Notable Odds and Ends:

March 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Cardinal-Elect William Levada, the recently appointed successor to Pope Benedict XVI as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office in an interview with Time Magazine, (https://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060327-1174661,00.html) said that politicians who support abortion ought to reconsider their position as public servants.
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  He said, “When you see Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights … you have to ask yourself how this person squares this with his personal faith. Catholic politicians need to take this seriously. Maybe they need to say I’m not able to practice my faith and be a public representative.”
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  Levada reiterated that men with “deep seated homosexual tendencies” are not suited to the priesthood. “Somebody who comes to the seminary from a gay lifestyle cannot be a priest,” he said. But he also said a person who had seriously reformed, “after five or ten years” might be considered.
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  Italy’s Catholic bishops have said that they do not intend to dictate to voters but have reminded Italians that they must uphold the right to life and the real meaning of marriage and family in their decisions in upcoming elections. Cardinal Ruini, who heads the Italian Bishops’ Conference said voters had to base their decisions “on the primacy and the centrality of the human person, which must be lived in the pursuit of the common good before any legitimate particular interest.”
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  The bishops said this consideration was not peculiar to Catholic moral teaching, but are “elementary verities that belong to the entire human race.”
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  Cardinal-elect Sean P. O’Malley of Boston said in a lengthy interview with the Boston Globe Wednesday (https://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/19/omalley_transcript/?page=full) he had no particular agenda of issues he will emphasize as a newly created Cardinal of the Church. This despite the fact that Massachusetts has some of the most permissive laws in the US regarding abortion and homosexual “marriage.”
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  O’Malley, when asked point blank if he personally agrees with Vatican’s instructions on homosexuals adopting children equivocates saying, “I understand the Holy See’s concern that in our works of mercy, in our social programs, that we must be consistent in teaching the Catholic faith in one voice… And it was your newspaper that pointed out the anomaly to us, and we have tried to deal with that.”
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  Asked if he knew of a way to wiggle away from the Vatican’s instruction, O’Malley said, “Well, I think this is a very clear teaching. And it’s not one that would admit of dissent in the church.”
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  In further news from Boston, the Archdiocese announced that seven priests and a deacon have been defrocked, officially, “returned to the lay state”. Anthony Buchette, Joseph Crowley, Paul Finegan, Thomas Forry, Robert Morrisette, Frederick Ryan, Ernest Tourigney and Patrick Tague are all under criminal investigation for alleged sexual abuse of minors.
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  One of them, Frederick Ryan, was once among the most powerful clerics, as vice chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese.
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  The decision means that they may no longer receive any financial support from the Archdiocese of Boston or perform any public ministry in the Church.