‘The party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us,’ the cardinal wrote
The US Democratic Party has abandoned the many Catholic voters who once supported it, the Archbishop of New York has said.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said that by embracing radical pro-abortion ideology and blocking legislation to help poorer families attend Catholic schools, the Democrats has alienated voters who were once loyal to the party.
The cardinal highlighted two significant historical figures from the archdiocese’s history: Archbishop John Hughes, the first archbishop, and Dolores Grier an African-American convert who became the archdiocese’s vice-chancellor.
“The two causes so vigorously promoted by Hughes and Grier—the needs of poor and middle-class children in Catholic schools, and the right to life of the baby in the womb—largely have been rejected by the party of our youth,” Cardinal Dolan said.
“An esteemed pro-life Democrat in Illinois, Rep. Dan Lipinski, effectively was blacklisted by his own party. Last year, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez insisted that pro-life candidates have no place in the modern Democratic Party,” he added.
He said that the situation was particularly bad in the State of New York.
“In recent years, some Democrats in the New York state Assembly repeatedly blocked education tax credit legislation, which would have helped middle-class and low-income families make the choice to select Catholic or other nonpublic schools for their children. Opposing the bill reduces the ability of fine Catholic schools across the state to continue their mission of serving the poor, many of them immigrants.
“More sobering, what is already the most radical abortion license in the country may soon be even more morbidly expanded. For instance, under the proposed Reproductive Health Act, doctors would not be required to care for a baby who survives an abortion. The newborn simply would be allowed to die without any legal implications. And abortions would be legal up to the moment of birth.”
Cardinal Dolan said the situation “saddens me, and weakens the democracy millions of Americans cherish” because “the party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us.”