Could homosexuality split the Catholic Church?

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the ebullient Archbishop of New York, has welcomed the ‘wise decision’ by organisers of the city’s St Patrick’s Day parade to lift their ban on gay groups marching under their own banners. He has ‘no problem with it at all’. His predecessor, Cardinal John O’Connor, who supported the ban in 1990, must be turning in his grave. More to the point, conservative American Catholics feel let down by Dolan, an orthodox and tribal prelate who likes to roll up his sleeves and jab in the direction of the snidely liberal New York Times.

Here’s the response of Deal Hudson, a leading Catholic Republican (and certainly not an anti-gay bigot):

Cardinal Dolan’s mistake, in this prudential matter, is precisely of the same kind made over and over by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops when it allows the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to invest its money in coalitions that contain organisations explicitly committed to ends such as abortion, gay marriage, and birth control.