For 60 years, U.S. bishops, for the most part, have not only been silent on Church teaching, they have also openly opposed it. Church Militant’s Joe Gallagher talks about one bishop who has been part of the problem.
Cdl. Timothy Dolan, archbishop, New York: “Marriage and children are two things that seem to be in jeopardy today. Fewer and fewer people are making the lifelong, life-giving, loving commitment to marriage.”
That was New York’s Cdl. Timothy Dolan on Saturday. But it’s worth noting U.S. bishops are a big reason why fewer people, especially Catholics, are getting married.
In a 2012 interview, Dolan revealed to The Wall Street Journal that bishops “have gotten gun-shy … in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality.”
In 1968, Pope Paul VI reiterated the Church’s ban on artificial contraception. Dolan declared the document brought “a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the Church. … We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day.”
Dolan also offered that the clerical sex abuse cover-up scandal in 2002 “intensified our laryngitis over speaking about issues of chastity and sexual morality.” As archbishop of New York, Dolan has continued the clerical silence.
In 2019, then–New York governor Andrew Cuomo (raised Catholic) signed the most liberal abortion law in the United States, and, despite massive outcry, Dolan refused to excommunicate him.
Regardless of his admission on clerical cowardice, Dolan continues to do nothing to fix the problem. With the bishops focusing on leftist issues like immigration, so-called racism and other Democrat talking points, concerned Catholics are left wondering about how or if the moral problems will be addressed.