Catholic Action League on Honoring Senator Casey at HC

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized the College of the Holy Cross — the Bay State’s oldest Jesuit institution — for conferring an honorary degree on U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pennsylvania). Casey was also featured as the principal speaker at this morning’s commencement exercises, which were held on the Holy Cross campus in Worcester.

Casey is a supporter of birth control, Plan B/the morning-after pill, the public funding of contraception, and a mandate for contraceptive coverage in employer-sponsored group health insurance.  The Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino, the Bishop of Scranton, has rebuked Casey for voting to rescind the Mexico City Policy, which had prohibited the use of American tax dollars to fund organizations which promote abortion abroad.  Ostensibly a pro-life Democrat, Casey supports the exceptions commonly endorsed by Republican politicians, which would allow abortion in cases of rape, incest and alleged peril to the life of the mother.

The Catholic Action League called the invitation to Casey by Holy Cross “one more example of the infidelity and indifference to Catholic moral teaching that has become characteristic of Jesuit higher education in the United States.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “After the deaths of more than 50 million pre-born children by surgical abortion in this country since Roe v. Wade, and the deaths of countless others by abortifacient contraception, one would think that Holy Cross could find as its commencement speaker a political figure who is authentically and unambiguously pro-life.  One suspects that the invitation to Robert Casey is an accurate indicator of the dissent from Catholic doctrine which pervades the college’s administration, theology faculty, and Jesuit community.  The message which Casey’s commencement honor sends to Holy Cross students is that Humanae Vitae is irrelevant, political power trumps Catholic morality, and that personal and professional success is more important than adherence to divine and natural law.”

“The choice of Senator Robert Casey as commencement speaker and honoree was shameful and deplorable. Secular society can never be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to abortion and contraception so long as Catholic institutions provide platforms and honors to those who compromise with the culture of death. “