, covering epidemiology of unintended pregnancy and abortion, pregnancy counseling options, basics of medical and surgical abortions, and the legal environment surrounding abortion.”

The school is offering, for fourth year students, clinical rotations and electives with OB-GYN physicians who perform abortions. UMass Chan Medical is also a partner with the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program In Abortion & Family Planning, a national training initiative for abortionists.

Michael Collins, who now trains physicians to kill children, is the former CEO of Caritas Christi Health Care of the Archdiocese of Boston and a former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the College of the Holy Cross.

On May 13th, Anna Maria College in Paxton awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Public Administration to Eric W. Dickson, MD, the President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health. Doctor Dickson also delivered the Commencement Address.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, UMass Memorial Medical Center, a constituent hospital of the UMass Memorial Health system, performed 133 abortions in 2022, the last year for which statistics are available.

On May 18th, Emmanuel College in Boston presented, as its commencement speaker, the Obama/Biden bundler, Jack Connors, who served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Partners Health Care System—now Mass General Brigham—for 16 years. Connors became Chairman Emeritus in July 2012.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Brigham & Women Hospital performed 591 abortions in 2022, while the Massachusetts General Hospital performed another 164 abortions that same year.

In 2011, the year before Connor’s retirement as Chairman, Brigham & Women performed 477 abortions and Mass General performed 89 abortions. A third constituent institution, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, performed 79 abortions that year, for a total of 642 abortions during just one of the sixteen years that Connors served as Chairman.

Connors is a former member of the Council of Finance of the Archdiocese of Boston and is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Campaign for Catholic Schools. He is an Associate Trustee of Boston College.

A close advisor of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who has long played a key role in personnel decisions in the Boston Archdiocese, Connors is an advocate for women priests, the deformity of marriage and an end to clerical celibacy.

The Catholic Action League called the honors to those who destroy the innocent “further compelling evidence of the Luciferian Culture of Death which pervades so many Catholic institutions in Massachusetts.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “It has long been clear that Catholic higher education in the Commonwealth is in an advanced state of apostasy. It is equally clear that this corruption exists because of the connivance or the toleration of the state’s Catholic bishops.

The pro-life movement must stop participating in the unwarranted pretense and the unsustainable delusion that the Catholic Church is pro-life.

Catholic bishops, Catholic religious orders, Catholic colleges and universities, Catholic secondary schools, Catholic charities, and Catholic fraternal organizations routinely offer awards, honors and platforms to proponents of legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion.

Abortion advocates are invited to serve on the boards of Catholic institutions. They are showcased at Catholic fundraising venues. They are even hired as lobbyists and spokesmen for the Church.

When they die, they are given Catholic funerals that all but canonize them, and while they live, they are never criticized by the leaders of the Church.

Pro-lifers in the Bay State need to recognize that the Church here has betrayed them by making a political accommodation with the abortion regime, and that many Catholic institutions are now functionally, practically, de facto, pro-abortion.”

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NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2024

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

LEAGUE CRITICIZES VATICAN INVITATION TO GOVERNOR HEALEY AND MAYOR WU

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized the decision of the Holy See to host Bay State Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu at a climate conference sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Governor Healey, a partnered lesbian, and Mayor Wu were also received in a private audience by Pope Francis earlier today.

As candidates for office, both Maura Healey, and Michelle Wu were endorsed for election by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts.

Both officials oppose the Catholic definition of marriage, support unrestricted and publicly funded abortion, and believe so-called gender identity ought to be a protected category in civil rights law.

When she first ran for Massachusetts Attorney General in 2014, Maura Healey vowed to shut down pro-life crisis pregnancy centers in the Commonwealth. In 2022, as Attorney General, Healey issued a Press Release and Consumer Advisory condemning pro-life pregnancy care centers as “deceptive and coercive.”

Among the participants in the Vatican climate summit were two other nominally Catholic elected officials who reject and oppose core Catholic moral teachings: California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

The Catholic Action League called the Vatican invitation to Healey and Wu—arranged by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley—“a grave scandal, and a callous betrayal of the faithful Catholics of the pro-life movement.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “It is now clear, that in the Archdiocese of Boston, pro-life Catholics are a disfavored and marginalized minority.

“The two principal constituencies of Cardinal O’Malley appear to be the socially liberal billionaires of the major donor class, like Obama/Biden bundler Jack Connors, and pro-abortion elected officials like Maura Healey, Marty Walsh and Michelle Wu.

“Politicians such as these appear at at archdiocesan fundraisers, approve the real estate development deals which keep the Church solvent, and help fund Catholic Charities.

“Last July, the Healey Administration awarded an unprecedented one million dollar grant to Catholic Charities of Boston.

“Meanwhile, a faithful member of Cardinal O’Malley’s flock, 74 year old Jean Marshall of Marshfield, was sentenced, yesterday, to 15 months in federal prison for a non-violent 2020 sit-in at a DC abortion clinic.

“There has been no comment from Cardinal O’Malley on Marshall’s sentencing.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2024

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

VATICAN INVITES GOVERNOR HEALEY AND MAYOR WU TO CLIMATE SUMMIT

Both The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald are reporting today that the Holy See has extended invitations to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey to a Vatican sponsored climate summit in Rome.

Entitled “From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience,” the conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, will be held in Rome from May 15th to May 17th.

One of the organizers of the event is University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, who serves on the executive committee of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Governor Healey will address “Governing in the Age of Climate Change,” while Mayor Wu will speak on “Governance, Health and Energy.” Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer will also be among the speakers.

Pope Francis will personally preside at the event.

Both Governor Healey, a partnered lesbian, and Mayor Wu support legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion, and both were endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts.

On July 6, 2022, Healey, then the Massachusetts Attorney General, issued a press release and a Consumer Advisory condemning crisis pregnancy centers, calling them “deceptive and coercive.”

A few hours later, during the overnight of July 6th and 7th, two long established pro-life pregnancy care centers, Clearway Clinic and Problem Pregnancy of Worcester—both in New England’s second largest city—were vandalized by the violent abortion fanatics of Jane’s Revenge.

Healey never prosecuted anyone for these domestic terrorist attacks, but did issue this statement:

“We condemn all forms of violence and destruction of property within our communities. Our office will continue to focus on ensuring that patients seeking abortion care are safe and well-informed about their options.”

During the eight years when Maura Healey was Attorney General of the Commonwealth, from 2015 to 2023, there were, at least, 52 incidents of vandalism directed against Catholic churches, schools, cemeteries and religious iconography in Massachusetts.

None of these crimes resulted in a prosecution by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.

The Catholic Action League called the invitations to Healey and Wu “two more repulsive examples of the callous contempt which the prelates of the Church continually exhibit towards the faithful Catholics of the pro-life movement.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The culture of betrayal is escalating in the Catholic Church in Boston.

“No one should doubt that the origin of this latest scandal can be found, not in Rome, but in Boston, with Cardinal Seán O’Malley.

“O’Malley has long enjoyed an amicable relationship with the militantly pro-abortion lesbian, Maura Healey. In 2017, he co-authored an op-ed piece with Healey calling for amnesty for illegal aliens.

“In 2018, Healey rebuffed calls by left-wing groups to audit the Archdiocese of Boston on sexual abuse.

“Last July, the Healey Administration awarded a grant of one million dollars to Catholic Charities of Boston.

“On April 11th, two days after visiting a Catholic high school, Healey spoke at the Annual Gala of the Catholic Schools Foundation, an organization chaired by Cardinal O’Malley. On May 29th, Healey will speak at a Catholic Charities banquet honoring O’Malley.

“Since becoming Archbishop of Boston in 2003, Cardinal Seán O’Malley has instituted the corrupt practice of adopting a member of the Bay State’s pro-abortion, pro-sodomy political establishment as a kind of patron and protector of the Archdiocese.

“First there was Boston Mayor Tom Menino, followed by Boston Mayor and U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Now the Commonwealth’s lesbian chief executive seems to be the Cardinal’s new favorite.

“When it comes to the perceived temporal interests of the Archdiocese of Boston, attempting to crush the pro-life movement by shutting down crisis pregnancy centers, is apparently, no obstacle to friendship with Cardinal Seán.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2024

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

ANOTHER CATHOLIC INSTITUTION CELEBRATES GOVERNOR MAURA HEALEY

On April 12th, just two days before speaking at the Annual Gala of the Catholic Schools Foundation—an organization chaired by Cardinal Seán O’Malley—another Catholic institution welcomed and celebrated the Bay State’s pro-abortion, lesbian chief executive.

On April 9th, Saint John’s Prep in Danvers, sponsored by the Congregation of Saint Francis Xavier (the Xaverian Brothers), rolled out the red carpet for Governor Maura Healey.

According to the adulatory account of her visit on the school’s website, “It was quickly clear her [Healey’s] personal values are closely aligned with those of the Xaverian Brothers.”

It went on to say that “The Governor opened her remarks by thanking Father Jim Ronan ’62, her Charlestown parish priest, friend, spiritual guide, and mentor, who helped facilitate her visit.”

Healey was hailed for her “sincerity, honesty, and earnestness...”

In a discussion on “ethical leadership,” the Governor exhorted students: “Call out hate when you see it. There’s no room for racism, there’s no room for antisemitism, there’s no room for Islamophobia, there’s no room for homophobia.”

Incredibly, the Planned Parenthood champion then told Saint John’s students “Since childhood, I’ve been pretty attuned to looking after those who are vulnerable...”

On its website, the elite Catholic secondary school emphasizes its commitment to the modern post-Catholic values of diversity, sustainability and empowerment.

A partnered lesbian and close ally of Planned Parenthood, Healey is one of the leaders in the campaign, headed by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and inspired by NARAL, to vilify, restrict and ultimately suppress pro-life pregnancy care centers.

As Governor, Healey ordered the University of Massachusetts to stockpile 15,000 doses of the lethal abortion drug mifepristone, as a hedge against an adverse ruling on the drug by the U.S. Supreme Court.

As Massachusetts Attorney General, Healey argued that church facilities could be considered public accommodations, under civil rights law, in matters pertaining to so-called gender identity.

None of this however, has hampered cordial relations between Healey and the Catholic Church. In 2017, she co-authored an op-ed piece with Cardinal O’Malley calling for amnesty for illegal aliens.

Last July, the Healey Administration awarded a grant of one million dollars to Catholic Charities of Boston.

The Catholic Action League described Healey’s visit to Saint John’s Prep and the school’s exultant reaction as “further compelling evidence that most elite Catholic educational institutions in this state are in the hands of culturally conforming collaborators with the Culture of Death.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Within one week, two Catholic institutions in Greater Boston hosted a public official committed to crushing the pro-life movement in the Commonwealth.”

“Perhaps the time has come for the leaders of that movement to re-evaluate their abusive relationship with the unfaithful partner who routinely betrays them—the Archdiocese of Boston.”

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NEWS RELEASE

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2024

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

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION HOSTS GOVERNOR MAURA HEALEY

According to Politico and the State House News Service, the Catholic Schools Foundation—the philanthropy which raises funds for parochial schools in the Archdiocese of Boston—hosted Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey as its speaker, at the organization’s Annual Gala in Boston, on Thursday night, April 11th.

Healey is a partnered lesbian, endorsed by Planned Parenthood, who has credited the nation’s largest abortion perpetrator as the force which made possible her political career.

The Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts endorsed Healey and contributed to her campaign, when ran for Attorney General—her first elective office—in 2014. She subsequently said that their support was “a game changer for my campaign.”

Healey received their endorsement again when she ran for re-election in 2018, and when she ran for governor in 2022.

Healey is one of the leaders of the repressive, post Dobbs movement to target, defame, restrict and ultimately suppress pro-life pregnancy care centers.

As attorney-general, Healey issued a truthless press release and an unscrupulously deceitful Consumer Advisory denouncing crisis pregnancy centers.

As governor, Healey signed a supplemental budget allocating more than one million tax dollars to a NARAL inspired disinformation campaign to demonize pro-life centers.

In an event unprecedented in the 244 year history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Healey recently appointed her former paramour to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Besides being a proponent of same sex marriage, the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in civil rights law, and the expansion of access to legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion, Healey is an opponent of vouchers and tuition tax credits for Catholic schools.

In 2022, Healey criticized Worcester Bishop Robert McManus for defending the Catholic identity of Catholic schools in that diocese.

In its 2004 statement, Catholics in Political Life, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warned:

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 Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Schools Foundation is Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston.

Among those listed on the event’s Gala Committee is the socially liberal owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, who was charged, unsuccessfully, with soliciting a prostitute in 2019.

Kraft, reportedly, is an advocate of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for Boston’s Catholic schools.

The Catholic Action League called the invitation to Healey “the latest in a long and lamentable line of betrayals and scandals that have characterized the episcopate of Seán O’Malley in Boston.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “As Cardinal O’Malley once co-authored an op-ed piece with Maura Healey, implicitly critical of the Trump Administration on illegal immigration, it comes as no surprise that Healey should receive an invitation from a Catholic organization chaired by the Cardinal.”

“Cardinal O’Malley has a two decade history of praising, promoting, honoring and fraternizing with pro-abortion political figures, including the late U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, the late Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Labor Secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, U.S. Senator Robert Casey, Jr., former Governor Charlie Baker, former Congressman Joseph Kennedy III and former President Barack Obama.”

“When a purportedly Catholic organization, headed by a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, invites to its premier annual function a lesbian public official, backed by Planned Parenthood, who is waging a campaign of intimidation against pro-life institutions in her state, it tells us all we need to know about the total absence of integrity, fidelity and Catholic loyalty by those involved.”

“Cardinal O’Malley should be ashamed of himself. Is Maura Healey an inspiring role model for Catholic students? What rational person, in their right mind, could reasonably be expected to ever take seriously anything which the Catholic Church in Boston teaches about Christian morality?”

“Actions speak louder than words. This is a grave scandal.”

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NEWS UPDATE

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2024

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

PRESIDENT TRUMP WAS ELECTED ON A PLATFORM PROMISING FEDERAL ACTION ON ABORTION

With President Donald Trump’s April 8th announcement on Truth Social that abortion legislation should be left to the states, some conservatives are attempting to re-write history.

Members of the conservative commentariat, like Kurt Schlichter of Town Hall and Martha MacCallum of Fox News, are now claiming that Republicans sought to repeal Roe v. Wade, so that the issue could be returned to the states, that state sovereignty on abortion has been the Republican Party position, and that the President’s recent announcement is consistent with that position.

That assertion however, is a manifest falsehood.

Donald J. Trump ran for President on a 2016 Republican Platform promising far reaching federal initiatives to oppose abortion.

The Republican Party platform in 2016 stated “We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”

It went on to say that “We urge all States and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research, and we call on Congress to enact a ban on any sale of fetal body parts.”

The Platform then called upon Congress to ban abortions based upon sex selection and disability, to ban dismemberment abortions, and to enact a Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It also commended the House of Representatives for passing Born Alive legislation.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Any political figure in America today can be expected to alter or reverse his positions on issues of public controversy, even matters of supreme moral import. His supporters however, have no right to lie about it.”

“What happened Monday was an abandonment of five decades of Republican promises of federal opposition to abortion. The pro-life movement needs to recognize, lucidly, that we have suffered a major defeat, one of the worst in the movement’s history.”

“We need to determine what our response will be, and we need to ask President Trump, candidly—or as the Soviets used to say, in a frank and comradely manner—what if anything, he intends to do for the pro-life cause if he is elected to a second term.”

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NEWS ANALYSIS

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2024

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

BEWARE THE REPUBLICAN LATE TERM ABORTION SCAM!

With the lamentable decision of President Donald J. Trump to embrace a states rights position on the killing of unborn children, the Republican media universe—especially the faux conservative libertarians of Fox News—is now peddling the party line that conservatives must expose the extremism of the Democrat Party on abortion and unite in opposition to Democrat supported late term abortions.

Sean Hannity, Jesse Walters, Kaleigh McEnany and Tomi Lahren are all hawking this proposition, telling us that this is something that all Republicans can agree upon.

It is a confidence game, of course, and an old one, that dates back to the first administration of George W. Bush, who beguiled the pro-life movement with his forever touted, but only tardily implemented (2007), partial birth abortion ban.

In November of 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provided the latest figures on the gestational time of abortions in America.

In 2021—the latest year for which figures are available—93.5% of all abortions were perpetrated at 13 weeks or less, with an additional 5.7% performed between 14 and 20 weeks gestation.

Less than one percent of all abortions in the United States—(0.9%)—were performed at 21 weeks or later.

If conservatives fall for the obvious swindle of focusing on late term abortions, it means that while the Democratic Party will continue to support 100% of American abortions, the Republican Party, in contrast, will tolerate 99.1% of American abortions.

Citing polling data and referenda losses, Republicans are now telling pro-lifers that they must put aside their calls for abortion bans, so Republicans can be elected, in order to save the country.

They overlook however, a paramount reality. Four of the existential threats which menace America have a common origin.

The tsunami of illegal aliens, the failure to meet military recruitment goals, trillions of dollars of debt and the long term unsustainability of entitlements, all have a common denominator.

At 1.78 births per woman, America no longer has a reproductive birth rate.

The principal cause of this catastrophic circumstance is the destruction of pre-born life through abortion and abortifacient contraception (actually more through contraception than abortion).

If we are to save the country, and make it great again, then the first thing we must do is to stop killing our posterity in the womb.

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MEMBER ALERT

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2024

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

PRO-LIFE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND TO HONOR RIGHT TO LIFE CHAMPION BOB JOYCE

This Saturday, April 6, 2024, at 10:30 am, the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund will hold its Annual Century Brunch at the Boston Marriott Newton Hotel, at 2345 Commonwealth Avenue, in Newton, Massachusetts.

This year’s recipient of the prestigious Thomas More Award will be Attorney Robert W. Joyce of Boston.

For four decades, Bob Joyce has been a courageous, dedicated, articulate and outspoken champion of the right to life in New England.

Bob has served on the Board of Directors of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund for the past twenty-eight years, three of them as Clerk/Secretary and six as President.

As an officer and director of PLLDF, Bob has testified, countless times, at public hearings before legislative committees on Beacon Hill, in defense of innocent life.

A former Director of Massachusetts Citizens For Life, Bob Joyce delivered a memorable address to MCFL’s Annual Assembly For Life in 2002, when he marked the tragic milestone of one million abortions in the Commonwealth, up to that time.

In 1998, Bob Joyce became one of the petitioners in the historic constitutional challenge to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s arbitrary and unlawful attempt to establish, by executive order, a domestic partners program for city employees.

That court case, brought by the Catholic Action League and the American Center For Law And Justice, resulted in a 6 to 0 decision against Menino in the landmark Supreme Judicial Court ruling Connors v. City of Boston.

In recent years, Bob Joyce has been one of the leaders in the Boston organization of the Men’s March To Abolish Abortion and Rally For Personhood, which has done so much to draw men to the pro-life movement.

In 2023, in connection with the march, Bob authored an incisive, indeed historic essay on how fathers have been marginalized by the courts in the matter of abortion.

In 2022, an initiative by Bob Joyce brought together a consortium of Bay State pro-life groups into the Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition.

Joyce—a former Director of Catholic Memorial School and a former President of its Alumni Association—organized, through the Coalition, opposition to the disgraceful decision by CM to honor an abortion fanatic, then Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, at its annual fundraiser.

Bob’s efforts resulted in national media attention to this grave scandal and brought more than eighty supporters of the right to life to a protest demonstration in front of CM’s fundraising venue.

Bob is also active in American University Women For Life and in the Hosea Initiative.

His published credits include a notable 2017 article in the Human Life Review, co-authored with Lori Kelly, in opposition to physician assisted suicide.

One of Bob Joyce’s current projects is to utilize the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Shurtleff v. City of Boston to secure access for a pro-life flag to be raised on municipal flagpoles across the state.

A pious and orthodox Catholic, Bob Joyce is a multi-decade member of both the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society.

It is difficult to imagine a member of the pro-life community in Massachusetts more deserving of this distinguished award.

Please join us in honoring Bob Joyce, and in supporting the pro-life cause, in Newton on April 6th.

* * * * *

The Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund has defended vulnerable lives since 1975, through the support of our donors.

Tickets are $60 ($30 for our famous brunch, and $30 for a tax-deductible donation.)

You can purchase tickets at PLLDF.org, or write a check for $60.00 per ticket, payable to PLLDF, and mail it to:

PLLDF
2 Neptune Road, #167
Boston, MA 02128

If you can’t join us for the brunch, please consider sponsoring tickets for pro-life students: a single student for $60, or a table of eight students for $400.

For more information, contact Colbe Mazzarella at 617-970-0928, or email info@plldf.org.

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

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EASTER SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2024

A BLESSED AND HAPPY EASTER FROM THE CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE

At that time, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices, that they might go and anoint Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb, when the sun had just risen. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll the stone back from the entrance of the tomb for us?” And looking up they saw that the stone had been rolled back, for it was very large. But on entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were amazed. He said to them, “Do not be terrified. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen, He is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples and Peter that He goes before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him, as He told you.”

The Holy Gospel of the Mass on Easter Sunday (Mark  16, 1-7)
Laus tibi Christe!

V. Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
R. For He whom thou didst deserve to bear, Alleluia.
V. Has risen, as he said, alleluia.
R. Pray for us to God, alleluia.

V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

Let us pray. O God, who by the resurrection of Thy Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, hast vouchsafed to make glad the whole world, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may attain the joys of eternal life.

Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

*********

V. Regina Caeli, laetare, alleluia.
R. Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia.
V. Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia.
R. Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

V. Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, alleluia.
R. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.

Oremus. Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi, mundum laetificare dignatus es: praesta, quaesumus; ut per eius Genetricem Virginem Mariam, perpetuae capiamus gaudia vitae. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2024

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

BIDEN’S ABORTION ZEALOTRY CAN BE TRACED TO THE COWARDICE OF THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

In his State of the Union address last night, Joseph Biden promised, if re-elected, to use federal legislation to restore Roe v. Wade—the U.S. Supreme Court decision which resulted in the killing of 65 million innocent children—as the law of the land.

Biden is an aggressive and strident advocate of legal abortion, who abandoned, years ago, his previous opposition to the public funding of abortion, and now calls for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

The Biden Administration has restored funding—eliminated by President Trump—to the pro-abortion World Health Organization and to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.

Biden has repudiated the Mexico City policy, which had prohibited American foreign aid dollars from being used to promote abortion abroad.

The Biden Administration has been praised by Planned Parenthood for massive increases in federal subsidies to the country’s largest perpetrator of child murder.

His administration opposes conscience protections for pro-life physicians and nurses, has tried to turn hospital emergency rooms into abortuaries, and has used the Pentagon budget to pay for abortions.

Joseph Biden, the second baptized Catholic to occupy the White House, is, by any measurable standard, the most pro-abortion President in the modern history of the United States, not excluding Barack Obama.

Biden, without apparent shame, attends Mass and receives, sacrilegiously, the Holy Eucharist, visits Catholic shrines, and is routinely described as a devout Catholic, who carries with him a Rosary which once belonged to his late son.

The ultimate cause of this abomination, which combines unprecedented bloodshed and callous treachery with grave scandal and preening hypocrisy, can be found in the cowardice, malfeasance and dereliction of an American Catholic hierarchy, which in 51 years of legalized abortion, has failed to excommunicate a single one of the moral monsters, who like Biden, have facilitated the mass murder of the unborn.

In more than a half century, only two politicians that we know of—Congresswoman and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy—have been told by their bishops not to receive Holy Communion.

In 1962, a Louisiana judge, Leander Perez, was excommunicated for opposing the integration of Catholic schools. Like other modern excommunicates—Napoleon, Juan Peron, and the post 1921 Irish Republican Army—Perez never participated in genocide.

In his prophetic encyclical Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI, referring to abortion, wrote “Let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood, which crieth from earth to heaven.”

Do the bishops believe in God? If they do, why do they not fear for the fate of their own immortal souls?

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PRESS STATEMENT

FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024

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

LEAGUE CRITICIZES STATE SENATE FOR PASSAGE OF RADICAL SEX ED BILL

On Thursday, February 29th, veteran State House reporter Bob Katzen, Publisher and Editor of the Beacon Hill Roll Call, contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment from Executive Director C. J. Doyle.

Katzen was interested in the League’s reaction to the vote in the Massachusetts Senate to approve a radical, graphic and explicit sexual education measure.

On the 29th, the State Senate passed to be engrossed Senate Bill 2686 (now S. 268)—An Act Relative To Healthy Youth. Passage was obtained on a voice vote, that is to say, without a roll call.

The sponsor is Senator Sal N. DiDomenico (D-Everett).

If enacted, this legislation would enshrine, in Massachusetts law, the goals of the population control industry and the LGBTQ movement. It would indoctrinate public schoolchildren in the belief systems of those entities, and would encourage minors to engage in sexual behaviors which previous generations would have condemned, rightly, as depraved and obscene.

According to the New Boston Post, curriculum materials would expose elementary school children to discussions about masturbation, and middle school children to information about anal and oral sex.

It would also create a uniform, state authorized, sex and health education curriculum for all of the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns.

The measure has been endorsed by Mass Equality and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts.

Proposed amendments to the bill by Senator Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to protect the conscience rights of teachers and to convert the opt-out provision for parents to an opt-in provision, were defeated.

On Thursday the 29th, C. J. Doyle issued the following statement to Beacon Hill Roll Call:

“An Act Relative To Healthy Youth is government mandated ideological instruction under the guise of health education.

“It will use the authority of the law and the money of the taxpayers to impose the value system of the secular Left onto the public schoolchildren of the state.

“This legislation requires sex-ed courses in public schools to include ‘affirmative education that people have different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions,’ which may differ from ‘sex assigned at birth.’

“That affirmative approach extends, explicitly, to the practice of contraception, and implicitly, to abortion.

“According to the proposed law, all public school sex education must be consistent with the Massachusetts Comprehensive Health Curriculum Framework, now undergoing revision by the Administration of Governor Maura Healey, through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“That document is filled with references to acknowledging diversity, showing respect for different kinds of families and overcoming stereotypes, prejudices, bias, sexism and cultural stigmas—thinly disguised code language for traditional moral beliefs.

“If enacted, this legislation will effectively preclude any public school teacher, administrator, nurse or staff member from raising a moral objection or voicing an ethical dissent to any of the sexual behaviors celebrated and affirmed under this curriculum.

“If this extremist legislation ever becomes law, one can only hope that the recent experience in the City of Worcester—where significant numbers of parents exercised their right to a sex-ed opt-out for their children—will be emulated throughout the Commonwealth.”

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NEWS RELEASE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2024

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

BOSTON DISCRIMINATES AGAINST CATHOLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS

In her State of the City Address on January 30th, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced a free museum pass program for the city’s K through 12 public school students. Entitled BPS Sundays, the program will allow the admission, without charge, on the first and second Sundays of each month, of Boston Public School students to six of the city’s preeminent cultural institutions.

Participating institutions include the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science, the Boston Children’s Museum, the New England Aquarium, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Franklin Park Zoo.

None of these elite, well endowed entities will actually waive admission fees. Instead, they will simply transfer admission costs from individual students to the School Department, which is funded from the city treasury. Additional funds will be provided by a so-called public-private partnership between the city and various civic, corporate and philanthropic donors.

The provisions are generous. Each student can be accompanied by up to three guests or family members. The estimated cost of the program is likely to exceed one million dollars per year.

The provisions are also exclusionary. Private and parochial school students in Boston, along with home-schooled children, will be denied eligibility for this benefit.

Surprisingly, the program will not extend to students in the city’s charter schools, nor to participants in the METCO program (which buses inner city students to suburban public schools), even though both categories of students are, legally, public school students.

Boston Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld called Mayor Wu’s decision to exclude students who do not attend government schools “mean-spirited and divisive,” suggesting that she preferred schools which were “politically correct or union friendly.”

Two members of the Boston City Council—former Council President Ed Flynn and Councilor At-Large Erin Murphy—have filed a resolution to expand the program to encompass all of Boston’s school children.

In a bizarre maneuver, the new Chairwoman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, Amy Carnevale, issued a statement condemning the exclusion of charter school students, but was silent about the discrimination against Catholic and home schooled students.

The Catholic Action League called Mayor Wu’s exclusion rule in the museum pass program “arbitrary, punitive and discriminatory.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “There are twenty Catholic schools in the City of Boston, with an enrollment approaching 7,000. Mayor Wu ought to be reminded that these students are residents of Boston, and their parents are citizens, voters and taxpayers in the city.”

“No Boston child should be penalized because their parents made the lawful decision to enroll that student in a school which is not controlled by the city government and which is not staffed by the Boston Teachers’ Union.”

“For sixty years now—since the Goldwater campaign of 1964--the Republican Party has been telling Catholics and other social conservatives that it supports, rhetorically at least, school choice.”

“Amy Carnevale’s clueless comments, complaining about unfairness to charter schools students, while ignoring the longstanding problem of anti-Catholic discrimination in public education, reminds us of how unserious the Massachusetts Republican Party remains on this issue.”

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Note to Catholic Action League Members: On January 26th, The Boston Globe published a long, lead story celebrating the decision of a Connecticut woman to travel to Vermont to take her own life through physician assisted suicide—“medical aid in dying”—which is legal in that state.

The writer of the story was Globe columnist, notorious hate speech perpetrator and multi-decade Catholic basher, Kevin Cullen.

What Cullen did not mention, was that, contrary to the ethics of journalism, (and the laws of God), he was an actual participant in this appalling affront to the Author of Life. Cullen was one of two signatories on the legal affidavit required under Vermont law, affirming that the person intending suicide was of sound mind.

This prompted an unusual public note from the Editor of the Globe rebuking Cullen, stating: “It is a violation of Globe standards for a reporter to insert themselves into a story they are covering.” The editor also said it was a decision which “Cullen regrets.”

This is the second time in recent years that Cullen has run afoul of professional ethics and journalistic standards. In 2018, Cullen was given a three month unpaid suspension by the Globe for fabricating anecdotes about the Boston Marathon bombing.

When confronted about his creative fiction, Cullen said he was upset about the bombing and had been drinking.

While one is reluctant to speculate, given his latest recklessness, one might be forgiven for wondering if this is a recurring issue.

The following letter to the editor is in response to a Boston Herald story on Cullen’s journalistic misconduct.

#####

JANUARY 30, 2024

Letters
Boston Herald
PO Box 4004
Westford, MA 01886
letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com

To the Editor,

In the Boston Herald article on Globe columnist Kevin Cullen’s personal participation in a story he was writing about, reporter Rick Sobey called attention, correctly, to Cullen’s breach of professional ethics, (Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen ‘committed a mortal sin’ for helping a woman in her physician assisted suicide 1/29/2024).

In this case, the term ‘mortal sin’ may be more than a metaphor for journalistic malpractice.

Always quick to accuse others of hypocrisy, Cullen may want to ponder his own hypocrisy in pretending to be a practicing Catholic while collaborating in the taking of a human life.

Cullen has spent years demonizing conservative Catholics, none of whom, unlike Kevin Cullen, ever helped kill anybody. Maybe it is time for Cullen to cast the beam out of his own eye.

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

SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 2024

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

CATHOLIC BISHOP CO‑AUTHORS OP‑ED WITH PRO‑LGBTQ GROUP

In a historic first, a Catholic diocesan bishop in the United States has co-authored an op-ed column, in the secular press, with a pro-LGBTQ+ organization.

The Most Reverend William D. Byrne, the Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts has joined with Catholics for Inclusion, to produce a column entitled “A message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community.”

Catholics for Inclusion is an advocacy group based in Northampton, MA, purporting to represent the families of homosexuals and lesbians alienated from the Catholic Church. According to its website, it also includes a number of former Catholic lesbians working to create “a more inclusive Church.”

Curiously, its website provides no list of officers or directors. It seems to have no media presence beyond the current op-ed, and claims of a previous column in an undisclosed local newspaper. It has not responded to media inquiries about the public reaction to its op-ed piece with the bishop.

The guest column was published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Greenfield Recorder on December 5th. It was also published in the higher circulation Mass Live on December 8th.

In the column, Byrne and his co-authors (who remain anonymous), assert that Catholics for Inclusion have been meeting for five years “discerning what the church needs to do to create an opportunity for LGBTQ+ individuals to feel genuinely welcomed to return to the church.”

They go on to say, with much repetition of platitudes, that the bishop has met with them to “discuss how the Catholic churches in our area can become genuinely welcoming to all people,” which includes “joining together to create an open and loving community that is more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people.”

In the column, Bishop Byrne “strongly encourages all parishes and schools to welcome everyone into your community, particularly those who feel excluded from the church, including the LGBTQ+ faithful.”

How those who reject perennial Catholic moral teaching and castigate that teaching as hatred, bigotry and homophobia can be called faithful, the bishop did not explain.

The column concluded by exhorting everyone to avoid “discrimination or harsh judgments.”

In the column, Byrne reveals that he has met with the group “on a few occasions” and was inspired to continue talks with them following a September, 2023 meeting with Pope Francis.

Interestingly, the op-ed was published two weeks before the Vatican issued the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which authorized the blessing of same-sex couples. Following the release of Fiducia, Byrne publicly defended his outreach to the dissident group.

The column, of course, omitted any reference to 2,000 years of Catholic teaching—founded upon Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and natural law—which condemns the sin of impurity against nature, as the second of the four sins which “crieth to heaven for vengeance.”

The radical homosexualist group, New Ways Ministry, praised the op-ed and commended Bishop Byrne for his “collaboration,” comparing him favorably with his predecessor, Bishop Mitchell Rozanski, who had prevented a homosexual chorus from performing in Saint Teresa’s Church in South Hadley.

The Catholic Action League called the newspaper column “a grave scandal,” and “a clear and conspicuous public relations victory for the opponents of Catholic morality.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Like the rest of us poor sinners, those suffering from same-sex attraction are already welcome to the Catholic Church. They are welcome to the confessional, to repentance from sin, to interior conversion and to the personal pursuit of holiness.

“When homosexuals say they want to be welcomed in the Catholic Church, what they really mean is that they want the Church to ignore the Bible, abandon natural law, disavow the Catechism and participate in the lie that sodomy is morally acceptable.

“They want the Church to affirm them in their lifestyle and enable them in their mortal sins.

“Bishop Byrne may view the same-sex attracted, naively, as a group of disaffected Catholics struggling with a moral problem. The reality is that the homosexual movement is an organized revolutionary force determined to overthrow Christian morality, suppress religious freedom rights and censor, silence, and marginalize anyone who defends traditional moral beliefs.

“It has already succeeded in deforming marriage, imposing itself on the Saint Patrick Day parades in Boston and New York, and using the courts to punish Christian businesses which refuse to service same-sex ceremonies.

“Here in Massachusetts, a Catholic high school has been forced to pay a settlement to a homosexual applicant for a staff position—who lied when he agreed to the school’s mission statement—after a Superior Court judge found the school guilty of discrimination.

“Whatever the intentions of Bishop Byrne, his joint op-ed piece sends the unmistakable message that the Catholic Church is, gradually, coming around to the values of secular society in its approach to homosexuality.”

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NEWS RELEASE

MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2023

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

WORCESTER TELEGRAM INSULTS CHRISTIANS, MOCKS CRUCIFIXION

On Sunday, January 21st, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette—the Bay State’s third largest newspaper—published an editorial cartoon reviling and denigrating pro-life Christians, and exploiting images of the Crucifixion of Our Savior to score a tawdry political point.

The cartoon presented two depictions of the Crucifixion, each with a Roman legionary hammering nails into the feet of Our Lord.

The first contained an arrow, pointing towards Jesus, with the caption “Who right-wing Christians think they are.”

The second contained an arrow, pointing towards the soldier holding the hammer, with the caption, “Who they are.”

The unsubtle message is that conservative Christians are violent persecutors and “two-faced hypocrites,” an assertion the cartoonist makes on his Facebook page underneath the cartoon.

The creator of the smear was Marc Murphy, an editorial cartoonist for the Louisville Courier Journal, USAToday and Gannet publications, which owns the Telegram.

Murphy has a long and disreputable history of ventilating his bigotry by demonizing religious conservatives who believe in traditional, Biblical morality.

In June of 2023, he produced a cartoon—also published by the Telegram—which showed pro-lifers dancing on a grave marked “Dead poor women.”

A Notre Dame graduate, Murphy describes himself as ‘culturally Catholic.’ Astonishingly, he coaches at a Catholic school, Nativity Academy in Louisville, sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters and the Xaverian Brothers.

The decision by the Telegram to print the cartoon is perplexing. Unrelated to any current issue in the Commonwealth, the attack is entirely gratuitous.

As the Evangelical community is small in Massachusetts, it is reasonable to suppose that, for the editorial staff of the Telegram, Catholics were the real target.

Their shepherd in Worcester County, Bishop Robert McManus, has been the object of a secularist jihad, waged by the Telegram, since the bishop insisted that rainbow flags and BLM banners were incompatible with the Catholic identity of Nativity School in Worcester in 2022.

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “The cartoon is not only a venomous expression of hatred and contempt, defaming innocent people, but it is a shameless exercise in dishonesty and hypocrisy.

“Defending the right to life, traditional marriage and biological reality harms no one. It is the cultural revolutionaries who have blood on their hands—the blood of 65 million dead children killed in abortions, and the irreversibly mutilated bodies of untold minors lured into the cult of transgenderism.”

The Executive Editor of the Telegram & Gazette is Michael McDermott. As of July, 2023, his email address was mcdermott@telegram.com. He can also be reached at 1-800-922-8200.

Please let him know that this mean spirited cartoon was offensive, unjust and unwarranted.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

January 8, 2024 — Published on January 14th

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

To the Editor:

In his seventh column, in less than four years, targeting Worcester Bishop Robert McManus, Ray Mariano continues to be offended that McManus remains faithful to the Catholic moral beliefs, which Mariano abandoned long ago, (Where’s the love and compassion, Bishop McManus?, 1/5/24).

After years of mocking and maligning McManus, Mariano has the chutzpah to complain that it is the bishop who lacks love and compassion.

Mariano is upset that McManus emphasized the limits to the Vatican’s unprecedented decision to permit the blessing of same sex couples.

When culturally conforming liberals like Mariano call for a Church that is more inclusive and loving, what they really mean is they want a Church which repudiates Sacred Scripture and natural law, and affirms, rather than condemns, the mortal sin of sodomy.

Sincerely,

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