Thursday, August 23, 2012

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Cardinal Dolan and the GOP

Even a casual reader of this blog must know that I find Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York morally reprehensible for many reasons, not the least of which is the man is a pathological liar and a protector of child rapists.  Now, in a blatantly political move Dolan has agreed to give a final benediction at the Republican National Convention next week (unless Hurricane Issac washes it out).  Andrew Sullivan - who was also raised as a Catholic and is equally disgusted with the Church hierarchy - has some pointed comments on Dolan's political partisanship.  Here are excerpts:

The de facto endorsement of the Romney-Ryan ticket by the Catholic hierarchy became close to authoritative yesterday, as the Cardinal Archbishop of New York accepted - in unprecedented fashion - an invitation to offer a benediction on the last day of the RNC, having gone out of his way to praise Paul Ryan as a "great public servant" whom he is "anxious to see in action." The usual practice is the local bishop for a benediction in his diocese. But the Romney-Ryan ticket persisted for obvious political reasons, argued for a big name Catholic, and Dolan, astonishingly, said yes.

The reason this is a big problem is that Dolan is in many ways the national leader of the Benedict XVI hierarchy.  .  .  .  The other problem is that he has already all but endorsed Paul Ryan:  .   .   .   . 

Ryan, an enthusiast of Ayn Rand, wants to drastically gut Medicaid and Medicare, deny 30 million people impending access to health insurance and Dolan interprets this as his "obvious solicitude for the poor." He praises a man who voted for an unfunded Medicare D entitlement, two disastrously expensive wars, and now pledges to balance the budget only over three decades is a model of accountability and restraint and a balanced budget! 

And make no mistake: Dolan is an old-school Catholic pol - a figure who approved payments to molesting priests to expedite their firing, brazenly lied about it, then ran away abroad when the press demanded an explanation. His most important issues are criminalizing abortion, stripping gay couples of any civil legal protection, and making sure that non-Catholic employees of Catholic hospitals and schools be denied access to insured contraception. That he is saying the benediction for a ticket that explicitly endorses a priority for the super-rich over the working poor and views illegal immigrants as beneath contempt also tells you a lot about Dolan's priorities. 

The Cardinal's spokesman insists it's just a prayer - but as Michael O'Loughlin of the Jesuit magazine America has noted, the leading Catholic Archbishop in the country traveling all the way to Florida to big-foot the local bishop and finish up the GOP Convention is such a staggeringly partisan act, especially given the politics around contraception and religious freedom, it's deeply reckless .  .  .  .

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