U.S. Catholics will look back at Cuomo’s tenure for decades to come

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(OPINION) The recent resignation of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, amid a drumbeat of multiple accusations of sexual harassment that highlighted the last few months, characterized a mighty fall for a politician many had long admired.

Over the course of a year, Cuomo went from being a national hero for his handling of the pandemic to just another disgraced politician. This fall from grace wasn’t lost on the millions of Catholics who live in the state and across the country. As a lifelong resident of New York and a journalist, I have closely followed the careers of Andrew Cuomo and his family for nearly two decades. What has evolved is a complex portrait that includes politics, power and plenty of pain.

The three-time governor leaves behind a mixed legacy among Roman Catholics. Like his father Mario (who also served three terms as New York governor and was for years on the short-list of lawmakers who could be president), Cuomo represented a new generation of progressive Catholic politicians in this country. As the Democratic party has moved more to the left over the past decade, prominent Catholics — such as President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Virginia Senator (and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential running mate) Tim Kaine — have had to balance their faith with the party’s left-leaning platform.

The elder Cuomo, who died in 2015, said he had been deeply formed by his Catholic faith. During his famous 1984 speech at Notre Dame, he said, “The Catholic church is my spiritual home. My heart is there and my hope.”

At the time, Cuomo’s relationship with the U.S. bishops became strained as the 1980s wore on, especially over the issue of abortion. It’s not too different from what we see these days between Biden and many within the Catholic hierarchy in this country. During the Notre Dame speech, Cuomo also famously said he was personally opposed to abortion, but politically he did not want to make it illegal to obtain one in this country.

That takes us to the present and the legacy of Andrew Cuomo, who will officially leave office on Aug. 25, as both a Catholic and a politician. Raymond J. de Souza, a priest and editor of Convivium magazine, noted the following in The Catholic Register after Cuomo resigned on Aug. 11:

Mario Cuomo practiced his faith and took the public consequences of that faith seriously. Thus, when he found himself at odds with the clear teaching of the Church on the right to life, he made a public argument to explain his “personally opposed, publicly pro-choice” position. It was an argument more of political convenience than philosophical coherence, but it was an argument.

Andrew was neither his father’s intellectual nor rhetorical equal, and would not, even if he had tried, been capable of coherent argument in political philosophy, let alone moral philosophy. He didn’t even try. He was grasping — in the metaphorical sense, not only in the groping sense — and only did what was politically necessary.

His Catholic significance is that he no longer judged it necessary to make arguments about how to reconcile his Catholic faith with his embrace of the extreme abortion license. He simply sacrificed his faith to his politics and got on with the pursuit of power.

It was just one of the many comments over the past week regarding Cuomo’s legacy in the broader context of being a Catholic politician. Kathryn Jean Lopez, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, went a step further in a recent column:

His behavior with women is totally in keeping with the politics of expanding abortion, in which he has been a leader — in a place already described by some as the abortion capital of the world, no less. But while he unapologetically claims that the accusations of sexual harassment are just generational misunderstandings, the problem is really the sexual revolution and its accompanying disrespect for women. Just about every time I pray outside an abortion clinic, I see it — in the form of boyfriends who often won’t even bother to open the car door for their supposed partners — but as the #MeToo movement hinted, it’s everywhere.

In 2019, Cuomo signed into law legislation that codified Roe v. Wade into New York state law. The legislation came during the presidency of Donald Trump, where many political progressives feared Republicans would roll back abortion rights. Political conservatives and many Catholics recoiled at what Cuomo, a former altar server, did at the time, some even calling on his excommunication from the Church.

Even among Catholic progressives, the Cuomo scandal has been a tragic end for a man many had once admired. Jim McDermott, writing in the Jesuit publication America, noted the similarities between Cuomo’s downfall and the clergy sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the church in recent decades. McDermott, a priest, observed the following:  

The more I sit with what we have learned, the more disgusted I become with myself, as well. Our recent history is filled with stories of celebrated men who have secretly perpetrated horrific acts of one form or another, often with the assistance or tacit acceptance of many others. My entire work life as a priest has included one wave after another of revelations of violence and cover-up in the church, some of them including acts perpetrated by men I have lived with or deeply admired, and institutional leadership often continuing to lean into secrecy despite it all. The sexual abuse of children is a different situation than Andrew Cuomo’s, but underlying it is the same issue of power, abuse and cover-up.

I am as fond as anyone of dismissing conspiracy theorists, but I wonder who is the bigger fool —the person who sees conspiracies where they aren’t or the one who continues to be surprised to discover that rich and powerful people that we trust are secretly engaged in reprehensible deeds?

Cuomo’s controversial politics wasn’t limited to abortion. Many Catholics were angered by his backing same-sex marriage, handling of the pandemic (where churches and houses of worship were closed) and suspension of the statute of limitations for a year in order to allow victims of clergy abuse to sue the church for allegations that went back decades. By contrast, Republican politicians who are also Catholics struggle with the church’s position regarding welcoming immigrants, applying Catholic Social Teaching to an economy dominated by capitalism and the death penalty.

In a now-telling moment, Cuomo last year unveiled a statute of Mother Cabrini, who died in 1917 after decades of caring for the poor, in New York City by praising her work.

“We all know that these are challenging times, but we also know that in the book of life, it is not what one does when the sun is shining that tests our mettle,” he said. “It’s what one does in the fury of the storm. And that’s where we are today.”

Indeed, what one does — both when the sun is shining and in the fury of a storm — is what matters most. Catholics across New York and the country will ponder the Cuomo years for decades to come. That is where we are today.

Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi