Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New
York, says politicians 'deceived' Catholic bishops on a gay marriage
bill.
While Dolan vigorously objected to
passage of the bill, critics noted that few other bishops spoke out
on the issue and Dolan himself wasn't in New York the day lawmakers
approved the law in June.
Writing at the blog Queering the
Church, gay rights activist Terence Weldon described the response
of the bishops as “muted and moderate.”
Dolan told Global Catholic Television
Network's (EWTN) Raymond Arroyo during a video interview conducted in
August that lawmakers had assured the bishops that the bill would
fail.
“We fell for the assurances of people
that we thought were political allies that this wasn't going to go
anywhere,” Dolan said.
“So we had political allies who said,
'Bishops, keep your ammo dry, you don't have to pull out all the
stops, speak on principle, speak up against this bill, but don't
really worry because it's not going to go anywhere.”
“We were told that Raymond, up to six
days before the bill passed.”
“It sort of taught us that it's not
all that good to trust politicians sometimes,” he added. “And I
think some of us bishops think we were being deceived. And I think
that could be, shame on us for believing them,” Dolan added. (The
video is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
Earlier this month, the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a
campaign described as an effort to “promote and defend marriage as
the union between one man and one woman.”
Dolan is also the president of the
USCCB.