WHAT WILL CARDINAL DOLAN’S ROLE BE IN THE RUN-UP TO NOVEMBER ELECTIONS?

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Human Events:

Although the Democratic Party does not include Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s benediction on its official convention website this week, the powerful closing prayer from Charlotte Thursday has sent out powerful political shockwaves.

In closing the Democratic National Convention, the prayer of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York had a not-so-subtle appeal for the sanctity of life and for traditional marriage. In so doing, Cardinal Dolan directly challenged the Democratic Party’s platform planks — not to mention many prime-time speakers during the week — supporting “a woman’s right to choose” and, for the first time, gay marriage.

Now the questions start. Will His Eminence actually speak out in favor of the Romney-Ryan ticket in the fall? Will Cardinal Dolan follow the advice of a petition drive by many Roman Catholics and uninvite President Obama to the Alfred E. Smith banquet in New York this October, the largest event for Catholic charity in the nation?

In a benediction quite similar to that with which he closed the Republican National Convention in Tampa a week earlier, Cardinal Dolan said before Democrats in Charlotte Thursday: “Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us to defend it. Life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected.”

In an obvious reference to traditional marriage, Dolan went on to say in his benediction: “Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God. Empower us with your grace, so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community.”