Representative Steve Vaillancourt disgraces the New Hampshire House of Representatives

Remember when New Hampshire Republican Steve Vaillancourt from Manchester defended the inappropriate comments made by Representative D.J. Bettencourt on Facebook last year in which he referred to Bishop John McCormack as a "pedophile pimp." Vaillancourt wrote, "This pedophile enabler has blood (and perhaps other bodily fluids) both figuratively and perhaps literally on his hands...The Bishop has disgraced the Catholic Church."  See here.

The highly emotional and erratic Republican lawmaker had to be physically removed from the state House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon after making a Nazi salute during a contentious debate about limiting what is considered valid voter identification.  The Huffington Post is reporting that the angry Republican "shouted, 'Sieg Heil' and moved his hand in the air after House Speaker William O'Brien (R-Mont Vernon) restricted what he could address during a floor debate on an amendment to a state voter ID bill. O'Brien had restricted what Vaillancourt could say about the full bill, saying that he could not reference the House Election Law Committee's discussion, only the issues presented in the committee report.


O'Brien, who had previously threatened to toss Vaillancourt from the floor, used Vaillancourt's outburst to have the veteran lawmaker moved off the floor. It is the first time in at least a decade that a House member has been removed from the chamber in New Hampshire. House members then voted 238 to 103 to allow Vaillancourt to apologize to the full chamber in order to be allowed back in, setting off further debate when Vaillancourt did not apologize in the manner that O'Brien had expected.

'Part of the apology is to get the record straight. I did not use the word 'Hitler,' Vaillancourt said before O'Brien ordered him away from the podium.

State House police were called to remove Vaillancourt from the chamber, where he was sitting in his seat, with several House members tweeting that he would not leave. Rep. Christopher Serlin (D-Portsmouth) tweeted that "Stand Our Ground" was shouted by House members just before police physically removed Vaillancourt from the chamber. O'Brien also had Vaillancourt's voting card taken from him to prevent him from casting votes. A committee was formed by O'Brien that would meet with Vaillancourt to discuss his apology." (See here).

Dr. Germain Grisez, addressing the responsibilities which accompany communication, writes, "All communication should be open to community, and mutual good will and honor are essential for that purpose.  Pleasantness in speech and manner manifests good will and the desire to please others.  Marks of courtesy - polite words, gestures, and other actions - manifest not only respect for persons insofar as they are persons, but the honor appropriate for each in accord with his or her social status, the relationship of persons, and other circumstances (S.t., 2-2, q. 114, a. 1).  Hence, in communicating, people should always be courteous and pleasant (See Col 4: 6), unless it is unavoidable to sadden others or there is some reason for not trying to please them."

Representative Vaillancourt had no such reason.  His was merely a temper tantrum, an emotional outburst because he couldn't have his own way.  For that reason, the sophomoric lawmaker should be censured appropriately.

The ugly face of anti-Catholicism in New Hampshire

Courtesy of The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

Tuesday April 5, 2011


N.H. REPUBLICANS ARE IN TROUBLE

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the reaction he has gotten from some New Hampshire Republicans in the wake of the Catholic League protest of Rep. David Bettencourt's attack on Bishop McCormack:

Never in the nearly 18 years I have spent as president of the Catholic League have I seen more totally irresponsible statements issued by the lawmakers in any one state. While some Republicans—and all of those attacking the Catholic League are Republicans—are merely upset with our criticism of Rep. Bettencourt, two have clearly crossed the line.

Rep. Lynne Ober wrote the following to us in an e-mail: "I agree that it is certainly unfortunate that the Catholic League chooses to harbor a person who helped pedophiles continue abusing children."

Rep. Andrew Manuse wrote this missive: "I am now considering a bill to remove the Church's tax exempt status in New Hampshire, for you have clearly shown that you no longer want it."

I have a challenge for the two of them.

Why doesn't Ober take the next step by personally accusing me of harboring a person who helped pedophiles continue to abuse children? Organizations can't sue for libel, but individuals can.

Why doesn't Manuse go right ahead with his bill to remove the Church's tax-exempt status? We'd love to present his e-mail in court.

Didn't anyone ever tell these lawmakers to be careful what they put in writing? In any event, it's time these two heard from our members.

Contact Ober: skibear@cheerful.com

Contact Manuse: amanuse@gmail.com

Calling all Catholics of the Worcester Diocese....let's rally behind Bishop McManus

I have just submitted the following piece to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. I'm hoping that it sees the light of day there:


At the 51st annual Red Mass held recently at St. Paul Cathedral, His Excellency The Most Reverend Robert J. McManus reminded those present that the greatest act of compassion which those in the legal and judicial fields can show is trying to ensure that the laws and statutes of the United States always protect the dignity of the human person. Sadly, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has not shown such compassion in recent years.

On November 18, 2003, the SJC ruled, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, that two members of the same sex have a right to marriage under the constitution of the Bay State. Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, writing for the majority, wrote that the state’s constitution "affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals" and "forbids the creation of second-class citizens" and that the state had no constitutionally adequate reason for denying marriage to same-sex couples.

While this decision of the SJC is long on emotional appeal, it is short on substance. Article VII of the Constitution of the State of Massachusetts (1780) states clearly that, "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people.." According to this same article, government is not instituted for the "private interest" of individuals and certain classes of men. And what do we mean by the "common good"? The Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing the Letter of Barnabas, a Christian document which dates to the first or early second century, provides an answer: "In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to the human person: ‘Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together’ CCC, 1905). The Catechism then provides us with a precise definition in paragraphs 1906 to 1909: "By common good is to be understood ‘the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.’ The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority. It consists of three essential elements: First, the common good presupposes respect for the person as such...Second, the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself...Finally, the common good requires peace, that is, the stability and security of a just order."

In Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the SJC failed to uphold the common good and to acknowledge that government is instituted for the very purpose of promoting and defending the common good. With all due respect to Chief Justice Marshall, there is "constitutionally adequate reason" for denying marriage to same-sex couples. Same-sex "marriage" violates the common good. It does this on both the individual and social plane. On the individual plane, as Dr. Germain Grisez explains, "...although it is true that partners in sodomy also could conceivably share in a committed relationship with sincere mutual affection and express their feelings in ways that would be appropriate in any friendship, the coupling of two bodies of the same sex cannot form one complete organism and so cannot contribute to a bodily communion of persons. Hence, the experience of intimacy of the partners in sodomy cannot be the experience of any real unity between them. Rather, each one’s experience of intimacy is private and incommunicable, and is no more a common good than is the mere experience of sexual arousal and orgasm. Therefore, the choice to engage in sodomy for the sake of that experience of intimacy in no way contributes to the partners’ real common good as committed friends."

On the social plane, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained in a document entitled Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, "The inevitable consequences of legal recognition of homosexual unions would be the redefinition of marriage, which would become, in its legal status, an institution devoid of essential reference to factors linked to homosexuality; for example, procreation and raising children. If, from the legal standpoint, marriage between a man and a woman were to be considered just one possible form of marriage, the concept of marriage would undergo a radical transformation, with grave detriment to the common good. By putting homosexual unions on a legal plane analogous to that of marriage and the family, the State acts arbitrarily and in contradiction with its duties." (No. 8).

Our forefathers, the very men who made this Commonwealth and who crafted its Constitution, understood that government exists to serve the common good and that all society, both religious and civil, and every legal tradition of both authority and liberty, exist for the protection and perfection of the human person. Moreover, our forefathers (and this includes former Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court) recognized the ends and the purposes of marriage. They understood that matrimony is the creative cause of the social unit, the family.

For example, Justice Charles Ambrose DeCourcy (1857-1924) interpreted the special dignity of marriage with these rational words, "By the law of the Commonwealth marriage is regarded as more than a civil contract. After cohabitation, at least, it ripens into a status which affects the parties thereto, their posterity and the whole community...it is a change which, for important reasons, the law recognizes, and it inaugurates conditions and relations which the law takes under its protection." (Richardson v. Richardson, 246 Mass. 353, 354, 104. N.E. 73 (1923), quoting from Smith v. Smith, 171 Mass. 404, 407, 50 N.E. 933, 934 (1898).

Justice George Tyler Bigelow (1810-1878) said that, "The great object of marriage in a civilized and Christian community, is to secure the existence and permanence of the family relation, and to ensure the legitimacy of offspring..." (Reynolds v. Reynolds, 85 Mass.(3 Allen) 605-607 (1862).

For these Justices, marriage was something "more than a civil contract." They would have understood the teaching of Pope Pius XI in his Encyclical On Christian Marriage that, "Matrimony was neither established nor restored by man but by God. It has been protected, strengthened, and elevated not by the laws of men, but by those of God, the Author of human nature, and of Christ who restored that same nature. Consequently, these laws cannot be changed according to men’s pleasure." They would have understood this great Pontiff’s teaching that marriage has its origin "in God." They would have respected the Author of marriage, the common good and the dignity of the human person.

What a shame that we cannot say the same about the Justices who decided it was their prerogative to redefine marriage.

Philip Lawler and Canon Law

"There's a lot of controversy among people who study the so-called Holocaust..There's a misperception that Hitler had a position to kill all the Jews. It's all a fraud. Six million people..it didn't occur." - Douglas Bersaw of the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, quoted in The Boston Globe article "Cherishing an Older Catholicism."


Fr. Edward Arsenault, Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Manchester, wrote a letter to Mrs. Terri O'Rorke in which he stated that Bishop John McCormack has asked the faithful "to refrain from participating in any of the spiritual exercises at the Saint Benedict Center [in Richmond, NH]." To which he added, "For my part, I will continue to make it clear that Saint Benedict Center has no affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church in any way.."

Now canon 212 of the Code of Canon Law makes it clear that, "The Christian faithful, conscious of their own responsibility, are bound by Christian obedience to follow what the sacred pastors, as representatives of Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or determine as leaders of the Church."

And canon 223 of the Code of Canon Law states that, "In exercising their rights the Christian faithful, both as individuals and when gathered in associations, must take account of the common good of the Church and of the rights of others as well as their own duties toward others."

As part of a recent Blog post, "I wrote: "It is very troubling that Mr. Philip Lawler will be attending the 2008 Saint Benedict Center Conference which is to be held in Nashua, New Hampshire next month. This because the Center has no relationship with the Roman Catholic Church and has been listed as an anti-Semitic hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center."

I stand by this statement. And I would still like to know why Mr. Lawler attended the 2008 Saint Benedict Center Conference as a guest speaker. Especially since The Most Reverend John McCormack had previously asked the faithful "to refrain from participating in any of the spiritual exercises at the Saint Benedict Center."

Was Mr. Lawler aware of Bishop McCormack's stance relative to the faithful participating in the spiritual exercises and activities of the Saint Benedict Center? If so, why did he ignore the Bishop on this matter? Would such an attitude constitute compliance with canon 212? Isn't it true that Bishop McCormack, as both a representative of Christ and a leader of the Church, should have been obeyed in this matter?

And what of canon 223? Again, the canon states that: "In exercising their rights the Christian faithful, both as individuals and when gathered in associations, must take account of the common good of the Church and of the rights of others as well as their own duties toward others."

If Mr. Lawler was aware of the Bishop's stance regarding participation of the faithful in the spiritual exercises and activities of the Saint Benedict Center and chose to ignore His Excellency, can we honestly say that he was he taking into account "the common good of the Church" and his own "duties toward others"?

In a comment left at this Blog, Mr. Lawler wrote (in part): "I do not endorse or support anti-semitism or Holocaust denial. Anyone who knows me realizes that those charges are outrageous." To which I responded (in part): "Mr. Lawler, it is good to know that you are not supportive of anti-Semitism. And no one here has accused you of such. Therefore, kindly refrain from suggesting otherwise...

You write, 'If I had been aware of the statements attributed above to the St. Benedict Center, I would have reconsidered my appearance (which has already taken place). And if anyone can demonstrate that those quotes are accurate I will denounce them.' If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with the Saint Benedict Center in Richmond before agreeing to appear as a guest speaker at their Conference, you would have learned that the local Ordinary, The Most Rev. John B. McCormack, has referred to statements issued by the Center as being offensive to all people of good will. You would have familiarized yourself with the article published by The Boston Globe and entitled 'Cherishing an older Catholicism' which states that, 'The St. Benedict Center has no relationship with the Diocese of Manchester, and Bishop [John B.] McCormack has not given them permission to do ministry in New Hampshire," said Diane Murphy Quinlan, the diocese's vice chancellor. "They are not in union with the church.'

If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with the Center, you would have learned that the television program Chronicle devoted an episode to the anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial of the Center. Perhaps in the future you should exercise some common sense and good judgment before associating yourself with an organization which is so questionable. The Saint Benedict Center is not in communion or affiliated in any way with the Roman Catholic Church. A simple google search would have revealed this to you. If you're still not satisfied, why not contact the Diocese of Manchester yourself?"

Let's hope that Mr. Lawler will provide us all with some clarification.