The Dolan problem

When Archbishop Timothy Dolan was appointed Archbishop of New York, everyone seemed to have an opinion on the man even before he arrived. I decided to take a wait-and-see attitude and refrained from passing judgement publicly, even when approached by a certain media outlet. After he began his reign, his public record began to invite commentary, which I offered, judging his tenure to be a mixed bag. Now, after 4 years of Dolan (how time flies!) I think we can say that this man's record has been an unmitigated disaster for the Faith in New York.

Incredibly, Dolan has a reputation as a "conservative" and for some bizarre reason was even touted as papabile at the Conclave. I suppose mere words are enough to get a man a good reputation in the Church these days for Dolan to be considered any sort of orthodox prelate, let alone worthy of sitting in the Chair of St. Peter. I am unaware of anything the man has done to warrant such popularity and esteem except for constantly guffawing and cackling like some backslapping, red-faced Irish ward heeler. No, rather he has undermined the Faith here at every turn. As evidence:

• like several previous Cardinals here, he has been enthusiastic about playing ecumenical games by going to seders and engaging in interfaith prayer services, thereby denigrating the uniqueness of our Faith and spreading indifferentism among the Faithful. 
• he publicly applauded the gay pride group at the openly gay parish of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan.
• he scandalously invited Barack Obama to the Al Smith dinner at the same time as this baby-murdering Nero was plotting to abolish religious freedom and force the Church to offer birth control to its employees.
• worst of all, except for writing a blog post and giving an interview to an Albany radio show, he did absolutely nothing to fight against the passage of gay marriage in NY State. When it was all over, he didn't excommunicate the politicians who voted for this abomination; he didn't even say a word about it from the pulpit. He did, however, write a blog post in which he apologized to gays who might have been offended by the Church's position against gay marriage!
• even though the Catholic school closings aren't his fault, he has come up with no alternative solution and has axed them with the alacrity of a Bolshevik Commissar. 
• he has never spoken out about anything of consequence, or at least not in any way that would suggest to his listeners that he expects them to do anything or that he is going to do anything about it. Denounce abortion? Sure, why not? Words are cheap. Refuse Communion to pro-abortion politicians or even excommunicate them? Oh my! That would be scary! What does his new evangelization look like? Fiery preaching? Public protests? Letter-writing campaigns? A renewal of Catholic devotional life? No. We've seen felt banners with banal slogans hung from church doors. His episcopacy has been one, long, demotivational exercise in cowardice and compromise.

Now, to top it all off, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-HHS Health Care mandate Vice President Joe Biden stopped in at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Palm Sunday and not only received a "shout-out" from the pulpit by the Cardinal but was permitted to receive Holy Communion, in defiance of Canon Law 915 and basic morality. Church Militant TV has just produced an amazing 10 minute special report on Dolan and Dolanism which is, in their definition, "subordination of the Catholic Faith to prevailing cultural mores." In addition to the things I've listed here, this segment adds persecution of Latin Mass priests to Dolan's charge-sheet. I encourage everyone to watch this explosive video.

Where are the excommunications?

In response to the new gay "marriage" law in New York, Bishop DiMarzio of the Brooklyn Diocese (which also includes Queens) has instructed his Catholic schools not to honor any of the politicians who voted for it or accept any honors from them, nor to allow them to speak at the schools. At least Bishop DiMarzio is showing some outrage over this abomination, and taking some action, although it is by no means enough. What is he going to do about the Catholic legislators from his diocese who voted for this bill? I'm not familiar with these politicians but I noticed that a lot of them had Italian, Irish and Spanish surnames, so presumably at least some of them purport to be Catholic. Why aren't they excommunicated already?

Similarly, in our own diocese of New York, Archbishop Dolan's utterly passive response to this attack on the Faith has been nothing short of scandalous. He did nothing to try to stop the bill, and now that it has passed he's done even less. According to my count, there are 43 State Assemblymen from within the New York Archdiocese (see the wikipedia list from District 60 through 103). Of those assemblymen, there were 10 votes against the bill, 32 for it and 1 absence. Of those 32 "yes" votes, I see a lot of names that imply a Catholic background: Rodriguez, Kavanagh, O'Donnell, Benedetto, Spano, Cahill, et al. Of our Staten Island representatives, Lou Tobacco and Nicole Maliotakis voted against gay marriage. Michael Cusick and the openly gay Matthew Titone voted for it. Where are the excommunications?

In the New York State Senate there are, by my count, 20 legislators from the New York Diocese (see the wikipedia list from District 23 through 42). Of those, only 5 voted against gay marriage and 15 voted for it. Of the 15 who voted for it, I see names like Rivera, Serrano, Carlucci, Bonacic, et al. Of our 2 Staten Island Senators, Diane Savino voted for gay marriage and Andrew Lanza voted against it (although his cowardly delay only served to help the opposition). Where are the excommunications?

As for Governor Cuomo, although he works and temporarily resides in Albany (under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the gay-friendly, dissident Bishop Howard Hubbard), his official abode is outside of Mt. Kisco in Westchester County, which places him under the spiritual authority of Archbishop Dolan. Where is the excommunication, Archbishop?

The fact is that gay marriage couldn't have passed without the support of men and women who claim affinity with and membership in the Catholic Church. That testifies to the complete failure of the Church over the past 40 or 50 years to inculcate the Faith in its young members and to use its authority to correct those men and women who publicly defy the Church's teachings. These people don't believe in the Catholic Faith. Why do we tolerate them in our Church?

If the bishops refuse to do what is needed, why don't our priests do something? Write, preach, speak out! If any of these pagans ever go to Mass and presume to receive the Eucharist, I believe Canon Law # 915 states that those who persist in manifest grave sin are not allowed to receive Communion. Priests have the discretion to refuse Communion to anyone they choose. I've read of priests refusing the Host to people who were chewing gum, or who were drunk, or who were wearing some sort of obscene T-shirt. Why couldn't an individual priest, acting on his own authority, refuse the Body of Christ to a notorious and unrepentant public sinner such as Andrew Cuomo or one of his legislative myrmidons? Please, somebody DO SOMETHING!

Welcome to Babylon

At the midnight hour on June 24th, 114 cowardly and perverse Albany politicians (many of them Catholic) decided to legalize "homosexual marriage" in the State of New York. This is a sickening abomination. Our commentary here will be limited to the disgraceful complicity of the Catholic Church hierarchy in New York. Yes, complicity. What else does one call it when the so-called opposition effectively laid down and surrendered without doing anything but issuing a few token words of disapproval? There was no reason to expect any help from gay-friendly bishops like Hubbard in Albany and Clark in Rochester, who probably raised a glass in triumph when they heard the news, but we had reason to expect better of Archbishop Dolan. As the head of the nation's largest diocese and the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, his lack of leadership in this fight has been a scandal of historical proportions. So far as I am able to discern, his actions in defense of marriage consisted of writing a blog post and giving an interview to a radio show in Albany. Even the New York Times commented on the Church's impotent response to this history-making attack on Christian civilization:


"It was befuddling to gay-rights advocates: The Catholic Church, arguably the only institution with the authority and reach to derail same-sex marriage, seemed to shrink from the fight. 

As the marriage bill hurtled toward a vote, the head of the church in New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, left town to lead a meeting of bishops in Seattle. He did not travel to Albany or deliver a major speech in the final days of the session. And when he did issue a strongly worded critique of the legislation — he called it “immoral” and an “ominous threat” — it was over the phone to an Albany-area radio show. 

Inside the Capitol, where a photograph of Mr. Cuomo shaking hands with Archbishop Dolan hangs in the governor’s private office, the low-key approach did not seem accidental. Mr. Cuomo had taken pains to blunt the church’s opposition. 

When he learned that church leaders had objected to the language of the marriage legislation, he invited its lawyers to the Capitol to vent their frustration. 

Mr. Cuomo even spoke to Archbishop Dolan about the push for same-sex marriage, emphasizing his respect and affection for the religious leader. An adviser described the governor’s message to Archbishop Dolan this way: “I have to do what I have to do. But your support over all is very important to me.” 

By the time a Catholic bishop from Brooklyn traveled to Albany last week to tell undecided senators that passing same-sex marriage “is not in keeping with the will of their people,” it was clear the church had been outmaneuvered by the highly organized same-sex marriage coalition, with its sprawling field team and, especially, its Wall Street donors. 

“In many ways,” acknowledged Dennis Poust, of the New York State Catholic Conference, “we were outgunned. That is a lot to overcome.”

Rumor has it that the bishop limited himself to lobbying for protective language in the bill to shield religious institutions from prosecution if they refuse to conduct gay marriages. How much more humiliation can we take? How much more craven and cowardly can these bishops become? Rather than begging for crumbs from the table of Caesar, Archbishop Dolan and the New York Church should have positively welcomed the chance for martyrdom. He should have thrown defiance at these dogs and dared them to do their worst. Let them confiscate St. Patrick's Cathedral and turn it into a gay re-education center. Let them abolish the Catholic schools. Let them throw our bishops into prison. We can get other bishops. We can build other Cathedrals when we win back this state. Let them persecute us for His name's sake. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Better to go back into the catacombs than compromise with evil. Better to lose life and lucre than make common cause with Babylon and continue to die this slow, lingering lukewarm death. Better to die than deny the Faith.


Now that it is all done, writs of excommunication should be issuing forth from chanceries all over the state. This bill could not have passed without the votes of many, many Catholics, including that of Governor Andrew Cuomo. However, the bishops will do nothing. If they don't excommunicate people like Cuomo for advancing policies that kill unborn children, they're not going to do anything about a mere gay marriage vote. Most of the bishops are cowards at best, and deep cover enemies of the Church at worst. However, the Holy Spirit changes hearts, so let us pray that He revives the souls of the whited sepulchers in mitres, who have done so much damage to the Faith, by acts of both omission and commission.

Gay marriage almost a reality in New York. Silence from Catholic leaders.

The New York State legislature is one vote away from making same sex "marriage" legal in New York, and apparently it's all come down to our esteemed Staten Island Senator Andrew Lanza. The Republican, Catholic Lanza (a graduate of Farrell high school) would like us to believe that he is so ignorant and uninformed that he has made it to 47 years of age without forming an opinion on the subject. I hope that this indecisiveness is just a ruse to mollify the liberals, so that after he votes against gay marriage, he can point to his long deliberation on the matter as proof of his judiciousness and fair-minded consideration. However, being from such an overwhelmingly Republican and conservative district as he has, I would have thought Lanza would have slightly more backbone.

In any case, my reason for writing on the subject is to point out yet again the complete and utter silence on this monumental moral debate from our supposed Catholic leaders on Staten Island. Archbishop Dolan did nothing but write a blog post, but even that is more than our co-vicars Finn and Dorney have done. Perhaps they might eventually get around to writing a letter to the Advance, like they did with the Nativity controversy in December, but that's not a given. I heard a prayer intention for Monsignor Dorney at Mass a few weeks ago, so I suppose he's not feeling well, not that he ever did anything for the Church while he was in the bloom of health. With these kinds of leaders, it is such an absolute embarrassment to be a Catholic on Staten Island these days.

I understand that not every priest is going to be a dynamo of action and a leader of men. But shouldn't our leadership positions be filled by men of such caliber? There are roles for shy and retiring priests in monasteries and theological seminaries and helping positions all through the Church, where they can pray, think, write, work and contemplate the Divinity all day long. Heck, Saint Andre Bessette the miracle worker was nothing but a porter, janitor and all-around handyman, and he became a great saint. But listless and passive personalities shouldn't be made pastors and bishops and "co-vicars" of hundreds of thousands of souls, when what is required of such positions are aggressive leaders who are prepared to fearlessly teach and proclaim the Gospel and engage in moral combat with the world. What do we get instead? A couple of men whose most vigorous action in living memory was to try to sell the St. Margaret Mary convent to the Moslems.The evangelicals are standing up for morality. Why can't the Catholics?

Well, it's leaderless resistance in the Catholic Church again. Please write and call Senator Lanza and tell him to vote no for gay marriage.