It’s a small thing, really, but curious to note: The Providence Journal‘s “In Quotes: The Week That Was” section touches on Patrick Kennedy’s attack on the Catholic Church and Bishop Thomas Tobin’s reply, but it puts the bishop’s call for an apology first and then doesn’t quote the more aggressive line from Kennedy’s interview.
“If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health-care reform” is unduly political, but not really offensive. By contrast, declaring the Church’s insistence that federal healthcare dollars not fund abortion to be dishonest (i.e., “a red herring”) and contributory to civic violence (i.e., fanning “the flames of dissent and discord”) does justify a call for apology.
As I said: curious. But then, we already knew that Patches has a friend at the Projo.