Quote of the Day: Cardinal Richard Cushing, 1965

Next time you hear the Catholic hierarchy bloviating about how imposing their religious values on others is a matter of preserving their "religious freedom", remember these quotes from the contraception battle in Massachusetts in the 1960s from Roman Catholic Cardinal Richard Cushing.

1963:
“I have no right to impose my thinking, which is rooted in religious thought, on those who do not think as I do.”

1965:
In a written statement he declared that “Catholics do not need the support of civil law to be faithful to their own religious convictions and they do not seek to impose by law their moral views on others of society.” He found it unreasonable to “forbid in civil law a practice that can be considered a matter of private morality.” What’s more, he observed, laws needed a “reasonable correspondence” to community standards to be effective and enforceable.

Would that Cardinal Timothy Dolan would listen, mark, and inwardly digest.