Washington D.C., May 18, 2010 / 21:13 pm
The culture editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America, Fr. James Martin, S.J., argued yesterday in a post on the publication's blog that Pope Benedict's equation of abortion and same-sex marriage "is bizarre" and "seemed oddly discordant."
In his post published on Monday, May 17, under the headline “Hingham, Same-Sex Marriage, and Life Issues," Fr. Martin, a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post, praised the Archdiocese's of Boston move to undermine the decision of Rev. James Rafferty, who last week denied enrollment to the child of a lesbian couple at St. Paul's Catholic elementary school in Hingham, Mass.
"The Archdiocese of Boston is handling this matter quite differently—that is, more wisely—than Denver did," wrote Martin, in reference to the decision made by the Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput, to stand behind a similar decision made last month by a pastor in Boulder, Colo.
The statement of Dr. Mary Grassa O’Neill, Boston's superintendent of Catholic schools, explaining that "the Archdiocese does not prohibit children of same sex parents from attending Catholic schools," was issued, according to Martin, "with the approval of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, I am told by a good source."