The Catholic Civil Warrior - Patrick J Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society
By: Tom Deignan | Published Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 2:02 PM | Updated Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 2:02 PM
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| Kathleen Sebelius (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/GettyImages) |
He's the most influential, confrontational, controversial Irish Catholic you’ve never heard of.
He makes Maureen Dowd of The New York Times angry. He makes Bill Donohue of the Catholic League stand up and cheer. And each and every May he reignites what some have come to call the “civil war” in the American Catholic Church.
His name is Patrick J. Reilly.
Reilly is the founder and president of a Washington group called the Cardinal Newman Society. For better or worse, Reilly is widely credited for pressuring Catholic colleges that invite speakers who may be Catholic but do not strictly adhere to church teaching.
The lighting rod this year is Kathleen Sebelius, who was invited to take part in Georgetown University’s commencement ceremonies. The Irish American Sebelius (born Kathleen Gilligan in Cincinnati, the daughter of former Ohio governor John Gilligan) is currently Health and Human Services secretary and was the public face of the Obama administration’s efforts to compel employers – including those who work for the Catholic Church – to pay for medical coverage which might include contraception.
The conflict outraged conservative Catholics, who slammed the Obama administration for assaulting religious liberty. The controversy catapulted New York’s Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan to the
national stage.
Just this week, Dolan led a coalition of Catholic dioceses and colleges in a court challenge to the Obama administration.
The same sides of that debate were up in arms again this week, either defending or blasting Sebelius’s selection as a speaker at Georgetown University, the oldest Jesuit institution in the U.S.
As David Gibson noted, writing for Religion News Service, “The Washington archdiocese issued a statement (calling) the Sebelius invitation a ‘shocking’ action that undermines the Catholic Church and supports the administration in what the hierarchy says is an unprecedented attack on religious freedom ... ‘It's practically a civil war,’ Michael Brendan Dougherty, politics editor at Business Insider and a Catholic, wrote on Wednesday.”
That would make Patrick J. Reilly a civil warrior.
Those seeking change in the church, or hoping at least for debate on controversial issues, target the
Cardinal Newman Society as a defender of an excessively rigid theology that has alienated many Irish American Catholics.
“The latest kooky kerfuffle was sparked by the invitation to Kathleen Sebelius,” Dowd wrote in the Times this week. “The silver-haired former Kansas governor is a practicing Catholic with a husband and son who graduated from Georgetown.
“But because she fought to get a federal mandate for health insurance coverage of contraceptives and morning-after pills, including at Catholic schools and hospitals, Sebelius is on the hit list of a conservative Catholic group in Virginia, the Cardinal Newman Society, which militates to bar speakers at Catholic schools who support gay rights or abortion rights.”
As leader of the Newman Society, Reilly is surely glad to count Dowd as an enemy. And it is understandable that conservatives want to draw a line, lest Catholicism become so watered down we might as well all become Protestants.
So of course they shudder when they hear someone like Mario Cuomo say, “Christ is my religion, the church is not.”
Reilly and others argue that the church and its teachings are timeless, and thus should not bend.
The problem is, the church has always bent and wavered and changed. And to say the Catholic Church is devoid of political debate and maneuvering is just silly.
There are many debates within the Vatican before the Pope speaks for all of the world’s Catholics.
The pope himself is selected via a political process.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., liberals and conservatives have to decide what kind of church will remain vibrant and relevant in the 21st Century.
The only way to do that is to engage in debate and discussion, and that includes inviting a diverse range of speakers to Catholic institutions.
Otherwise, there will barely be enough Catholics left to have a debate.
(Contact “Sidewalks” at
tomdeignan@earthlink.net or
facebook.com/tomdeignan)
14 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.ChillaKilla | May 28, 2012, 12:53 AM EDT
To continue with casualIMBA.... The 'evaporation' of private confessions? Not to my knowledge. Yes, some misguided parishes have 'general absolution services' but those are few and far between, and generally joined to the fulfillment of other requirements. in the 30 or so parishes in my Diocese the confessionals are still used, even if fewer people show up. But that's due to the lazyness of parishioners, not to a dispensation from the practice....I have no idea what the heck your babbling about the bellies of mothers and sisters is all about....As for the Creed, there have always been several versions of it: the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, and I forget what the other one is called. Except for shorter or longer forms, they all say the same doctrinally, and all can be recited. Nothing in them has changed.... The doctrines of the Church are in fact immutable! That is precisely what distinguishes the CC from every other heretical and ever-changing post-reform, finger-to-the-wind sects, where every pastor is a pope, and every person believes in his own interpretation of whatever verse he happens to read.
ChillaKilla | May 28, 2012, 12:21 AM EDT
Back at you casualIMBA [which must stand for IAmBlatantlyAnticatholic]. Trying to read your post I came to the conclusion the one who needs the chill pill is you. Your blurb is mostly incoherent..... Are the changes you mention --the ones marginally understandable-- 'DOCTRINAL in nature?' The only thing you accomplish here is to show your breathtaking ignorance of Catholicism! Let's examine the issues one by one: St. Christopher... it's quite possible that in a Church with 2000 years of history the early practitioners might have been carried away by their piety. The Church simply. and rightfully, corrected that....Belief in limbo, was never an article of faith, such as the belief in the Trinity, or the divinity of Jesus. Google 'Catholic Encyclopedia' for a full tutorial on the matter.... Latin Mass, please! Nothing more than a tradition which contributed to the uniformity and universality of the Church. The Church is so extended that whether one went to China or Timbuktu the words still made sense to anyone, even if they did not speak the local language. At one point it was decided people might be better served in the vernacular, simple as that.
ChillaKilla | May 27, 2012, 05:17 PM EDT
helmet365, the Church is dying? Try telling that to the 1.2 billion plus people who count themselves a Catholic. Plus to the 500 thousand or so who convert yearly to the CC..... Sure, among them there may be some 300 million who are CINOs; another 400 million who practice their faith without much conviction. They are what is called cultural and habitual Catholics.... That still leaves some 600 million who cherish their faith and practice it willingly.... Out of those, there must certainly be some 100 million people who are actually 'saints.' These are the people who sustain and keep the Church alive with their lives, example and heroic virtues..... Compare and contrast that to the fragmented and chaotic world of sectarianism and to the 'I want to impose MY OWN brand of spirituality-ism' people currently trying to dominate the faith dialogue. Those who think like you.... I'd venture to say you should still feel woefully outnumbered!....Much to your chagrin, the Church will survive INTACT, because Christ who founded it was neither confused about the solidity of His teachings nor, as God, unknowing of the prideful and rebellious nature of men and women who would, like you, try to make the Church in your own image, rather than God's.
casualMBA | May 26, 2012, 09:45 AM EDT
Take a chill pill, Chilla....St. Christoper, Limbo, meat on Friday, the Latin Mass, the evaporation of private confessions, the bellies of our mothers, sisters, and daughters since "The Pill," A 1700 YEAR CREED, a "PRACTICED" IN BELIEF CREED, ARBITRARILY CHANGED!!!...PLEASE, do not suggest our Church is immutable...Somehow, we manage to retain (despite proximate flourishes) the KEY concept of "I am NOT worthy," though, before approaching Our Redeemer's sacrament...let us not address things such as self esteem or modern medical science, though...this would be RADICAL Catholicism
helmet365 | May 25, 2012, 07:20 PM EDT
The Church must change or die. The Pope,Dolan,O'Rielly to name a few are just speeding up the dying process. History will remember them as small minded people. The Church does not allow thinkers to develop beyond a certain level,even the heriachy, if they do they are accused of heracy or commiting sin.
NYCsheridan | May 25, 2012, 12:08 PM EDT
If he makes Donohue "stand up and cheer", then he makes me want to puke.
ChillaKilla | May 25, 2012, 11:01 AM EDT
And BTW Deignan, your description of Patrick J. Reilly as 'most influential, confrontational, controversial Irish Catholic you've never heard of' is way off. --- He is WELL KNOWN to the great majority of Catholics truly interested in having those so called "Catholic colleges and schools" our ancestors worked so hard to build with their meager earnings as immigrants, get back to their Catholic roots, rather than opportunistically use the 'Catholic' designation only to discredit the faith, and/or to attract the unwary.--- I'm sure our great grandparents are rolling in their grave seeing their effort nullified by rogue priests and lib secularist infiltrators, who have been indoctrinating several generations by posing as 'Catholic schools'. Their struggle to liberate us from religious discrimination and harassment at the hand of the 'Know Nothing' controlled public system culminated in handing to us the greatest education system in the US, because they intended for their children to learn the orthodoxy of the faith. Instead, those schools have been overtaken by rabidly anti-religious secularists. --- Reilly is working to unmask the saboteurs and infiltrators, and to withdraw the Catholic accreditation from those who misuse the name. Good for him!!
ChillaKilla | May 25, 2012, 10:24 AM EDT
From the NYT Lib-a-Diva Dowd: “The silver-haired former Kansas governor is a practicing Catholic..." Wait.. so now Dowd is the 'authority' on who IS a 'practicing Catholic'? -- Newsflash to Dowd: Before writing your 'dogmatic' columns, take a look at the Catechism of the CC and see where your determination of 'practicing Catholic' lies. Sebelius is NO CATHOLIC. She excommunicated herself eons ago when she advocated for abortion on demand, and was a fervent defender of 'Tiller the killer' who killed thousands of babies just before birth... before being killed himself! 153580445.html#ixzz1vtIqapWB"
GeorgeDillon | May 25, 2012, 03:18 AM EDT
irishpjk: Good post. I have neighbors who belong to the Southern Baptists or AME. I would not for one second have the discourtesy to tell them how to run their churches. It's a question of respect, and respect is what the bigots don't accord us Catholics.
irishpjk | May 24, 2012, 07:45 PM EDT
I can’t understand why the people who do not like the laws of our catholic religion want us to allow them to change the laws as we go along. The solution for them should be very clear you can get out and find a religion that suits your way of thinking. I like mine the way it is and will do all I can to keep it that way.
kaydog1 | May 24, 2012, 05:00 PM EDT
But, isn't that a man, baby? (Apologies to Austin Powers).
GeorgeDillon | May 24, 2012, 03:59 PM EDT
"“The silver-haired former Kansas governor...". What the hell does the color of her hair have to do with it? Fifth-rate journalism.
GeorgeDillon | May 24, 2012, 03:57 PM EDT
Georgetown has a long history of supporting anti-Catholics. In fact as a teenager I remember protesting outside Georgetown when they were giving some kind of Honorary degree to Margaret Thatcher. That was around the time of the Hunger Strikes. Georgetown represents the worst elements of lace curtain Irish.
Murph46 | May 24, 2012, 10:27 AM EDT
Niall why show a picture of a woman when the story is that of a man? Sloppy !