Troublesome Trends
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - April 20, 2007
Over the past few weeks, as Christians were focused on the events of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Governor Patrick's attention was on other things.
Right before Holy Week began, the Governor declared that he would work to persuade the Public Health Council, whose membership he appoints, to eliminate restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research. He said he wants to make sure that "scientists can perform their research uninhibited," which means uninhibited by any ethical restraints. He wants to give scientists not only the green light but also the green backs to destroy embryos at the same stage of existence we were a few days into our life-span. Seeking to help some human beings by killing others is not ethical science. The four bishops of Massachusetts, in a statement we have reprinted on the front page of this edition, have called on the governor to support only ethical stem-cell research, research that doesn't destroy life under the guise of saving it.
On Monday of Holy Week, in open defiance of Massachusetts law, the Governor was at it again. He ordered the state Department of Public Health to record the "marriages" of 26 out-of-state same-sex couples whose unions are invalid under Massachusetts law because they are invalid in their respective home states.
As the Governor marked his first hundred days in office, the media focused its attention mostly on his various gaffes, like upgrading his official vehicle to a Cadillac, spending tens of thousands of tax payer dollars on drapes for his office, and placing ethically-objectionable telephone calls to secure special favors for past business clients with companies that do business in the Commonwealth. But these recent decisions are more momentous. In one, he is pushing to use tax dollars not just to ride or to work in style, but to destroy innocent human life; in another, he is not just pushing the envelope of the unethical behavior concerning conflict of interest, but openly violating the laws of the Commonwealth which he swore a solemn oath to uphold.
On Good Friday Catholics throughout the Commonwealth prayed for those who serve us in public office, "that God may guide their minds and hearts so that all men may live in true peace and freedom." Let us continue to pray in particular for our governor, so that he may dedicate his mind and heart, first, to allowing all men to live, including those threatened at the earliest stages of existence; and secondly, to helping all people to achieve the "true peace" that will come only through ordering their freedom not merely to the rule of just law but more profoundly to the truth about man, woman and marriage.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
