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God give me the strength to explain this clearly. Cardinal O’Boyle was an extraordinary man, but one of his best moments is generally forgotten, and when it is remembered, it is more often than not by people who resented what he did.  In August, 50 years ago, he threw away a large portion of his fan club, because he had to get a job done.  The civil rights movement was wrestling toward real strength, but could still be undermined and destroyed from within.  He saw the threat, confronted it, and prevailed – pretty much alone – and he was reviled for it. The problem was violence within the civil rights movement.  To this day, after the world has seen nonviolence prevail in Gandhi’s India, in the American civil rights movement, in Solidarity’s Poland, in Aquino’s Philippines, in Mandela’s South Africa – still! still! after a list of stunning victories – most people are blissfully ignorant about how this thing works, totally unaware of the fragility of a campai...

Cardinal Patrick A. O'Boyle: Stand firm in the faith! Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle was a civil rights pioneer, and a strong voice for personal morality. In a time when the nation is so bitterly divided that we don’t expect Congress to pass a budget, let alone any other significant bill, we need a Church that is capable of love and justice.  It’s crazy when the right (pro-family, pro-morality) and left (pro-immigrant, pro-justice) wings of the Church attack each other!  Every single healthy bird on the planet has two wings!  Every single prophet in the history of the Church has called for morality and justice, both!  How did we get so polarized?  Can we stop it? Recall Cardinal O’Boyle, and celebrate his work! On August 28, the nation will mark the 50 th  anniversary of a great event in our history, the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  It was a great event in the midst of grea...