ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON BACKS DOWN–ANTI-ICE SIGN TO
REMAIN AT DEDHAM PARISH
THROUGH CHRISTMAS
On December 5th—after days of intense controversy and national media coverage—Boston Archbishop Richard Henning ordered a Dedham priest to remove, from his church’s Nativity scene, a sign which attacked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Calling it divisive political messaging, the archdiocese said The Church’s norms prohibit the use of sacred objects for any purpose other than the devotion of God’s people.
The priest—Father Stephen Josoma, Pastor of Saint Susanna Parish—had, earlier that week, removed the figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph from the display, and replaced them with a sign which read: ICE WAS HERE, implying that the Holy Family would have been arrested by ICE.
Josoma—who had sworn obedience to his bishop on the day of his ordination—refused to comply with the archbishop’s instruction.
Instead, he demanded a meeting with Henning, asserting that We are waiting for an opportunity of dialogue and clarity with Bishop Henning before reaching any final decisions.
After nearly three weeks of inaction from the archdiocese, The Boston Globe reported that the anticipated meeting between Henning and Josoma will now occur sometime in January.
That means the offending sign and its political message—demonizing a federal law enforcement agency—will remain up through the twelve days of Christmas.
The Catholic Action League called the decision to schedule the meeting after Christmas “a craven capitulation by the archdiocese and a clear victory for a dissident priest with a long history of using his parish church as his personal political soapbox.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comments:
“The Catholic Church in America is littered with the cancelled bodies of conservative and pro-life priests who offended their bishops.
Father Josoma, a priest who politicized Christmas and then openly defied his archbishop, is now being, effectively, excused and rewarded for his malpractice and disobedience.
The double standard is appalling.
The treatment of Father Josoma stands in stark contrast to the punishment meted out by the archdiocese to Father Daniel Moloney, the MIT chaplain who, in a June 7, 2020 email, merely questioned whether racism played a part in the death of George Floyd.
Father Moloney was fired by Cardinal O’Malley within 48 hours, and the Cardinal issued a statement condemning his remarks.
The orthodox Moloney of course, unlike the uber-progressive Josoma, did not enjoy the support of Boston Globe columnists Joan Vennochi and Kevin Cullen, who, between them, produced three columns in four days castigating Archbishop Henning for presuming to object to the political posturing of one of his own priests.
Since the sexual abuse scandal of 2002, the Archdiocese of Boston has been consumed with burnishing its public relations, particularly with the city’s corporate class, political establishment and news media—‘rebuilding trust with civil society,’ as Father Bryan Hehir once characterized it.
It should come as no surprise therefore, that, in the end, Archbishop Henning decided that discretion was the better part of valor.”
