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Stories tagged with “Timothy Dolan”

LGBT

Cardinal Dolan To Gay Couples: You’re Only ‘Entitled To Friendship’

By Igor Volsky on Mar 31, 2013 at 9:34 am

Cardinal Timothy Dolan told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that gay people are entitled to “friendship” but not a long-last romantic relationship in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Appearing on the program following oral arguments at the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of two laws targeting gay and lesbian couples, Dolan said that the Church should treat same-sex couples with love, while reminding them that “sexual love…is intended only for a man and a woman”:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (HOST): And you know, especially this week – because it’s been at the top of the news – for many gay and lesbian Americans –– gay and lesbian Catholics, they feel unwelcome –– in the Church. And what do you say as a minister, as a pastor – to a gay couple that comes to you and say, “We love God. We love the Church. But we also love each other, and we –– want to raise a family in faith. What do you say to them?

DOLAN: Well, the first thing I’d say to them is, “I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness. And – and we – we want your happiness. But – and you’re entitled to friendship.” But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that – especially when it comes to sexual love – that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally. We gotta be – we gotta do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven’t been too good at that.

Dolan has been vocal in his opposition to marriage equality, repeatedly condemning the rights of same-sex couples under the guise of love and support for the gay community.

After lobbying against New York’s marriage equality law, Dolan prohibited by decree any Church personnel or property from being utilized for same-sex marriage ceremonies under penalty of “canonical sanctions,” calling the state’s law “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law.” He has also compared the “threat” posed to marriage by gays and lesbians to that of polygamy, adultery, forced marriage, communist dictatorships, and incest.

Despite his rhetoric, a majority of New York Catholics supported the marriage equality bill months before it came to a vote and still do.

NEWS FLASH

Catholic Leaders Not Giving Up On Marriage Inequality | The Catholic Church gave millions of dollars to fight marriage equality this year — money that could have gone to charitable causes — but is apparently unfazed by the defeat in all four states. When congratulating President Obama on his re-election, Cardinal Timothy Dolan promised that the Church will continue to “stand in defense” of life, marriage, and religious freedom. Responding to the marriage equality victory in Maryland, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori similarly said the Church must “redouble our efforts to defend marriage,” warning that the freedom to marry “will prove not to have been for the common good of our state.” If one of the Church’s top priorities remains opposing legal security for same-sex couples and their children, it will become more difficult to argue that its mission has anything to do with supporting the common good.

Economy

Top Catholic Bishop Affirms Need For Government Programs To Help The Poor

By Travis Waldron on Sep 28, 2012 at 11:45 am

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its head, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, have stood fast in their support of government programs that benefit the poor as lawmakers in Washington move to cut funding for many of those programs in the name of debt and deficit reduction. In a blog post honoring the feast day of St. Vincent DePaul, “considered by many to be the ‘star’ saint of Christian charity and concern for the poor,” Cardinal Dolan issued a joint statement with Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn that reaffirmed the importance of government programs in fighting poverty and helping low-income Americans.

While “[g]overnment programs provide enormous support to poor Americans,” Dolan and DiMarzio wrote, “it is not enough,” and the constant portrayal of the poor “in a negative way” is hurting efforts to aid the worse off:

However, two things must be said.

1) It is not enough. Even with the generosity of the American people, and the work of groups like the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and so many others, much more needs to be done, and not just by private charity. The government must continue to play its part as well.

2) There are very dark clouds. Too much rhetoric in the country portrays poor people in a very negative way. At the same time, this persistent sluggish economic and slow pace of recovery does two things that hurt the poor: it does not provide sufficient jobs for poor people to earn decent living to support themselves, and it provides less resources for government to do its part for Americans in need.

The comments come at a time when cuts to poverty programs are becoming more prominent in America’s budgetary debates, and when rhetoric is, indeed, portraying the poor “in a very negative way.” A video surfaced recently showing GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney decrying America’s welfare programs and their beneficiaries. “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” Romney said.

Dolan also seems to echo the group of Catholic nuns who are crisscrossing the country on the Nuns On A Bus tour, which has highlighted the role government plays in protecting the poorest Americans. The nuns visited nine states this summer and have continued their push in recent weeks, announcing their opposition to Republican-led budget cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and other assistance programs.

While Dolan and the USCCB have been consistent in their opposition to such budget cuts — the Conference called the cuts “unjustified and wrong” in a letter to Congress earlier this year — Dolan hasn’t always given that appearance. In August, he was introduced at the Republican National Convention by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) as someone who “the preferential option for the poor doesn’t easily translate into a preferential option for big government.” Now, though, Dolan seems to be calling on the government to do even more than it currently does to help the poor.

Politics

Catholic Cardinal Authorized $20K To Pay Off Pedophile Priests, Then Railed Against ‘Immorality’ Of Gay Marriage

By Igor Volsky on May 31, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has led the charge against same-sex marriage, describing gay and lesbian unions as “unjust,” “immoral,” and unnatural. “This is a very violation of what we consider natural law that’s embedded in every man and woman and we’re really worried as Americans that it’s going to be detrimental to the common good,” Dolan said in a radio interview in June, as New York prepared to legalize marriage equality. “[W]e still worry about the detrimental effect upon society, upon culture, and certainly upon our individual churches.”

But church documents showing that Dolan paid off priests who had been accused of sexually abusing minors suggest that the prominent Catholic leader was willing to overlook these very same religious convictions to help colleagues accused of egregious wrong doing. The documents, obtained by the New York Times, also show that Dolan lied to reporters when he initially dismissed news of the payments as “false, preposterous and unjust”:

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. [...]

But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.

Dolan had described at least one payment to Franklyn Becker — who had been accused of abusing 10 minors — as “an act of charity” to help the priest “pay for health insurance.” This comes to light as Dolan and the Church are expanding their campaign against a government regulation that would increase health insurance coverage of contraception for women.

Health

Catholic Leader Says Contraception Rule Strangles Religious Freedom Despite Protections For Religious Organizations

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 22, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Cardinal Timothy Dolan defended the lawsuits that 43 Catholic-affiliated organizations, including the University of Notre Dame, have filed against the Obama administration’s contraception regulation to expand coverage at no additional cost to employees. On CBS’ This Morning, he told hosts Charlie Rose and Erica Hill that the regulation was “strangling” religious freedom even with the accommodations given to religious organizations:

DOLAN: What we’re worried about now is the exemption given to the churches is so strangling and is so narrow. [...] It’s that exemption, it’s the straight-jacketing, handcuffing exemption that we find to be very dangerous.

ROSE: So if the president said, I’ve tried to compromise here, I’m suggesting we let insurers pay for contraception. That’s not far enough for you?

DOLAN: That’s rather superficial [...] It still gives no attention to these choking mandates, this choking definition of religion that we find to be so strangling.

Watch Dolan’s comments here:

Under the new contraception rule, insurance companies will be required to provide the coverage directly to the employees and the employer will not pay for it if a nonprofit religiously affiliated organization like a Catholic college or hospital objects to offering birth control. In addition, the organizations may delay for a year before the contraception coverage begins, and for organizations like Catholic hospitals that are self-insured, third-party administrators or another independent entity will provide the contraception coverage.

By calling the accommodations “strangling,” Dolan ignores how the administration has already addressed their concerns about religious liberty while also ensuring that women can still receive accessible, affordable contraception. Most Catholics disagree with Dolan’s and church leaders’ continuing opposition to the contraception rule, but Dolan would rather pick a fight than work toward finding a reasonable solution.

Related Posts

Health

Dolan Admits Catholics Don’t Agree With Church’s Birth Control Prohibition 

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 2, 2012 at 4:30 pm

Catholic bishops have loudly opposed the Obama administration’s plan to expand contraception access, despite the fact that a majority of Catholics disagree with the church’s position. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan even has claimed that expanding access to birth control would spread “secularism.” But in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Jansing, Dolan conceded that most Catholics reject the Church’s prohibition on birth control and likely support the administration’s compromise:

CHRIS JANSING (MSNBC HOST): Do you think Catholics will vote on the birth control issue, for example?

DOLAN: No, I don’t think they’d do that. [...] You are right, and many people are right, when they say bishops, I don’t know if you’ve got your people with you on the specific issue of contraception.

Watch the MSNBC interview here starting at 2:30:

A recent Gallup poll shows that Catholics are not turning away from President Obama because of the contraception debate. Even though the Catholic Church has attacked the Obama administration, Obama has a six-point lead over Mitt Romney, who opposes the contraception regulation, among Catholic voters.

Media

Sunday Shows Use Easter To Promote Fictitious ‘War On Religion’

By Zack Ford and Jeff Spross on Apr 9, 2012 at 8:30 pm

Easter morning is arguably a fair time for the Sunday morning political shows to host conversations about religion, but every single network offered only one perspective: there is a “war on religion.” CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX limited their religious guests to Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders, all of whom parroted conservative talking points about the role of faith in society and how liberal policies somehow infringe on “religious liberty.” Absent from the discussions were any progressive people of faith, non-Christians, or non-believers.

An overarching theme of the discussions, as explicitly stated by both Rick Warren on ABC and Cardinal Timothy Dolan on CBS, was the suggestion that “a separation of church and state does not mean a separation of faith and politics.” This elides the issue and cause of the current controversy, which is that they and the other guests are advocating for policy positions based on sectarian religious viewpoints which are not held by many members of the same faiths, members of other faiths, or individuals of no faith at all. The issue is also the impact these policies would have on women’s ability to access contraception, and on the civil rights of LGBT Americans. For example, individuals like Warren, Dolan, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, Anne Graham Lotz, and Newt Gingrich all strongly oppose offering same-sex couples the freedom to marry, but none offer consideration for the many churches that do support marriage equality.

Watch a compilation of yesterday’s one-sided discussions on State of the Union, This Week, Meet The Press, Face The Nation, and Fox News Sunday:

Religion is not under attack in the United States. In fact, it enjoys as much influence in schools, government, and the media as it ever has. To limit the discussion of its influence to the narrow self-serving objections of one handful of loudmouth conservatives is poor journalism and a disservice to the broad diversity of worldviews that truly defines the American experience.

LGBT

Cardinal Dolan Rewrites History: Catholic Church Leaders Were ‘Burned’ In New York Marriage Vote

By Zack Ford on Mar 12, 2012 at 11:35 am

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is still bitter that marriage equality passed in New York last year, telling the New York Daily News that Catholic leaders “got burned” by Senate Republicans they were convinced would oppose the law:

DOLAN: We got burned last year when we were told the redefinition of marriage didn’t have much of a chance — and of course it did. Our Senate leaders, we highly appreciated them being with us all along. When they kind of assured us it didn’t have much of a chance — not that we let up, but we probably would have been much more vigorous and even more  physically present if we knew there was a chance. We got a little stung, and it could be as much our fault as anyone else’s.

This is an incredibly smug attitude for Dolan to have, but it reflects the amount of influence the Catholic Church hierarchy expects to have over political discourse. Even though a majority of New York Catholics supported the marriage equality bill months before it came to a vote and continued to afterward, Dolan believes that the bishops could still have changed the outcome if they’d just applied more pressure. But this is a blatant rewriting of history, because Dolan admitted after the law passed that he saw it coming and was “not surprised” that it was successful. Considering the number of anti-gay screeds he published while the legislature was still debating the bill, one wonders what more he would have done had he been “much more vigorous.”

Fortunately, the New York legislature chose to represent all constituents when it decided to expand LGBT equality instead of catering to a select group of Church leaders who refuse to exist in the same universe as married same-sex couples.

NEWS FLASH

Archbishop Timothy Dolan Met With Obama To Discuss Religious Liberties, Other Concerns | New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan says he had an “extraordinarily friendly” meeting with President Obama on Nov. 8, in which the two men discussed “pertinent moral concerns arising in foreign and domestic policy, issues of both agreement and disagreement.” Dolan — who is the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — has criticized the administration for failing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and actively lobbied against same-sex marriage in New York. The Catholic leadership sees both as a threat to religious liberty. “It was very candid. I would say there were areas of agreement and disagreement,” Dolan told reporters yesterday. “But I would say this: that I found the president of the United States to be very open to the sensitivities of the Catholic community that were worried about an intrusion into religious liberty.” He added that Obama was “very sensitive” to the bishops’ “concerns over gay marriage and insurance mandates to provide artificial birth control coverage as part of the new health care reform law.”

LGBT

Archbishop Dolan Prohibits Church From Using Facilities, Services That May Further Same-Sex Marriage

By Zack Ford on Nov 7, 2011 at 12:55 pm

New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been incredibly vocal in his opposition to marriage equality, repeatedly condemning the rights of same-sex couples under the guise of love and support for the gay community. As of last month, he has prohibited by decree any Church personnel or property from being utilized for same-sex marriage ceremonies under penalty of “canonical sanctions,” calling the state’s new marriage equality “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law”:

1. No member of the clergy (priest or deacon) incardinated or assisting in the Archdiocese of New York, or any person while acting as an employee of the Church, may participate in the civil solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage, which includes but is not limited to providing services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privilege for such event. Ecclesiastical solemnization or celebration of same-sex marriages is expressly forbidden by Canon law.

2. No Catholic facility or property, including but not limited to parishes, missions, chapels, meeting halls, Catholic educational, health, or charitable institutions or benevolent orders, or any place dedicated, consecrated, or used for Catholic worship may be used for the solemnization or consecration of same-sex marriages.

The property restrictions in Dolan’s decree are troubling, particularly given he specifically cites educational and health institutions. This would mean that a bed-ridden patient in a Catholic hospital would not be permitted to marry his partner on the property. It’s not clear from the decree, but this could conceivably extend to any and all recognition of same-sex unions, which would create severe complications for couples who might be accessing healthcare or charitable services that are provided by the Church.

Dolan continues to show just how out of step Catholic leadership is from the mainstream Catholic population, which overwhelmingly supports marriage equality. With this decree, Dolan signifies that discriminating against same-sex couples is one of the Church’s highest priorities.

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