The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized the Associate Rector of Boston’s historic Trinity Church, the Rev. William W. Rich, for insulting Catholics on Good Friday. During the church’s annual “Stations of the City” walk, while stopped in front of the Central Reform Temple of Boston, Rev. Rich asserted to his followers that in the past, some Catholics murdered Jews on Good Friday.
Rich offered no evidence to substantiate this sweeping indictment. Good Friday is the most solemn day of the liturgical year for Catholics.
The Catholic Action League called Rich’s crack “a gratuitous and mean spirited affront to Catholics on the day they commemorate the death of Our Savior on the Cross.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “At a time when Catholics and other Christians are
confronted by genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Middle East, Rev. Rich prefers to observe Good Friday by dredging up accusations made against Catholics from a millennium ago. So much for ecumenical sensitivity.”
“One suspects that Rich’s unprovoked attack has less to do with solicitude for the Jewish community than with current, culture war issues. Rich is a civilly married homosexual, with a record of activism for same sex unions.”
“The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has a history of cheap shots at the Catholic Faith. In 2002, a couple of days before the resignation of Cardinal Law, when the Archdiocese of Boston was inundated with public criticism, Episcopal bishop Thomas Shaw took the opportunity to pile on by alleging that Catholic moral teaching helped incite violence against homosexuals.”
One of those offended by Rich’s remark was Brian Camenker, the leader of Mass Resistance and the Parents Rights Coalition. Camenker—who is an Orthodox Jew—had this to say: “Liberals love to talk about ancient history as a way of diverting attention from what is going on today. Just look at Obama’s crack about the Crusades and the Inquisition. Catholicism poses no threat to the religious freedom of Jews or any other Americans. The homosexual movement, which the Episcopal Diocese seems to have so thoroughly embraced, does pose such a threat.”
C. J. Doyle continued: “If Rev. Rich wishes to lament sectarian violence, he can begin by apologizing for the thousands of Catholics murdered in England, and the hundreds of thousands of Catholics murdered in Ireland, by his co-coreligionists, not to mention all the Catholics who were imprisoned, tortured, exiled, destituted, dispossessed of their land, and deprived of their civil rights. Apparently, Rev. Rich has never heard of the clean hands doctrine.”
“Incredibly, this is the same crowd—Massachusetts Episcopalians—to whom the Archdiocese of Boston used to lend Holy Cross Cathedral for their ordination ceremonies. Rev. Rich’s remark ought to remind Catholics of the one way street which is called ecumenism.”
