Boston Catholic Priest Who Endorsed Joe Biden Says He’s Against Legal Abortion
By Matt McDonald | August 28, 2020, 8:42 EDT
The Catholic priest who endorsed Joe Biden and said he believes in “a woman’s right to choose” now says he opposes legal abortion.
Monsignor Paul Garrity, the pastor of two churches in Lexington, posted a statement on his Facebook page late Thursday night saying he is “totally against legalized abortion.”
Dear FriendsPlease accept my apology for the confusion and upset caused by the Facebook post concerning the…
Posted by Paul Garrity on Thursday, August 27, 2020
As New Boston Post reported earlier Thursday evening, Garrity posted a statement on Facebook earlier this week endorsing Biden for president, saying that Biden “is Pro-life like me.” Biden supports legal abortion and federal funding for abortion.
The priest did not directly mention in his pro-Biden post whether the government should make abortion illegal or keep it legal, but he used pro-legal-abortion language, saying “I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”
He subsequently described measures that could be taken to make it easier for a woman to choose to give birth and raise a child so that she “would have the freedom to choose life.”
Monsignor Garrity could not immediately be reached for comment by New Boston Post.
Garrity’s pro-Biden Facebook posting, which was reported Wednesday, August 26 by Catholic News Agency, drew a response from Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, on Thursday, August 27.
“The Catholic community has the right to expect the priests of the Archdiocese and those entrusted with handing on the faith to be clear and unequivocal on the Church’s teaching concerning respect and protection for life from the first moment of conception to natural death. This teaching is of the highest priority for the Church,” O’Malley said in a written statement.
O’Malley also said that Roman Catholic clerics and parishes should not publicly endorse or oppose candidates for public office.
As New Boston Post reported yesterday, Garrity on Thursday, August 19 posted a statement on his Facebook page praising the Democratic National Convention. That posting was deleted sometime after New Boston Post’s story appeared.
Screenshot images of Garrity’s Facebook posts about the Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden, and the priest’s opposition to legal abortion are below:
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Thursday, August 19, 2020:
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Tuesday, August 25, 2020:
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c. 9 p.m. Thursday, August 27, 2020