Catholics and Contraception: Boston, 1965

[cbayer]

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/catholics-and-contraception-boston-1965/?emc=eta1

March 15, 2012, 9:17 pm

By SETH MEEHAN

Michael Dukakis does not mince words. He admits to being “flabbergasted” by the debate between the Catholic hierarchy and the Obama administration over the mandate that requires employers to provide contraception coverage. “I thought birth control wasn’t an issue anymore,” he told me.

I reached out to Dukakis for historical perspective on the escalating birth control controversy — which, he laments, now involves Greek Orthodox as well as Catholic leaders. Nearly 50 years ago, as a state representative from Brookline, Mass., Dukakis was part of a compromise between opponents and proponents of contraception, a compromise that involved coordination between Planned Parenthood and the church that would be unthinkable now. Dukakis remains convinced that contraception became legal in Massachusetts only with the assistance of the local Catholic leadership.

Cardinals today do not enjoy the same secular power Boston’s Cardinal Richard Cushing did in the 1960s. But following Wednesday’s decision by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to continue its “vigorous opposition to this unjust and illegal mandate,” the Catholic hierarchy will wield its influence nonetheless. And while the current debate unfolds, the Catholic voice that will matter the most will be that of Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York — the country’s newest cardinal and the president of the U.S.C.C.B.

In the 1960s, it was Cushing who took center stage in a prominent public debate over access to contraception. He faced a different political and legal reality from that of Dolan and his fellow bishops. Yet, according to Dukakis, Cushing’s conduct at the time was a “great act of statesmanship.”

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[benld74]

1. MORE hard liner Bishops NOW than then, THAT is the reason.

They want the OLD Catholic Church to come back into power, old being like back in the 50's. Simple fools is what they are,,,,