Where do Worcester Catholics Stand? : IMC Worcester

Former Boston Mayor and US Ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn in many ways took front and center stage at the anti-gay marriage rally at City Hall. He’s the high profile face and name used to adorn much of the Catholic “save marriage” web spaces. He’s featured prominently with Larry Cirignano and Bishop O’Malley on Cirignano’s own web page.

But while Cirignano’s Republican branded Catholicism took center stage in front of Worcester City Hall, the Worcester Catholic “establishment” appears to have avoided what has now turned into a front page story because of the Cirignano’s assault.

None of Worcester’s well known Catholic faces attended the “Rally for Democracy” and there were not any parish priests or sisters in the audience.

Present though among this mix was a reporter/photographer from the Catholic Free Press. He interviewed and recorded Sarah Loy after she gave her statement to Worcester police officers. When he finished interviewing Ms Loy, I asked him if he thought the Catholic Free Press’s Editor Margaret Russell would use the interview. He said he didn’t know, but she’s the one that had assigned coverage of the rally.

So the “mainstream” Catholic media was present, has photographs and an interview regarding the assault, the question is will the Free Press and Diocese further distance itself from Larry Cirignano by publishing the full story or will it kill the story?

Worcester's Catholic Free Press

Catholics @ Rally

The rallies were all last minute events, so scheduling speakers was a challenge. The Bishop was invited to the rally, but had prior committments due to the Christmas season. Father Roy, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Webster, was on the agenda, but had to officiate at a funeral at the last minute. Not much we could do about that :-) Other than that, we didn't want to make it an all Catholic event as this issue affects all citizens.

Note that all Catholic Citizenship events are blessed by the four bishops, including Archbishop O'Malley. So even if they aren't present, they are fully supportive of citizens' rights to vote on legitimate people's petitions.

"blessed" ?

I knew Catholics stretched at times to bless animals on St. Francis Day and as a Polish-American Catholic I regularly carried our famlies Easter food basket to church to be blessed, but I didn't know the bishops also "blessed" rallies and demonstrations. Could we get the Longest Night homeless memorial "blessed" or the Lincoln Sq. Anti-War vigils?

Maybe I just misunderstood Sharilee, Conservative Catholics sometimes just throw that word "blessed" around.

About Democracy: A Polite Commentary

The idea that citizens get to vote on whether other citizens get human rights is completely ridiculous. We don´t live in an equal playing field. The issue isn´t whether straight bigots are grossed out or scandelized by the queer relationships that I and others have. Frankly, they can think whatever they want, for whatever reason- as long as I don´t have to put up with their hateful bigotry, I don´t care. The line is crossed when the people with power try to enforce their bigotry under the law, through policy change. The attempt by the anti-gay marriage block to put gay marriage to a vote is based on the misguided idea that a powerful majority (in this case, straight non-trans people) OR minority (say, rich people) gets the right to oppress all the rest, as long as they get 51%. As long as the vote says yes, the powerful get to maintain their priviledge at the expense of we "others". So they claim. Human rights, on the other hand, is the idea that a functioning democracy requires the equality of all people involved. For this to happen, everyone needs to be guaranteed certain rights, such as dignity, economic well being, and equality under the law. It is also the idea that we are morally obligated to guarantee human rights, and that if our system does not do so, then we need a new system pronto. This is not a very new idea. It´s been expressed in the past by people who think that things like white supremacy and violence against women are abominable no matter what, and can´t go on under any circumstances, EVEN IF 51% OF PEOPLE POLLED WOULD LIKE THEM TO. The struggles for queer rights and gay marriage are different from and intertwined with the ongoing struggles against racism and sexism. Analogies are always limited in their utility. But one basic idea that we can take away from this is that in a democracy, whether one group of people counts as fully human is NOT up to a vote! Religious fundamentalists and anti-gay bigots should understand that many of us don´t care if you hate us. We have more self esteem than that. It´s when you start using any tool you can get ahold of to take away our legal standing as equals that your politics begin to get dangerous and anti-democratic. Contrary to what the anti-marriage block says, taking away people´s human rights, by whatever means, isn´t democracy. It´s called oppression. And we won´t stop fighting until it stops first.