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    • September 30, 2010

    The Upcoming Catholic Tea Party in Boston!

    by Deal W. Hudson

    As I’ve been saying, the Catholic tea kettle is boiling and one of the first places it’s bound to boil over is the home of the original Tea Party, Boston.  

    Joe Sacerdo at the blog devoted to Rev, J. Bryan Hehir is calling for the protest in response to — guess what! — a SOCIAL JUSTICE conference to be held in Boston on October 9th.

    (Whoever has the franchise on these diocesan social justice conferences must be doing a booming business!)

    Here is what Sacerdo has to say about this particular social justice conference:

    On October 9, the archdiocese is sponsoring another Social Justice Conference, this time featuring Fr. Thomas Massaro, SJ from Boston College along with Fr. Bryan Hehir. Fr. Massaro, was one of 26 signatories to a public letter supporting the nomination of pro-abortion former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.  Three archbishops in Kansas City (see below for references) have rebuked her for her pro-abortion views that ran contrary to Church teachings, with Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann asking her to no longer receive Communion until she repudiated her stance and make a “worthy sacramental confession.”  

    Our complaints about Fr. Hehir go back nearly 40 years, including his presiding over Catholic Charities of Boston when they brokered adoptions to gay couples and when they honored the pro-abort/pro-gay marriage Mayor of Boston, and his undermining Catholic teachings on abortion, Catholic conscience exemptions, women priests, and voting for pro-abortion politicians.

    Hmmm, isn’t this precisely what I said this morning about “social justice” being used as cover for pro-abortion Catholic politicians? 

    Here we go again, as they say! 

    And that’s why the good Catholic folks in Boston want to get out in the streets and enjoy the brisk fall air of their great city. 

    Father J. Bryan Hehir is a brilliant man who has had a spectacular career as a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston.  He’s perhaps best known as the man who wrote the now-famous “seamless garment” speech for Archbishop Bernandin in 1983.

     

     

     

    Tagged as: abortion, Bryan Hehir, Joe Sacerdo, Social Justice Conference

    The views expressed by the authors and editorial staff are not necessarily the views of
    Sophia Institute, Holy Spirit College, or the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

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    Deal W. Hudson

    By Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is president of Catholic Advocate, an organization which engages and encourages faithful Catholics to actively participate in the political process to support elected officials and policies that remain consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Formerly publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine for ten years, his articles and comments have been published widely in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and U.S. News and World Report. He has also appeared on TV and radio news shows such as the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, NBC News, and All Things Considered on National Public Radio. Hudson worked with Karl Rove in coordinating then-Gov. George W. Bush's outreach to Catholic voters in 2000 and 2004. In October 2003, President Bush appointed him a member of the official delegation from the United States to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of John Paul II's papacy. Hudson, a former professor of philosophy for 15 years, is the editor and author of eight books. He tells the story of his conversion from Southern Baptist to Catholic in An American Conversion (Crossroad, 2003), and his latest, Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States, was published in March 2008. He is married to Theresa Carver Hudson, also a Baptist convert, and they have two children, Hannah, 21, and Cyprian, 13, who was adopted from Romania in 2001.

    More from Crisis

    • Deacon Frank Osgood

      How I wish I was closer to Boston! The good Catholic people who appear have the blessing of many of us at far away places.

    • Richard

      So the Catholic Tea Party you seem so gung-ho for is led by disgruntled, angry people who dedicate entire blogs to exposing particular priests? Since when did “faithful” Catholics become just like their liberal counterparts in the way they go about pressing for change? Geeesh.

      This blogger wrote to Cardinal O’Malley:
      “We continue to be dismayed by the Archdiocese of Boston

    • Fred

      I first knew of Fr. Hehir via a relative of his who only spoke highly of him. Now I know better! As a political economist, I am offended and the erroneous application of Catholic Social Doctrine (yes, the Vatican website says DOCTRINE. Oooo! SCA-ry!) to the social sciences. From my expertise, CSD should be a field that provides a more applied sense to the moral law regarding the social sciences, following the established precedent of Aristotle in his ethics . . . specifically that politics is a subset of ethics and not vice versa. Given the development of social science inquiry, we can safely say that the social sciences as a whole are a subset of ethics. Therefore, CSD should simply be a more pointed and elegant way of expressing the ethics of the social sciences, and thus facilitate a clearly defined sense of what is and is not moral in public policy.

      This diversion of CSD from the above-stated proper role to “Social Justice” thinking does not merely create confusion of genuine morality but, according to Malcolm Muggeridge, is very much a product of the Communist/Catholic “dialogue” that resulted in a theologized version of Marxism which manifested itself as Liberation Theology in the non-industrialized world, and as a softer and more sophisticated version of “Social Justice” in the industrialized world. This is demonic!

    • Kim

      If tea partiers (and socially conscious Catholics) were smart, they’d support abortion and contraception — not only to save women’s lives and marriages, but also to save their own jobs and access to affordable health care. Catholic-imposed overpopulation in Third World poverty pits directly steals jobs from American families, and illegal Mexican Catholics have made American hospitals unaffordable. Sadly, greedy Nazi corporatism has hijacked conservative “economists” who use Catholicism to justify slave labor fed by pedophile priest-imposed overpopulation. Such demonic modern temple money changers offend Christ who would rather break bread with Marxists who get His teachings. Christ would also support gay marriage and adoptions since nearly everyone is intersexed to some degree because of microchimerism from older siblings, opposite sex twins, and NFP birth defects. Intersex syndromes occur throughout the animal kingdom, and bashing equal rights for such individuals is pure Nazism. I’m especially offended that adulterous wife-dumping “Catholic” theocons continually bash the same-sex relationships of intersex couples. If theocons can buy multiple annulments to indulge their latest playboy fantasies, monogamous intersex couples deserve at least one wedding. And loving gay parents are definitely preferable over abusive “straight” parents.

    • Deacon Ed

      you should seriously consider availing yourself of the Sacrament.

    • Deacon Keith Fournier

      Deal,

      You are certainly not the only one aware of the co-opting of the term “Social Justice” by those who espouse positions which actually contradict Social Doctrine. Many others have been addressing it.

      What is different is you sometimes propose giving up language which the Church actually uses – and encourages the faithful to use. The real question is whether we give upa particular term like “Social Justice” or fight for it’s proper understanding as a part of our larger cultural struggle.

      Another example could be found in the word “Solidarity”, used often in the Social Doctrine of the Church. I recall, years ago now, being urged by some theologically faithful Catholics who were “conservatives/neo-conservatives” politically to not use the word because it sounded “Leftist”.

      Solidarity is a profoundly important word in the Social Doctrine of the Church!

      It seems to me it comes down to whether we look to the language of the Church to shape our political participation (Catholic first) or we simply jettison rich terms offered by the Church and become “conservatives” or “neo-conservatives” (the latter of which i am most certainly not) first in our important engagement with the horrid decline of the West.

      Another analogy might be the use of expression “common good”. Co-opted by all too many folks in the last election cycle, I argued for our recapturing this important expression. We must now re-present it within its authentic meaning within the Social Doctrine of the Church while we fight their awful distortions!

      Anyway, it is a pleasure engaging with a friend and a man I admire. Hopefully there is room in our collaboration for legitimate disagreement.

      Deacon Keith Fournier

    • Daniel Molinaro II

      Deal, as much as you want to be, you are not a bishop and you do not speak for the Church. So when the bishops say that there is a difference between someone voting for President Obama and a senator approving of Governor Sebelius for HHS as “the best we’re going to get under this president, so she should be approved so we don’t end up with someone worse” (words to me in private by a very orthodox bishop), you may want to stop claiming to know better than those who are invested with teaching authority. And so when Father Massaro, who explained more deeply his pro-life commitment and why he thought Sebelius should be approved in the BC paper, and he gives almost the same reasoning that orthodox bishops are giving, then maybe, just maybe, you should back off. For those who have ears to hear, it becomes more apparent every day that you are unintentionally and in good faith more committed to the Republican platform than Catholic teaching and you selectively use Catholic teaching to justify it.

    • Natalie

      My understanding is that Sebelius had ties to George Tiller, among other unsavory characters and organizations. That is not someone who should be endorsed by any Catholic bishop, for any reason.

      Among words hijacked is “liberal,” from libertas, liberty. Funny how it has come to describe a person who has adopted an ideology that favors the opposite.

    • Deal W. Hudson

      Deacon Keith, the problem with using the phrase “social justice” is the present environment is that it has become a caricature of itself. I could imagine a Saturday Night Live skit with all the predictable elements being justly parodied. We need not only a debate on the meaning of social justice in Catholic teaching but also an accounting of just how successful are these anti-poverty programs funded by Catholics. Are they really effective? Are these programs creating real jobs? Encouraging small business? Entrepreneurship? Job skills? I have serious doubts about the causal relation between community organizing and a solution to poverty. I bring this up only as an illustration of how the caricature of social justice, as I call it, is playing itself out in our Church.

    • Jean

      The Vatican is the number one cause of poverty and injustice by denying women the right to keep their health and husbands away from brothels at the same time. Such families end up broken and impoverished and when adulterous elitist Republicans criticize job training for abandoned, disfigured mothers, they reveal their own mockery of Christ’s teachings. Sadly, theocons believe Christ would rather fund blowing up far away Muslim families then feeding the poor at home. “Pro-life” theocons profit off the deaths of innocent foreign ‘heretics” and resent the poor at home whose paltry program benefits cut into the theocons’ lavish spending on their mistresses. While liberation theology has flaws, it is saintly compared to the selfish hypocrisy and greed of theocons. And since homosexuality is caused by several fertilization anomalies, theocon wife-dumpers have no moral authority to condemn their preferences in partners. If God disapproved of gays, he/she/it/they wouldn’t make gays so prevalent throughout the animal kingdom.

    • Linda

      Maybe the church should cease all charity efforts and just coddle the hypocritical rich Republicans who consider their own adulteries above reproach??

    • Linda

      It’s shocking that community organizer Jesus Christ would find Himself attracting the ire of the all-knowing pharisee Republican Catholic polygamists of today.

    • Deacon Keith Fournier

      Orthodox Priest: Thieves Hijacking the Language of the Christian Moral Tradition
      http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=38547

    • Andrew

      Anyone who supports the MURDERING of the most Innocent human beings and least able to care for themselves is as bad as it gets.
      All of their other decisions along with their true motives must be questioned.
      Abortion is the only thing in the Catechism that brings automatic excommunication.

      See “Obama’s Counterfeit Catholics” by RealCatholicTV on the internet. It includes written documentation.

      See – - –
      “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” for the following:

      “Social Justice” without “SUBSIDIARITY” which protects the rights of the individual and family is wrong. (1883, 1885, 1894, 2209, 2211)

      Socialism, Communism, pure Capitalism, Collectivism, and excessive intervention by the Government are wrong. (1883, 1885, 2425, 1907)

      Each Bishop, Archbishop or Cardinal must promote and support the “Catechism of the Catholic Church in his own Diocese”. It’s easy to understand for anyone over age 15.

    • Florin

      Sebelius is the best we can get??? Please check her background. This woman is the most radically pro-abortion ‘Catholic’ in the Administration which is probably why Obama picked her. She was a colleage of George Tiller, dubbed the ‘baby killer’ because Tiller terminated the lives of infants in the womb moments before they would have been born – 9 months gestation! Then he would put the dead baby on a bed with the mother next to it to have pictures taken. And Sebelius received contributions from him, had him at her home for receptions – sheer evil!!!! If she’s the best we can get, support by Catholic priests and other Catholics, then we are in trouble. She was not the best we could have gotten – but she was best for Obama who wanted abortion and infanticide to be the law not only of our own land, but abroad…and Sebelius has enormous power to implement the health care bill as she sees fit – and she will promote and advance abortion as far as she can for as long as she can…

    • Opal

      Natalie,

      The Church has been speaking out about the sin of liberalism for more than a hundred years. One of the most insightful books that I ever read was Liberalism is a Sin, it was written by a priest in the 1800′s.

      I am always happy to hear when Social Peace and Justice Centers are closed by good bishops. It usually means that the Wiccan, feminist, prochoice nuns are out of a job.

    • GW

      Here we go…linking ourselves with the “Tea Party” folks. Let’s cut to the chase: electing Tea Party Republicans in November will result in gridlock, in more harsh rhetoric from people like Sharron Angle, and further corrosion in our American political process. It’s the unavoidable result of electing those who, despite their small numbers and inexperience in making government work, nonetheless pledge to effect total change.