Catholic social media—in America and around the globe—is reacting with horror and disgust at the scene of women clapping and cheering as Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed into law a bill which eliminated all remaining restrictions on late term abortion in the Commonwealth.
That scene occurred on Monday, August 10th, in the Corner Office (the Governor’s Office) of the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Joining Maura and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll were their friends from the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund, Reproductive Equity Now, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Maura Healey has other friends however, which some pro-life Catholics—like the ones now calling for her excommunication—might not be aware of.
Here is Maura being welcomed by Seán Patrick O’Malley OFM Cap., at the Catholic Charities Spring Celebration in Boston in May of 2024.
Here is Maura with Pope Francis, in the Vatican, again in May of 2024.
Here is Maura discussing reproductive rights with students at Saint John’s Prep in Danvers.
Here is Maura with students from Cathedral High School in Boston.
Some might ask, understandably, how persons and organizations with diametrically opposite principles could both be friends with Maura Healey.
The answer is simple. They want different things from Maura.
Plannned Parenthood, for instance, wants legislation expanding abortion in Massachusetts, and Maura obliges them.
The Catholic hierarchy, on the other hand, wants money: state social service funds for Catholic Charities; state housing funds for the Archdiocesan Planning Office for Urban Affairs; and, of course, major donor contributions for the Catholic Schools Foundation, which is always helped when the Governor is sitting at the head table at their annual fundraiser.
As with Planned Parenthood, Maura obliged.
In 2023, her first year as governor, she gave $1 million to Catholic Charities of Boston.
In 2024, she gave $2.6 million to Catholic Charities, split between the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Springfield.
That same year, she followed up with another half million to Catholic Charities Boston, and then gave the Archdiocese a substantial $13.9 million in housing money for the River Street Village Project in Mattapan.
In 2025, Maura gave nearly $600,000 to Catholic parishes and schools to combat hate crimes, another $450,000 to Archdiocesan Hispanic agencies, and nearly $1 million to Catholic Carities of Boston and the Notre Dame Center of Lawrence.
In 2026, Maura gave nearly a quarter of a million to Catholic Charities of Fall River, and yet another half million dollars to Boston.
For the Catholic hierarchy, it is nice to have friends like Maura Healey.
Without trying to exculpate Maura Healey, perhaps the outrage of offended Catholics ought to be directed at the Catholic prelates and Catholic institutions which enabled her, affirmed her, honored her and supplicated her over the last twelve years.
Maura Healey is not the problem. She is just the symptom. The problem is the Catholic Church in Massachusetts.
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