Clerics for the Greater Good

Well, not all local priests have lost the memory of Old and New Testament teachings. Examples are in today's Eileen McNamara column. She finds and quotes priests who are using their persuasion to care for the poor and needy instead of playing sexual-orientation politics.

As well as Jewish and Protestant clerics, she cites Brother Jack Rathschmidt of Our Lady of Lourdes and Monsignor George Carlson of West Roxbury's Holy Name as supporting that other ballot initiative. While the four local bishops were coercing their priests and parishioners to sign the petition to rescind same-sex marriage, several priests were about the business of God. They encouraged the universal health care law, to help rather than harm.

Note: In case, you can't find your Bible at the moment, numerous Net sites have references to the admonitions to help the needy and poor. You can start here. You would be hard pressed to find anything even remotely similar with even a single mention about gay unions. Not helping the poor and needy is an abomination to God, and a primary requirement for priests.

As Brother Jack put it:

For us, this is a no-brainer; 30 or 40 percent of the people we serve are without health insurance. They might go to an emergency room in a crisis, but they go without preventive care. For reasons that I don't fully understand, the church has not jumped in as aggressively on this issue as on some others.

Likewise, Monsignor Carlson said supporting such help for the needy is "one of the non-negotiables of our faith: to reach out to the needy. I don't see this as a political issue but as a moral question. "

So there you have it. Would Archbishop Sean O'Malley fail to urge support for this initiative so as not to dilute the power of pushing to legislate his beliefs on marriage? He cannot pretend now that ballot initiatives are not his church's business.

This is the church's business, all churches that we know of, in fact. Where is the leadership on helping the needy and poor?