-Caveat Lector-
The trouble with allowing SOME --primarily the Fundamentalist "Moral
Majority-- to override the separation of church and state in America is that
this opens the door for the "religionization" of politics by OTHERS TOO --
and some groups, such as the Catholic Church, have not only bigger financial
clout but an INTERNATIONAL power base ...
The cry of "anti-Catholicism!" is slowly becoming as strident as
"anti-Semitism!"
I bet those who are nostalgic for the "good old days" of the '50s, when
paranoid anti-Communism justified a National Security State run by fascist
generalissimos, are just as nostalgic for a return to censorship of the mass
media by the Catholic Church, the de facto guardian of "public morals" in
America during the same period ...
Cardinal Questions Court Choices
BOSTON (AP) - Cardinal Bernard Law has raised objections to two of Gov. Paul
Cellucci's nominees for the state's highest court, saying the two women are
open to charges of anti-Catholicism.
Law told the governor in a letter last week that past actions by Supreme
Judicial Court Justice Margaret Marshall and Superior Court Judge Judith
Cowin showed ``an attitude and mentality, which I find troubling.'' He cited
examples involving a gay rights case and a prominent opponent of abortion.
``I fear that in both these nominees there has been evidenced a certain
mindset which at times is open to the serious charge of anti-Catholicism,''
Law wrote.
Marshall has been nominated for promotion from associate justice to chief
justice on the Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court. Cowin has
been nominated to fill a vacancy on the court.
Marshall's nomination will be taken up by the Governor's Council on Wednesday
and Cowin's in the next few weeks. The eight-member council, an elected body,
has the power to confirm or deny gubernatorial appointments.
Cellucci today said that Law's concerns were serious ones and he would have
his legal counsel look into them again. He said the nominations had
previously been reviewed, particularly that of Marshall's, and the charges
were found to be baseless.
``There's not a biased bone in her body,'' he said of Marshall.
In Cowin's case, Law cited a complaint referred to a council member from a
lawyer who said she displayed anti-Catholic bias in a 1997 case involving
church-run Carney Hospital.
A jury had had found that the hospital fired a worker because administrators
thought he was gay, and awarded him $1.2 million. The complaint said Cowin
increased the amount of the award, citing problems ``inherent in suing a
respected Boston charitable institution ... (and) the strength of the
Catholic Church.''
Law's concern about Marshall stems from a letter she wrote while general
counsel at Harvard University to Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor
and leading Catholic intellectual who is an antiabortion advocate. He gave no
details.
The Boston Globe said the two women and Law were all unavailable for comment
or did not return calls seeking comment.
Cardinal Condemns "Sacrilegious" Virgin Painting
By BETH J. HARPAZ
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Cardinal John O'Connor on Sunday asked Catholics to join him
in condemning a painting of the Virgin Mary embellished with a clump of
elephant dung, while civil rights activists defended the Brooklyn Museum of
Art's right to show the piece.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, meanwhile, reiterated his pledge to cut all $7
million of city funding to the museum - one-third of its budget - unless the
painting is pulled from an exhibit scheduled to open Friday.
``I'm saddened by what appears to be an attack not only on our blessed mother
... but one must ask if it is not an attack on religion itself and in a
special way on the Catholic Church,'' said O'Connor in his weekly sermon at
St. Patrick's Cathedral.
O'Connor did not name the mayor, but said he was ``grateful to city
officials,'' adding: ``It is their right, if not their duty, to express
themselves on such matters.''
O'Connor urged his listeners to write to the museum: ``You might want to
express your deep sadness at this disrespect.''
But New York Civil Liberties Union director Norman Siegel said the mayor's
threats to cut the funding ``violates the First Amendment. His assertion that
New York City can withdraw all funds for the museum based on a single
exhibition that he finds offensive illustrates a serious misunderstanding of
the Constitution.''
Siegel, who discussed the controversy Sunday as a speaker at St. Mary's
Episcopal Church in Harlem, later said by phone that government funding may
not legally be withdrawn because public officials dislike particular works.
``You don't have an obligation to provide funding to the arts but once you
do, you can't defund a museum solely because public officials are displeased
with the expression of the art,'' he said.
The Brooklyn Museum's director, Arnold Lehman, has not publicly said what he
will do, but he has a reputation for standing firm on matters of artistic
expression. Directors of other museums have been noticeably silent.
``There's a chill in the air because people are afraid of the mayor, but if
he wins this one there are huge consequences to artistic expression,'' Siegel
said.
Giuliani, meanwhile, defended his funding threat at a press conference at a
new riverfront park in the West Village.
``There is nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and
disgusting projects,'' Giuliani said. ``If you're going to use taxpayers'
dollars, you have to be sensitive to the feelings of the public.''
One passerby heckled him as ``Adolf Giuliani!'' and another shouted: ``Get
your hands off our museums!''
The painting, ``The Holy Virgin Mary,'' depicts Mary with dark skin, African
features and flowing robes. It features a shellacked clump of elephant dung
and two dozen cutouts of buttocks from pornographic magazines.
The artist, Chris Ofili, 30, a black Catholic who was born in England and
lives there, has said he used the pornographic images because classical
images of Mary are often ``sexually charged.''
He also told Salon magazine in February: ``Elephant dung in itself is quite a
beautiful object.''
Ofili began using elephant dung during a six-week stay in Zimbabwe. He is now
famous for using the material - which he gets from the London Zoo - in
virtually all his artwork. In 1998, he won Britain's prestigious Turner
Prize, a $33,000 award for artists under 50.
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