Cardinal Mahony Calls Out Pro-Death Politician by Name During Mass

(Hat tip: The Cafeteria is Closed)

Whatever other issues one might have with Cardinal Mahony (and they are legion), give the man big-time credit for this:

LOS ANGELES – Cardinal Roger Mahony called on members of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese Monday to beat back a proposal to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill in California, and accused the Legislature's most powerful Democrat of being swept into a “culture of death.”

“Assisted suicide is totally unnecessary – not only is it against God's law, God's plan, we simply don't need something like that,” Mahony said during a lightly attended noon Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

He urged parishioners to pressure Sacramento legislators “to vote down ... this attack on life.”

He leveled unusually sharp criticism at one of the bill's prominent sponsors, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, who recently met with the Cardinal to discuss the proposal. Nunez's support is viewed as crucial if the bill is to reach the governor's desk.

Mahony said he was saddened and confused by Nunez's decision to endorse a plan that would allow the terminally ill to obtain life-ending drugs from their physicians.

“We should be troubled that Fabian Nunez – who has worshipped here in this cathedral, is a Catholic – somehow has not understood and grasped the culture of life but has allowed himself to get swept into this other direction, the culture of death,” said Mahony, whose archdiocese is estimated to have more than 4.3 million Catholics.

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... Mahony's criticism of Nunez was unusual in California politics, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“I've never been to Mass where anybody has named a politician from the pulpit,” Pitney said.

Now, check out the reaction from the Party of Death:

In a statement, spokesman Steve Maviglio said while the speaker respects the cardinal's opinion “this is another issue of individual choice where the overwhelming majority of Catholics have a different perspective than the official position of the church [Ed.: as opposed to all the other equally valid "Catholic" positions that Prof. Dan Maguire keeps telling us about]. Personal liberty and dignity are important values to Californians, regardless of their religious beliefs.”

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One of the bill's co-authors, Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, said in a statement, “This is how the church has always reacted to the pro-choice debate. And, frankly, this is why so many people can't relate to their message.”

[More]

(emphasis added)


UPDATE
Jeff Miller notes that Speaker Nunez has stated that he was more afraid of the reaction from his Catholic mother than he was of anything Cardinal Mahony might do or say.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on a similar story:
Who's the Villain in this Story?

And the True Villain Reveals Himself

From Someone Who Was There