Cardinal Dolan: Civil Unions Make Me "Uncomfortable" Too

Gothamist
March 10, 2014

http://gothamist.com/2014/03/10/dolan_gay_marriage.php

Cardinal Dolan at Ash Wednesday services. (Getty Images)

New York's Archbishop and Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave an interview to Meet the Press yesterday that covered many of the changes in the Catholic Church seen since the beginning of Pope Francis's papacy. He spent much of the interview batting back public perceptions of Francis's radicalism, as well as being generally "uncomfortable" about the gays.

According to Dolan, Francis's public statements (like his seeming indifference towards gay civil unions or his lefty first Apostolic Exhortation) are simply "part of his shrewd strategy...We've all had good teachers that almost tease us, you know, to say, 'Oh, I wonder what he meant. I hope he comes back to that. I hope he clarifies, gets us asking questions and probing.' I think that's part of his strategy." Calling the Pope a "bridge builder," Dolan argued that there was no "bristling among the conservatives," who he said were instead "rejoicing in...the evangelical fervor, the good interest in the life of the church."

Only a shrewd strategy? That's an interesting reading of Francis's public statements, which have included significant, attention-grabbing talk about gay rights, so much so that gay newspaper The Advocate named him (controversially) its Person of the Year. Just a few days ago, he suggested in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera that civil unions might be acceptable to the Church. Dolan urged caution on this front, noting that "It wasn't as if he came out and approved them. But... in a sensitivity that has won the heart of the world, he said, 'Rather than quickly condemn them, let's just ask the questions as to why that has appealed to certain people.' "

In a further ringing endorsement of gay rights, Dolan—a noted longtime opponent of marriage equality, who argued in 2010 that "I love my mom, but I don't have the right to marry her"—noted that even civil unions would make him "uncomfortable," because marriage is "the building block of society and culture...and if we water down that sacred meaning of marriage in any way, I worry that not only the church would suffer, I worry that culture and society would."

Despite his concern that the church has been "outmarketed" and is perceived as "some crabby, nay-saying shrill," Dolan seemed unconcerned with the optics of an Archbishop rejecting civil unions in a state where gay marriage has been legal for several years. "We don't take our agenda from the polls," Dolan declared. "We don't take our agenda from what the world is saying. Our agenda is given to us by the God who made us."

In addition to civil unions, Dolan commented on the sex abuse crisis that has gripped the Church and deeply shaken its moral authority. In the same interview in which Pope Francis mused about civil unions, he called the Catholic church "the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility" in regards to responding to sex abuse cases. Dolan added to this narrative of an innocent Church under attack, arguing that Catholics are angry "that bishops... have not reacted with the rigor and the scrupulous action that was necessary." But Catholics are also angry that the church keeps "being picked on."

Not to pick on Dolan, but the Irish government found that Catholic authorities were attempting to frustrate civil investigations into sex abuse in Ireland as recently as 2008. Additionally, Dolan was allegedly caught paying off abusers and shielding money from victims at his most recent posting in Milwaukee.