Cardinal Dolan Spends A Few Seconds Mentioning Violence Against ‘Some Homosexuals’

Cardinal Timothy Dolan today denounced anti-gay violence that has increased dramatically — sort of, kind of denounced. Dolan — the Archbishop of New York and, as the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) the highest-ranking Catholic in America — has been notably absent in acknowledging and denouncing the anti-gay hate-crime wave that has grasped his own city.

As of Friday night, New York City has been home to nine anti-LGBT violent hate crimes this month, and 27 this year — almost double the rate of last year, which saw a double-digit increase over the previous year.

LOOK: Cardinal Dolan Calls For Anti-LGBT Sermons In Shadow Of Violent Anti-Gay Hate Crime Wave

The New Civil Rights Movement on Sunday — after receiving reports that Dolan had instructed his Bishops nationwide to preach not against violence but against same sex marriage and LGBT relationships in the wake of the wave of crime and hate — noted:

Even the President of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, and the head of the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council, have denounced the violence.

But finally, Cardinal Dolan spoke. For nineteen seconds.

“You look at even the violence in our own city with some homosexuals who have recently been beaten and killed,” Dolan said this afternoon on Sirius XM’s Catholic Channel radio. “I mean that’s just awful, that flies in the face of divine justice. Every human life deserves dignity and respect, right? Anytime life is attacked we all suffer.”

That was the entire extent of Cardinal Dolan’s denunciation. About 19 seconds — four days after the latest anti-gay violent hate crime in NYC, and ten days after the murder of a gay man in Greenwich Village — out of his forty-two minute radio appearance.

The New York Archbishop did not name Mark Carson, the 32-year old gay man reportedly gunned down by a homophobic killer who called him a “faggot” and laughingly confessed to police upon his arrest that he indeed shot Carson to death: “I shot him in the face.”

The New York Archbishop did not mention the nine anti-gay violent hate crimes in his own city this month, nor the 27 in NYC this year. The New York Archbishop did not even  mention how he has contributed to the marginalization of the LGBT community, by demanding gay people wash their hands before entering St. Patrick’s Cathedral, his iconic home.

“Although Cardinal Dolan commented briefly — albeit vaguely — on the recent anti-gay hate crimes that occurred in New York City, His Eminence owes it to our understanding of human dignity to issue an unequivocal condemnation of these recent attacks,” Joseph Amodeo, a New York Catholic and LGBT activist who organized the recent “Dirty Hands” protest. “His mere mention of these heinous crimes ‘in passing’ is by no means the teachable moment that these acts of hate necessitate. As a Church we have an obligation to be a moral voice in the face of injustice. I truly hope that the Cardinal’s brief statement was only a hint at a forthcoming action of solidarity that will more clearly speak to the recent acts of darkness that have plagued our streets.”

 

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