{"id":2562,"date":"2011-06-11T16:54:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-11T21:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=2562"},"modified":"2013-08-31T16:18:30","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T21:18:30","slug":"oh-dear-how-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/06\/oh-dear-how-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Dear: How Cardinal Cushing helped bring contraception to Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philip Lawler links<\/a> to an article in Boston College Magazine<\/a><\/em> about how Cardinal Cushing and the Archdiocese of Boston tacitly promoted – or allowed themselves to be used to promote – the legalization of contraception in Massachusetts:<\/p>\n

…the archdiocese had begun quietly planning for a change in the law even before Dukakis [yes, that <\/em>Dukakis, in 1965] introduced his formal bid for repeal.
\nIn 1963, the article reports, Cardinal Cushing was a guest on a radio call-in show. One caller asked the cardinal about his stance on the contraceptive ban, and he replied: \u201cI have no right to impose my thinking, which is rooted in religious thought, on those who do not think as I do.\u201d
\nAt the time of that broadcast, listeners in the Boston area did not know the identity of the woman who called in with the question that drew that response. But now, thanks to Boston College Magazine, we know that it was Hazel Sagoff, the executive director of Planned Parenthood. There is reason to believe that both Sagoff\u2019s call and the cardinal\u2019s response had been arranged in advance.<\/strong> (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To put things in perspective:
\nThe first birth control pill was brought to market in the US in 1959-60.<\/a>
\nThe Second Vatican Council began October 11, 1962.
\nCardinal Cushing went on the radio show on February 15, 1963<\/a>.
\nIn April, 1963, Pope John XXIII established the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family, and Birthrate, “to prepare for the Holy See\u2019s participation in a conference organized by the United Nations and the World Health Organization.” <\/a> This Commission becomes known as “the birth control commission.”
\nIn June, 1964, Pope Paul VI expanded the membership of the Pontifical Commission.
\nIn summer, 1964, the Kennedy family invited a team of theologians, including John Courtney Murray and Charles Curran, to Hyannisport <\/a>to come up with justifications for a Catholic politician to support legalizing abortion. Fr. Murray was a major influence<\/a> on Cardinal Cushing.
\nIn 1964, the Council Fathers of Vatican II “deferred decisions on marital morality to the Pope<\/a>.”
\nIn 1965, Michael Dukakis introduced the repeal ban in the Massachusetts legislature. Journalists at the Boston archdiocese’s paper The Pilot<\/em> were instructed not to comment on the legislation.<\/a> Lay Catholic representatives in the lower house banded together, and the bill was defeated.
\nOn June 7, 1965, SCOTUS issued the Griswold v. Connecticut<\/em> decision.
\nIn 1966, the Governor of Massachusetts set up a commission to study the birth control issue. Cardinal Cushing wrote to the commission that Catholics “do not seek to impose by law their moral view on other members of society.”<\/a> The repeal ban came up again in the MA legislature and passes.
\nIn the fall of 1966, rumors started swirling that the Church would soon change her teaching on artificial birth control. In 1967, some of the Pontifical Commission’s documents were leaked in English and French translation and were spun as support for these rumors.
\nHumanae Vitae<\/a><\/em> was promulgated in 1968.
\nUPDATED: Link to Humanae Vitae<\/em><\/a>. If you haven’t read it, what are you wasting your time here for? I, lege<\/a>!<\/em>
\nAlso fixed some grammar errors in the timeline….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philip Lawler links to an article in Boston College Magazine about how Cardinal Cushing and the Archdiocese of Boston tacitly promoted – or allowed themselves to be used to promote – the legalization of contraception in Massachusetts: …the archdiocese had begun quietly planning for a change in the law even before Dukakis [yes, that Dukakis,… Continue reading Oh Dear: How Cardinal Cushing helped bring contraception to Massachusetts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[34,8561,8533],"class_list":["post-2562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-racial-and-social-issues","tag-birth-control","tag-cardinal-cushing","tag-hhs-mandate","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2688,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2562\/revisions\/2688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}