Bishop Patrick V. Ahern
Last week two New York giants died within days of each other; one a pro-abortion political trailblazer who did much to advance abortion, and the other an auxiliary bishop who left behind him a legacy of life-giving love to handicapped children and their families. The politician is Geraldine Ferraro (my commentary on her right to a funeral mass here), and the bishop, none other than Patrick V. Ahern.
Ferraro was the first woman vice-presidential candidate, and rabidly pro-abortion. She hailed from New York City and her nomination electrified the nation. For as earth-shattering as the idea of a woman on the presidential ticket was, the American people weren’t buying what she was selling and buried Mondale-Ferraro in the largest electoral landslide in American History. The only state they carried was Mondale’s home state. Ferraro couldn’t even carry her home state, liberal New York, the first state to legalize abortion on demand fourteen years earlier. It was a bloodbath.
It was the mid-80’s and New York belonged to John Cardinal O’Connor who famously went after Ferraro and then-Governor Mario Cuomo on their irreconcilable pro-abortion polemics and self-professed Catholicism. I had just entered the college seminary system and had the good fortune to go out to dinner one night with Staten Island’s Vicar, Auxiliary Bishop Ahern. At dinner, the conversation turned to Cuomo and his protestation that as Governor he couldn’t push his own private beliefs and that he was bound by an oath sworn on the Bible to uphold the law of the land. As only young men can do, I looked Bishop Ahern dead in the eye and asked if the Church was suggesting that Cuomo violate his oath. I also asked if the Governor was permitted to allow his private faith into public office. Bishop Ahern’s answer was one for the ages.
He smiled his warm and gracious smile and explained that the Church fully expected the Governor to uphold the law of the land and his constitutional oath. However, Bishop Ahern went on, all politicians work from within the political system, using the machinery of politics to effect what they perceive to be just laws. Cuomo as Governor can work with legislators to get legislation sponsored on any matter he believes to be an injustice in need of remediation. That’s what was done in the Civil Rights movement. That he does not is an indication that he’s being less than honest when he claims to be personally opposed to abortion but unable to act on what he believes to be an injustice.
Bishop Ahern went further. Governor Cuomo is personally opposed to capital punishment, yet repeatedly vetoes any legislation put on his desk for signature, that would reinstate capital punishment. Thus, the Governor shows his duplicity, the same for Ferraro who works to enact legislation on a range of issues that are informed by her conscience.
Now that was greatness. They were a great duo, O’Connor and Ahern. Now they’re gone, along with the rest of their pro-life generation of Bishops, There are few left like them. What we have now are men who cower, fearful of losing our tax exempt status should we proclaim the Gospel of Life and hold our Catholic pro abort politicians to account. Such timidity is a death spiral for the Church.
If we cower for fear of losing our tax-exempt status, then what good does that status avail us? We’ll lose the churches in which we cower and no longer boldly proclaim the Gospel. If we refuse to engage the Culture of Death and deal firmly with Catholic generals in the enemy camp, then we should lose our churches.
Christianity thrives when we don’t cower and count the cost of discipleship. That’s the lesson of Mary and the Apostles. The Church withers and dies when we do. That’s the lesson of the current crop of Bishops.
It’s stand and be counted time. It’s also time to fast and pray for our bishops.
Coming Home 
I hate to say it, but I dislike, as a woman, being force- fed an idolatry of a woman who looks, quite literally, like a harpy. I was young once, too, and fully favored. The women put up for admiration- I didn’t notice this- a man did- said the women on TV had such hard, baked faces- what were their souls like?
I’m forty, and pudgy, and I walk slowly, tugged by three children this way and that. I can be scattered in my attention- look at this! look at this!- but I look like the mothers around me. At the park and at the pool there is a woman who has never had children, or even desired them. She’s slim, and her face is expressive and individualistic. But it’s hard, and you can see the skull peeking out, barely masked by the skin.
Why are we supposed to admire, and fete with attention, such cruel women? These are not kind faces. These are not mature faces. These are heartless and unkind and selfish faces. Why are we informed that we idolize these faces?
Ari,
I do not understand the connection between Ferrero and the childless woman at the park and pool? Unless you know her personally, you don’t know if the childless woman is unkind and selfish.
Not every woman wants children. Not every woman wants your life.
Monsignor Cavan while teaching in Holy Apostles seminary lamented, “this is the first time since the Crucifixion of Christ, that there is no Western Bishop in prison for his faith.”
That is why we are in such a position of spiritual poverty, where we consider Geraldine Ferraro a heroine.
I prefer to hold up Ellen McCormack as a role model. She ran for president before Ferraro in 1976 on the Right to Life Ticket in New York State. She was told to abort her son, now 46 due to a heart condition. Apparently she survived, and just passed away this week at 84. Now hers will be a Catholic funeral worth attending!
Ari,
Though we’ve never met, you’re beautiful to me.
Yes, the women who lead the charge for abortion are hard-baked. Their visage may well be that way from earlier unresolved trauma, but I believe it becomes stonier as one distances oneself from one’s humanity.
There is a soft and gentle beauty to 40, pudgy, and being pulled in three directions by little ones. There is a harmony and grace there that is beautiful beyond words. A woman not at war with her nature or her offspring.
Your husband is a blessed man. Tell him I said so!
😉
I still think Ari wrote a mean statement. Maybe women have stony faces because of hard times that have nothing to do with abortion. Maybe Ari should be nice to stony-faced women (SFW). Maybe you, Ari, are giving bad vibes to the SFW, and they don’t like you. Sometimes when people smile their faces light up, and they’re beautiful.
And why are we talking about beauty on this blog? The pro-life movement does not need catty women.
Dr. Nadal,
Well said on the passing of Geraldine Ferraro and Bishop Ahern. Please remember Ellen McCormack. As one who was very involved in the Pro-life cause at the time of O’Connor v. Ferraro I do wish to state that the American Bishops of that time were far more (ahem) risk-averse than today’s. In New York, we were greatly favored with O’Connor, Ahern, Vaughn, etc. but I read statements today from Bishops in Denver, Sacramento, Oakland, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and many other places which would never have been offered back then. These Bishops (and many others) talk like Pro-Lifers. We are getting there, hopefully not too late.
At the park and at the pool there is a woman who has never had children, or even desired them. She’s slim, and her face is expressive and individualistic. But it’s hard, and you can see the skull peeking out, barely masked by the skin.
Why are we supposed to admire, and fete with attention, such cruel women? These are not kind faces. These are not mature faces. These are heartless and unkind and selfish faces. Why are we informed that we idolize these faces?
— Jim Morrison?
POSTED: If you’re unable to bear children, avoid this, or any other, public park! Additionally, eat well, very well, and you may be forgiven… (it’s up to me though).
Dah, dah, dah, dah… people are strange, when you’re a stranger, faces look ugly, when your saftig… women seem wicked, when you walk slowly, streets are unven… and they’re down!
When you’re strange… faces “peak” out of the rain… when you strain, noone remembers your veins, when it rains, when you’re strange, when you’re skiiiinnyyyyy…..
At the park, there is a woman who has never had children. No tall children, short children, children who climb on rocks… no fat children, skinny children, even children with chicken pox,
…would make this, woman human…. the dooogs kidds love to eaaaaaat!
— Oscar Meyer (or was it King Tut?)
I’m not trying to pick on the woman at the park. She is a woman who chose to never have children or to get married, or anything. I’m just looking at this very sculptured, hard face of Ms Ferraro. I’ve read all week how I ( female, around in the seventies) look up to Ms Ferraro, and her many, many accomplishments. I’m trying to compare her face to a face and person I’m familiar with.
I am nice to the woman at the park. She wants the attention I give to my son when he is showing off his swimming skills. I praise him, and am pleased with him. She comes and sits down next to me, and tells me what she is up to. She wants to hear the same things; ” I’m glad you are doing so well. I am glad you are here. I am glad you are healthy.” She doesn’t ask about me- she’s not interested in friendship. She wants the love and attention I shower on my child for herself. And the thing is, there is enough to go around. I can be gentle and attentive to her, in the same way I am gentle and attentive to my own son, b/c I’ve already done work on that in his toddlerhood. And then, when he gets in the car, and is frustrated, b/c our time has been interrupted by her, I have to say ” I’m so proud of you for being able to share. You get a lot of attention, and she wanted what you have. You got to practice hospitality and kindness, whether you planned on it, or not. I’m so proud of you.”
There are women in politics who have gentle faces. Just not Ms. Ferraro. There are older women in politics, with admirable and kind faces. I am just queased out beyond belief that I am informed that I admire her. I don’t.
It’s like the time someone pointed out only hard leftist get the Glamour Award each year. I thought it was odd that I knew so many young women and men deeply involved in their church ministries- effective ministries, I might add- who never showed up as award-winners.Maybe they didn’t try. But the slightly odd NGOs, with few friends, and honestly, not much effect, were winning plaudits. Or, say female politicians were always Democrats we loved. I mean, even Samantha Powers- I know her from a Glamour puff piece, not from big=think articles. it took someone else pointing out the common parts for me to notice.
I’m pointing out that a self-centered life seems to bring on a hard, unkind, harpy-ish set to one’s features. It’s been a long time in America since novellists talk about faces the way the IR english novellists did. I’m thinking, maybe, novellists in America are young, and we have Clinique and dentists, so the formations of one’s expression don’t show up for a long, long time, and then maybe, we just think all of them are age- related, rather than thinking, people age differently. Like, at church, it seems that old people’s faces are kind, and lively, and their features hold. But, say, my acquaintance who decided to build a porn site- his jawline slacked away in about two years flat. he was nearly unrecognizable. He looked like he was wax and set too close to a candle. His personality melted, too. It was heartbreaking.
There are mothers who are stunningly beautiful at the park. And there faces are soft. they are usually gentle, and somewhat reserved, and funny, too. I’m probably one of the shabbiest ones there.
and, well, I didn’t notice GFerraro’s face, or other hard faces on women of a certain bent. I was sitting watching TV with one of my more reprobate male acquaintances. He was shocked when he commented about a playboy bunny’s face. and the thing is, he was not a model of human-kindness, or morality, or anything. That’s what made it interesting. A hardened, reprobate, sexually voracious man was shocked by, basically, his counterpart.
Women’s faces can change. My dad has been single most of his life, so I get to see how a lot of women’s faces change, not just my mother. There are plain, kind nice young women. Now they are older, and they are beautiful. You might skip the first look, but then, they get more and more fascinating and beautiful. There’s one that I’m hoping against hope, that I end up like. She’s more beautiful now at fifty than she was at 20. A shallower, more unkind person- may stay skinny, but the skull starts showing, and the lines on the face are different- around the mouth, rather than around the eyes. My friend with no children, but a gentling, cherishing kind marriage- their faces, both of them, have become more gentle, and more luminous, as they age together.