Pro-abortion rights/pro-contraception “devout Catholic ” Chris Matthews will be speaking at College of the Holy Cross Monday night to speak about his book on Catholic president John F. Kennedy.
A short synopsis of recent comments from Matthews should show why this invitation is troubling.
In speaking about the Church’s stance on gay marriage, Matthews recently said, “If you’re really anti-gay, you become a Catholic now.”
Matthews compared efforts to regulate the practice of abortion to Jim Crow laws with their literacy tests in the South aimed at preventing African-Americans from voting.Matthews reportedly told pro-life Republican Ken Blackwell that if pro-lifers want “to stop the number of abortions in this country” they should “help people get birth control procedures available to them.”
Speaking of the rights of the unborn, Matthews reportedly said, “Pursuit is a word, an active verb. I don’t think you’d associate that with a fetus. And certainly liberty is a word you would apply to people who are alive and born. I don’t know what it means to say an unborn person has liberty. I don’t even know how the Constitution, you could possibly catch up in its original intent to what these people are talking about.”
Hectoring Bishop Tobin in one of the most disrespectful interviews in recent memory, Matthews reportedly scolded him, saying:
Your problem is you haven’t gotten people to obey your moral code through teaching and you have resorted now to use the law to do your enforcement for you. And the problem with that is you are hesitant, even here your Excellency, to state for me now what the punishment should be under the law for having an abortion, because you know, deep down, if you said one minute in prison, you would be laughed at, because the American people, Catholic and non-Catholic, do not think it’s a criminal act to have an abortion.
Matthews also reportedly compared pro-lifers to terrorists.
In 2003, when Matthews was honored at commencement ceremonies at both Holy Cross and the University of Scranton, the bishops of both Catholic schools – Worcester Bishop Daniel P. Reilly and Scranton Bishop James Timlin – boycotted the ceremonies.
Matthews reportedly questioned why pro-life Republicans would want to defund Planned Parenthood which offers contraception. “The Republicans are not happy with just cutting spending for old people. They want to get rid of birth control help, which baffles me if you’re against abortion.”
All these comments are even more damaging because he’s been described in reports as a “devout Catholic.” Holy Cross, in their press release, called Matthews “a proud and devoted 1967 graduate of Holy Cross” who has “distinguished himself as a journalist, Washington bureau chief, presidential speechwriter, congressional staffer and best-selling writer.”
