BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Thursday, July 21, 2005 - Updated: 02:19 AM EST
The Catholic League yesterday blasted a proposed referendum on the operations of the Boston archdiocese.
``The real purpose of this is to intimidate the Archdiocese of Boston by having an arm of the state whip the public into a frenzy about matters they have no constitutional business sticking their noses into,'' League President William Donohue said.
City councilors Jerry P. McDermott, James M. Kelly and Paul Scapicchio want the Nov. 8 ballot to include a nonbinding question asking voters whether they agree that the archdiocese has failed to work with the city's neighborhoods to mitigate the impact of Catholic parish and school closings.
The councilors proposed the nonbinding question last week in the wake of Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley's decision to close more than 60 of the archdiocese's 357 parishes due to a shortage of priests, changing demographics and a financial crisis brought on largely by a drop in donations as a result of the clergy sexual-abuse scandal.