Boston magazine reviews Archbishop Sean O’Malley’s first year in office and finds him wanting. The writer, Matt Kelly, says that Catholics are everywhere in Massachusetts, yet the archbishop claims that exile is the best metaphor for the Church today. That leads Kelly to conclude that O’Malley is a backward-looking pessimist. Of course, the archbishop is right because Kelly defines as Catholic anyone who’s ever been baptized, whether or not they practice their faith or live according to the Church’s teachings. Kelly then excoriates Archbishop O’Malley for not being the Great Liberal Hope that so many were looking for after Cardinal Law left.
While activist groups like Voice of the Faithful want a say in how their church operates, O’Malley comes from another perspective: the theologically conservative hierarchy assembled and presided over by Pope John Paul II. In that world, the hierarchy delivers the church to its people, not vice versa.
“While activist groups like Voice of the Faithful want a say in how their church operates, O promoted in his parish bulletin and encouraged the parishioners to attend including the beginning ceremony honoring Bp. Gene Robinson, in celebration of gay marriage and then marching, under the banner of Our Lady Help of Christians, with the Jesuit Urban Center
members, including Fr. Thomas Carroll, S.J. to celebrate the theme of the Gay Pride Parade which was Gay Marriage.
All of these plans were made public in Bay Windows,Local Briefs, April 29,2004; in “Sharper Focus” by Chuck Colbert in Innewsweekly,April 29,2004; and in the parish bulletin of Our Lady Help of Christians for June 5-June 13,2004.
Archbishop O’Malley and Bishop Lennon were informed about these plans but, to the best of my knowledge, Fr. Cuenin was not suspended.
If he had been, what would Matt Kelly have to say ? What would the Globe editors have had to say? No doubt they are “laughing up their sleeve” at what Fr. Cuenin is allowed to get away with!
consider the source. period.