With the presidential election behind us, the debate over the so-called “Catholic Vote” can now begin.
Yes, Barack Obama is the first black president. But Joe Biden is also the first Catholic vice president. And early exit polling suggests the Obama-Biden ticket won about 54 percent of the Catholic vote.
Those are important issues, for sure. But for Irish Catholics such as Dick Regan, an ex-Marine and retired NYPD detective, there is another important Catholic vote looming this Sunday.
Regan, who lives in Hammondsport, in western New York State, is among the Irish Americans who say he has survived sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. He has worked widely throughout New York counseling other victims.
Since this issue became front page news several years back, numerous advocacy groups have sprung up, including the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP, lead by David Clohessy), as well as Voice of the Faithful, which has spread nationwide following an explosive start in Boston.
But there remains a large group of Catholics who believe bishops are not acting fast enough when it comes to the sexual abuse issue.
They include Dick Regan, as well as Thomas Doyle of Virginia, Tom Byrne of Ohio and Stephen Sheehan of Boston. All have signed onto a new movement called, “Send the Bishops a Message.”
Their tactic? They have made a choice – voted, if you will – to put no money into their church collection baskets this Sunday.
“The ongoing failure of Catholic Church officials to protect children from dangerous clerical predators and to provide acceptable levels of stewardship for Catholics’ hard-earned donations compels us to take this action. These officials have adamantly refused to accept responsibility for their grave moral failures in the clergy sex abuse crisis. They repeatedly ‘apologize,’ but neither admit to covering up sex crimes against children nor accept their part in the horrendous scandal brought down upon Catholics everywhere,” a group statement reads.
“The emotional, physical, and spiritual destruction of so many lives must stop. The compassion and justice that Scripture teaches must be restored. The hierarchy has cost the Catholic people billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, yet there seems to be no end in sight.
“Why? Because bishops and other high-level Church officials still believe it is their duty to shield perpetrator priests, even though they are a criminal and financial ticking time bomb.”
The only question is will Catholics in any significant number actually close up their pocketbooks this Sunday, November 16, which has been dedicated the first of many forth-coming “withholding Sundays?”
The bishops themselves do not seem concerned. The U.S. Conference of Bishops met earlier in the week in Baltimore, and it was the “Catholic vote” in last week’s presidential election that seemed to be their top priority.
The gathered bishops voiced concern that pro-choice Democrats – including Obama and Catholics such as Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – were supported in the 2008 election.
“The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice. Common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good,” Conference of Bishops President Cardinal Francis George, of Chicago, said in his opening remarks.
As The New York Times noted, “Cardinal George’s remarks were a repudiation of the ‘common good’ approach to the abortion issue that President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic Party leaders, including some prominent Roman Catholics, honed in the recent election.”
Obviously, many “Catholic” voters don’t take their religion into the voting booth with them. The economy was an overwhelming issue for many voters, including Irish Catholics.
But religion is central to those who will be voting with their pocketbooks in church this Sunday. Will their withholdings amount to a real message? More importantly, will the bishops listen?
Stay tuned.
