Cardinal Keeler's Boycott

Cardinal Keeler

Last Friday, the commencement ceremony at one of my local institutions of higher learning, Loyola College, was boycotted by Baltimore's Cardinal Archbishop William Keeler because former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has said he supports women's abortion rights, spoke. In today's edition of The Sun, in "Abortion views take priority over respect," columnist Susan Reimer had this to say:

The Catholic church is not an open society, and it is not a democracy, but it exists, in this country at least, within the borders of one. Its refusal to participate in any discussion on abortion ... will not advance its cause among this season's college graduates, some of whom are still forming their views on these issues.

Hear, hear! Like Reimer, I am one of Cardinal Keeler's Catholic flock, I am conscientiously pro-choice, and I am mightily incensed that Keeler would not share the stage with a man who was being honored for his courage and leadership on and after 9/11, and not for his views on abortion. Reimer, again:

And finally, Keeler's refusal to share the stage with Giuliani is an inexcusable show of disrespect for a man who, whatever his politics or his personal failings, walked into the mouth of hell on Sept. 11 to comfort his people.

It was the kind of selfless act of service that should recall for Keeler his own priestly vows.

Guiliani, after all, has not been a pro-abortion zealot. He has stated that he personally opposes abortion, but that he, as a public servant, recognizes that the right to choose does exist under American law, and that as an elected official he would be bound by that fact. This earlier article in The Sun says:

In 1989, when Giuliani was running for mayor, his campaign issued a statement firmly stating that he backs abortion rights, according to The New York Times.

"As mayor, Rudy Giuliani will uphold a woman's right of choice to have an abortion. Giuliani will fund all city programs which provide abortions to insure that no woman is deprived of her right due to an inability to pay. He will oppose reductions in state funding. He will oppose making abortion illegal. Although Giuliani is personally opposed to abortion, his personal views will not interfere with his responsibilities as mayor," the statement said.

It's accordingly clear that Cardinal Keeler's boycott was based not on Giuliani's personal support for abortion, since the ex-mayor is actually "personally opposed" to it, but on his stance as an elected official in this great and commodious land.

Since America, unlike the Catholic Church, is an open society with a multiplicity of religions and a diversity of opinions about abortion, I think Cardinal Keeler's boycott was wholly inappropriate.

Not only that, it sends an awful signal. Since it was a boycott not just by Cardinal Keeler personally but by every member of his official staff, it must be seen as a considered action of the church itself. By dint of it the local Baltimore church, if not the whole church worldwide, is trampling the spirit of pluralism so essential to the American enterprise.

Furthermore, it calls seriously into question the 1965 Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), also called "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World," which asserts that each of us must act according to "the voice of conscience." Can anyone doubt that Mr. Giuliani's stance vis-à-vis the legality of abortion is a personally difficult one, taken in all good conscience?