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The New York Thing Ain’t a Done Deal
In a post below, Ricochet member @scottwilmot told us about the changes to abortion law in Gov. Cuomo’s budget proposal and the New York State Catholic Conference’s perspective on those changes. In the comments on that post (which you should absolutely read), there seems some dispute about the actual details.
I’m not in a position to weigh in on the details or whether the NYSCC is correct (and again, I’ll refer you to the other thread), but I wanted to give some larger context about politics in New York and why it is far from a done deal.
The most important thing everybody needs to remember is that New York ain’t California.
New York is not like other states where more people are some brand of Protestant, and maybe there’s like one or two Catholic churches in town. New York is overwhelmingly Catholic. A third of the population identifies as Catholic. If you consider that 50% of the population in New York is non-religious, and 33% is Catholic, it is by far the dominant religion.
It affects things in ways people who don’t live here wouldn’t expect. For example, New York was the 50th state to get no-fault divorce. And we got it in 2010. In other words: every state in the Bible Belt got no-fault divorce before New York.
Driving around near Albany yesterday, I’ve already seen billboards about the budget proposal on I-90. Turn your head to the left, see the skyline of Albany, turn your head to the right, see a billboard explicitly opposing the abortion changes in the budget proposal.
So here’s what’s gonna happen. Easter and the budget deadline are both on April 1. The budget is going to be late, it always is. (The budget deadline is a long-running joke in New York.)
This year on Easter Sunday, churches are going to be standing room only. Everybody who is even nominally Catholic goes to church on Easter. That includes all the members of the state legislature who want to be seen going to church on Easter. If the Catholic Church is one thing, it’s well coordinated. So on Easter Sunday, which every church filled to capacity, everyone will get to hear the Catholic Church’s take on what this law says and what it does.
Some of those above-mentioned politicos will realize the implications, and in a moment of holy clarity, decide that suddenly that in an election year, they cannot abide and that the law must not pass. Those that don’t will get an earful from the people who went to church on Easter and heard about the proposal and how horrible it is. They will flood the email boxes of legislators. They will jam the phone lines. If the budget proposal says the NYSCC says it does, or even something close to it, Cuomo was a fool to try to do this in 2018.
Will it make a difference? Of course, it will. This is an election year. The first order of business of any politician is to get re-elected. It could still pass. There’s still a fight to be had. But the situation is far from a done deal.
Published in General
Thanks for the hopeful note Fred.
What Catholic Church do you go to? I wish the Bishops would insist that the priests preach about this law on Easter Sunday, but that Ain’t gunna happen. Maybe the layman will make a stink about it, but the priests won’t. They won’t touch this with a 50 foot pole in fear of losing their tax exempt status. Also yes New York does have a lot of Catholics, but they are hardly orthodox or even traditional Catholics ( and I mean Orthodox in the Roman Catholic sense). A big chunk are culturally Catholic, and Pro-choice. This bill may fail but I doubt it will be due to anything heard at mass on Easter.
I should say that I was alerted to the budget/abortion story by the daily email I get from CatholicVote, and that they pointed to the New York State Catholic Conference Action Center for their information and I saw the tweet I embedded in my post from the RorateCaeli traditionalist Catholic website.
So I do hope Catholics can put enough pressure on the legislature to not pass the horrific reforms called for by catholic governor Andrew Cuomo.
It would be helpful to hear from the bishops on this – they love to opine on budgets.
No they won’t. They will hear a homily on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope it gives us. Nobody goes to Easter Sunday Mass to hear about a state budget proposal — not even the nominal Catholics in New York.
And our clergy rarely brings up abortion or any other politically charged issue from the pulpit — except for Pope Francis. In my own parish, I think I’ve heard abortion mentioned once.
At my parish the only kind of political thing I have ever heard during a homily was from the old Irish priest talking about how George Soros was funding a group that was pushing for euthanasia. That was it, and I was pretty shocked to hear it, I was happy but still shocked.
We raise money and do diaper drives for the local crisis pregnancy center but that is as far as it goes regarding abortion. Although one of the local parishes prays in front of the Planned Parenthood every Wednesday.
So, spiteful and fitting revenge by the Brits for 1776 and 1812? Force-exporting the famine fiendish Irish and thus giving New York a large catholic underclass with Tammany Hall then to bring classic catholic corrupt city state tactics? Splendid. Add in the subsequent large flows of Italians including Sicilians with their good graces and governance. Oh, wonderful influence of Catholicism in New York. Beati pauperes spiritu quoniam iprosum est regnum caelorum. Just teasing. America and the city itself changed the paupers for the better and allowed the younger ones to flourish despite the traditions of their elders, if only those priests had not liked their boys so much. Well, then, onwards and upwards.
Hahaha! That’s a good one, Fred. Satire always cuts to the chase.
Interesting take. Thanks.
It will depend upon the parish priest. I suspect at the Easter Vigil Mass, and then on Easter Sunday Mass this subject will not be mentioned.
There have been times that abortion has been referenced in homilies concerning voting.
The Church does teach that abortion is an intrinsic evil. Unfortunately there are some priests and bishops that avoid the subject for fear the pews will empty, and this is not just confined to the the Catholic Church. Catholics should understand that participating in, or procuring an abortion is one of the sins that excommunicates you by the very act.
Catholic politicians that advocate, and vote for abortion laws commit the sin of Scandal. Their actions influence Catholics to ignore the Catechism. Scandal is a grave sin, but everyone on the Road to Hell will never have to walk alone.