Vegacura: Cardinal Dolan goes all Alinsky on us...or something

According to the head of the Catholic Bishops, the criminal enterprise just needs more attractive spokeswomen to convey its message of intolerance and misogyny.

Though the Obama administration has suggested a compromise that could let employers offer the coverage without paying for it directly, Cardinal Dolan told the crowd at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School that the government sought to make the church do something “we find unconscionable.”

“It is a freedom of religion battle,” he said. “It is not about contraception. It is not about women’s health.” He added: “We’re talking about an unwarranted, unprecedented, radical intrusion” into “a church’s ability to teach, serve and sanctify on its own.”

The cardinal mocked a secular culture that “seems to discover new rights every day.”

“I don’t recall a right to marriage,” he said, describing marriage, instead, as a “call.”
“Now we hear there’s a right to sterilization, abortion and chemical contraceptives. I suppose there might be a doctor who would say to a man who’s suffering some type of sexual dysfunction, ‘You ought to visit a prostitute to help you.’ ”

Cardinal Dolan said that the prelates, though, might not be the church’s most persuasive advocates. He told a story about bishops hiring an “attractive, articulate, intelligent” laywoman to speak against abortion and said it was “the best thing we ever did,” adding, “In the public square, I hate to tell you, the days of fat, balding Irish bishops are over.”

Funny, he didn't mention the right to destroy the records of child rape.

Nearly two decades ago, Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen was one of two or three high-ranking clergy present when the head of the Philadelphia Archdiocese ordered the shredding of a list of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children, according to a recent court filing in Philadelphia.

A copy of that list and a 1994 memo recording Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's instructions to destroy it has turned up in the case of Monsignor William Lynn, a former archdiocesan official charged with endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy for allegedly enabling priests to molest children.

But I digress, back to that other cardinal.

Obama officials have pointed to recent polls showing that most Catholics favor the new contraceptive rule, and in a recent blog post, the cardinal wrote that officials in the Obama administration had recommended that bishops “listen to the ‘enlightened’ voices of accommodation” within the church. At a news conference after Saturday’s speech, Cardinal Dolan said, “We kind of got our Irish up when leaders in government seemed to be assigning an authoritative voice to Catholic groups that are not the bishops.”