Free Republic

Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan has declared himself powerless after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law a bill that allows abortion up to the day of birth. While the legislation was applauded by many progressives, it has angered many religious leaders, especially in the Democratic governor's own professed Catholic faith, with many calling on Dolan to excommunicate Cuomo for his "flagrant celebration" of the pro-abortion bill. Dolan, the current Archbishop of New York dismissed his critics as being on the "far right," and stressed that he personally has little "clout" and is just a "fat, balding, Irish bishop."...

Dorothy Day founded an ongoing series of weekly talks at the Worker, dedicated to “the clarification of thought”. These talks continue to the present. Now, however, some Catholic Workers complain, most of the talks are immersed in the hard left and the thinking expressed is actually “The Calcification of Thought”, one wag has quipped mournfully. Today, attendees of these weekly lectures have encountered the following ideas: - Anti Israel, Anti-“Zionist”, Anti “Usury”, Anti “NEOCON” and pro-Iranian, pro-Assad, pro-PLO propaganda. - Support for violent riots in American cities - The return of antiquated Marxist terminology, like castigating peoples' opinions as "bourgeois"....

It always seemed as if Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was in trouble for something. A 1956 article in the New York Times describes an instance in which Day was fined $250 for being the landlord of a building that failed to comply with the fire code. In addition to the fine she was also in danger of being forced to evict the sixty tenants from her house of charity. The paper explains that as she headed to court, “there was a group of needy men about the door, awaiting the distribution of clothing. From their midst...

The [Center for Medical Progress investigative] tapes [about the collection and sale of fetal organs and parts] have generated a visceral reaction independent of how they were made or whether Planned Parenthood was making a profit. Rather, the widespread revulsion over the tapes arose because they unmasked the fact that, in our public conversation about abortion, we have so muted the humanity of the unborn child that some consider it quite acceptable to speak freely of crushing a child's skull to preserve valuable body parts and to have that discussion over lunch.... This newest evidence about the disregard for the...

My great-grandfather was a landowner in southern China prior to the communist takeover in 1949. Possessing about three acres of rice paddies and a lychee orchard placed him squarely in the “landlord” class—a group of people the new regime was determined to dispose of using “the greatest force,” as Mao Zedong put it. Accompanying and legitimizing Chairman Mao’s coming campaign of mass murder was the remolding of national arts and culture. “The Red Detachment of Women,” a 1964 Chinese ballet and one of many works glorifying violent class struggle, opened to New York audiences on the evening of July 11...

Morris tells me the recyclical Laudato Si’ is subtitled: “Pope Francesco’s Amazing Climate Theatre,” and how appropriate this is. The recyclical provides fun for all the family: there’s something in the show for everyone: global warming enthusiasts, liberals, Buddhists, atheists, New Age hippies, greens, and everyone who enjoys those lovely pictures of Saint Francis surrounded by corgis, hummingbirds and My Little Pony, without asking awkward questions like, “What did Francis say about sin?” At the heart of this recyclical is the popular image of Saint Francis surrounded by cuddly animals, and this is where we find the real theological and...

Last week, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles told scholars at the Dorothy Day Conference at St. Francis University [in Fort Wayne, Indiana] that the social activist was not converted by ideology, but by love. “It was not the teachings of the Church that convinced her to leave the past behind and change her life. She was changed by Love, changed by the over-powering awareness of the reality of God’s love and mercy,” the archbishop said.... As a young woman ... Day embraced ... a life that included abortion, communism and “free love.” “Dorothy and many others thought they...

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced new regulations to include transgender health care services under New York State’s Medicaid program. The proposed regulations provide treatment for hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery.... New York will join California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington D.C., which cover transgender health care through their Medicaid programs. In May, the federal government also ended its decades-long exclusion of coverage for certain services related to gender transition under Medicare. The introduction of this Medicaid regulation follows last week’s announcement that New York State law requires private health insurance companies to cover transgender health care on the...

The mental image of a thoroughly Communist Dorothy Day, who remained committed to Marxist notions of the overthrow of government, might be shocking.... [Yet] she maintained her Communist and anarchist views, promoted them, and brought them into the Church Christ founded.... Her goal... was to contribute to the eventual overthrow of the American government, and ... of the Catholic Church hierarchy..... I still remember trying to understand how [Day’s periodical, "The Catholic Worker"] could be both Communist and Catholic.... by the 1970s the FBI dossier on the Catholic Worker Movement was some 581 pages long. The list of Communist revolutionaries,...

[Someone]brought my attention to the [recent] tug of war ... over the legacy of Dorothy Day ... between pro and anti-capitalists. The Catholic Worker has criticized both the NY Times and Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute on Day-related matters. Liberals can’t claim her ... because she was anti-abortion and loyal to Church teaching, obviously never having gone the way of radical disobedient feminism. But conservatives and libertarians can’t claim her either because she rejected capitalism.... Or did she? As best I can tell, she neither practiced it or preached it as a way of life.... If you don’t...

...Cardinal Timothy Dolan, reported to be in the running to replace Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is usually described as a “conservative” because he has strongly criticized President Obama’s attacks on religious liberty and federal intrusions into church affairs. But Dolan is also the leader of the campaign to promote Marxist Dorothy Day for Sainthood. One report asks, “Could Timothy Dolan Become The First American Pope?” Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB,) is considered the voice of U.S. Catholicism. But Carol Byrne, author of "The Catholic Worker Movement (1933-1980):...

At a time when President Obama has announced severe gun control proposals, it might come as a surprise to note that Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest champions of non-violence and someone whom the president counts among his personal inspirations, actively campaigned for the right to bear arms during the Indian freedom struggle. Today it is often argued that a large part of the purpose behind the Second Amendment—protection against the prospect of government tyranny—is unjustified or irrelevant. But this argument is strikingly similar to the one advanced by the British colonialists who presented themselves as the redeemers of their...

CLIFF KINCAID: The New York Times reports that, at Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s recommendation, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted “unanimously” to [continue investigating the cause] of Dorothy Day, even though “[s]he had an abortion as a young woman and ... flirted with joining the Communist Party.” President Obama called Dorothy Day a “great reformer in American history." Cardinal Dolan is described as conservative and has strongly criticized Obama’s attacks on religious liberty and federal intrusions into church affairs. He nevertheless invited Obama to the Al Smith Dinner.... Obama received 54% of the Catholic vote in 2008 and 50%...