The following is a Catholic Action League of Massachusetts press release…
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized Jesuit administered Boston College Law School for presenting as its commencement speaker U. S. Representative Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA). Commencement Exercises were conducted this morning at Conte Forum at Boston College.
In his twenty-six years in Congress, Scott has been an unremitting opponent of Catholic moral teaching, the right to life, and the religious freedom rights of Catholic institutions and the Catholic community. Since first entering the U. S. House of Representatives in 1993, Scott has received successive annual ratings of 100% from both the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Scott is a proponent of legal abortion, the public funding of abortion, partial birth abortion, contraception, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and family planning as part of U. S. foreign aid. He is opposed to any restrictions on abortion, to “Born Alive” legislation, (which would protect children who survived abortions), and to laws which would punish offenders who harmed an unborn child during the commission of a crime.
In the 2016 U. S. Supreme Court case Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell, Scott filed an amicus brief opposing the Catholic nuns who sought a religious exemption from the Obamacare mandate requiring them to provide contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients as part of employee health coverage.
In 2019, Scott became a co-sponsor of the “Do No Harm” Act, which would amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to compel Christian business owners and professionals to service same sex ceremonies. On May 17th, Scott voted for the “Equality Act,” which would further restrict the scope of the RFRA, and which would make sexual orientation and gender identity part of federal civil rights law.
In 2003, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops authorized the statement Catholics in Political Life, which said “the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Today’s graduation was the ninth time in the last ten years that BC Law hosted a supporter of Roe v. Wade as a commencement speaker. Previous speakers since 2010 have included U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA); Massachusetts Chief Justice Roderick Ireland; Mrs. Victoria Kennedy; U.S. Senator Mo Cowan (D-MA); Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy; Obama Political Strategy Director David Simas; U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH); and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Geraldine Hines.
The Catholic Action League called Scott’s selection as commencement speaker “a shameless betrayal of Catholic morality, a contumacious violation of Catholics in Political Life, and a callous insult to the faithful Catholics who support and defend the right to life.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “For decades now, conservative Catholics have characterized the selection of public figures like Bobby Scott as commencement speakers at Catholic institutions as acts of dissent against the Magisterium. Given nine such selections in the last ten years, it might be more accurate to call this selection an affirmation of the secular orthodoxy of BC Law, with its rejectionist view of Catholic moral principles”.
“Boston College Law School is a de-Christianized institution whose Catholic identity is merely nominal and increasingly fraudulent. Much of the responsibility for this state of affairs rests with the Archbishop of Boston, who, it would seem, only addresses these scandals when embarrassed into doing so.”
