New York TimesArchbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York joined other local religious leaders on Thursday in calling for a new effort to reduce the number of abortions in the city. The annual figure has averaged 90,000 in recent years, or about 40 percent of all pregnancies, twice the national rate.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Rabbi David Zwiebel at a meeting at the Penn Club in Manhattan.
The archbishop, at a news conference in Manhattan, called the citywide statistics “downright chilling.”
But while holding to the conviction that abortion is morally wrong, Archbishop Dolan and the others said they were adopting a more pragmatic goal for New York than abolishing abortion: “Let’s see to it that abortion is rare,” he said.
I wonder what the response would be if Archbishop Dolan called for clergy sexual abuse of minors to be "rare."
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13 comments:
While we're at it, lets try to make that whole mortal sin thing rare too.
Some years after Ab. Dolan had come to Milwaukee I penned some points about him which troubled me. His gregariousness reminded me of a back-slapping politician who wants to appear everyone’s friend. The cheesehead incident at the Mass on the Summerfest grounds. The folksiness of the Theology on Tap project. Nothing basically wrong with these and after the grim end to the Weakland tenure these were seen as a breath of fresh air in gloomy times.
Then there was then Ab. Burke – still of Lacrosse – ‘incident’. Ab. Burke had made some strong comments about pro-abortion Catholic politicians still presenting themselves for Holy Communion. Dolan was asked to comment and instead of supporting Burke made the dismissive remark: “Well that’s just Ray…” No one took much notice of it at the time, but it struck me forcefully and I felt it said a lot about Dolan.
Knowing that Dolan had been the Rector of the North American College in Rome, I felt he was ‘beholden’ to a lot of his brother bishops and would not stand apart from them. Unlike bishops like Burke, Bruskiewicz, Chaput, Finn or Vasa, he struck me as a ‘party-line bishop’ – all too willing to let the USCCB do the talking and not rock the boat.
He has shown some signs of ‘independence’ in New York, but so far it has been mostly where secular entities like the New York Times are concerned. This latest incident does nothing to change my impressions.
Your point is well-taken...especially in the current climate. Was this a direct quote from him, or just something he signed-on to in the name of ecumenism/inter-religious joining of forces? It seems to me that the statement was crafted not by him but that he made a concession, much like we have seen recently with some notable theologians, that movement towards some good is preferable to no movement at all.
These quotes from Archbishop Dolan portray his unequivocal stance on abortion, unlike the diluted joint statement: (From Am. Papist)
"For the first time since coming here I’m embarassed for New York City. We have to do more than shiver over these statistics."
"I echo the promise made by my predecessors: any woman facing a problem pregnancy can come to the church and we promise to provide for them both."
"As New Yorkers, our boast should be the statue of liberty, not the grim reaper, not the gravestone of the unborn."
credo: the direct quote in the article stated the archbishop said "Let’s see to it that abortion is rare"
An unfortunate choice of words? Perhaps. Trying to meet in the "middle" in a very liberal city? Perhaps.
Although certainly the archbishop is pro-life, the perspective he provided here isn't appropriate. I am grateful His Excellency is spearheading the effort to bring the issue to light in a butcher shop like New York, but I think my point stands.
GOR: Fascinating story, I had not heard that before. Thank you for sharing.
I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with making abortion rare. And I think it can have a legitimate strategy as well.
If you're opponents claim that they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, then agree to work with them at making it rare. When they refuse, you can effectively expose their hypocricy and go forth with the rest of your pro-life agenda.
The Bishops did this to some extent with President Obama. I forget exactly what it was about. Was it the early stages of Obamacare? Or just the beginning of his presidency? Obama made some statement that appeared to be extending an olive-branch to the pro-life movement. The bishops overtly "accepted" knowing darn well that it wouldn't take long for Obama to expose himself. Then the bishops had these early statements to use against Obama.
Keep your eyes on the goal boys, eliminate abortion. If someone comes along with a different strategy to accomplish the same goal, they're not necessarily enemies.
Anon, the impression is that even one abortion is tolerable and that is not true. All abortion is a heinous crime not just against a defenseless child, but against a society in grave need of its most precious natural resource, children. There is no middle ground in that regard. President Obama supports public funding for abortion so I'm not sure that olive-branch is what it appears to be. I stand by my statement that calling for abortion to be rare is like calling for sexual abuse of children to be rare. The truth is that abortion or sexual abuse should never happen and society shouldn't settle for anything less for a goal.
Hm. Partial quotes CAN be difficult to parse. Here's what his full remarks said: "I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share."
In other words, he was, indeed, referencing that oft-repeated mantra that Anon mentioned: "safe, legal, and rare." Abp. Dolan doesn't say that's his goal, or what the Church believes. What he offers is an invitation to all sides that (in theory) no one should object to.
Kat posted this but for some reason it didn't save:
Hm. Partial quotes CAN be difficult to parse. Here's what his full remarks said: "I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share."
In other words, he was, indeed, referencing that oft-repeated mantra that Anon mentioned: "safe, legal, and rare." Abp. Dolan doesn't say that's his goal, or what the Church believes. What he offers is an invitation to all sides that (in theory) no one should object to.
Well it goes back to what I said above, if the same language were used about clergy sex abuse, everyone would be up in arms. That's all I'm sayin. I can understand the need to work with people but those looking for abortion "reduction" are of the mindset that New York can contracept their way out of this hole. We know a true respect for human sexuality and the institution of marriage are the only real way to curb this collapse.
Look, I'm not in New York. I can appreciate he's trying to turn the ship around. But I question the need to reach across the isle when all a person ends up grasping is thin air.
BC, I know what you're trying to say, but not only is it slightly offensive -- I have been to the hearings at the capitol and I have spoken with Abp. Dolan personally about clergy sexual abuse -- it's also a bit off.
Dolan is not talking to faithful Catholics here. He is talking to the media. He is talking to people who see no problem with killing a child in the womb if it solves a problem. He is talking about and to NYC. He is echoing the purpose of NYC 41 Percent to "little by little ... bring the numbers down." Read the website and the "What can we do," and you'll understand that the contraception argument won't work here, either.
They know what our stance on abortion is. If they don't, they must have just come back from Mars. What Dolan is trying to do is make the "they" into "we" and start a dialogue that can lead to better things. If we don't, it'll only get worse -- at 41 percent, it's clear they're not responding to us now.
And, yes, I think if someone had said "let's make clergy sexual abuse rare" back in the 70s, yeah, I think it would have been accepted the same way as this quote here. Let's get our analogies into the right context.
Kat: I hope Archbishop Dolan is successful, and I'm not "against" him or think he is a bad archbishop. I think NYC 41 is a great campaign. I hope the dialogue is successful. My main point being that sometimes when abortion gets talked about it could be twisted to mean that it is acceptable in certain circumstances(even if that is not the intention of the person speaking). I can appreciate the fact that New York(and especially its media) is a much different place than Wisconsin and that different methods to obtain our common goal(ie the end to all abortion) can be used. I hope the archbishop has the opportunity to ask the pro-aborts why abortion is not rare.
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