Massachusetts is the home of many well-known Catholic politicians who have checked their religion at the door, particularly on critical moral issues like life and traditional marriage. One elected official from the Commonwealth, however, uses his devout Catholic faith as a foundation for his public service.
His name is Thomas M. Finneran and he happens to be the powerful Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, a state that knows politics.
The 54-year-old from an Irish section of Boston called Mattapan explains that politics consists of “short-term impulses” and dealing with an ever-changing “fickle public which can make politicians feel like they are in a free-fall as you try and find a point of equilibrium.”
For the Speaker, his equilibrium is a strong Catholic faith, which is not just his rock for dealing with hot-button social issues but represents his entire philosophy of governing. “Religion provides stability,” he says. “It is a deep keel of stability upon which I can stand more comfortably against the turbulent tide of politics.”
There is no greater political turbulence than what he faced last February when the Massachusetts legislature was forced to address the issue of gay marriage because the Commonwealth’s liberal activist judicial Supreme Court mandated that the state begin “marrying” same-sex couples on May 17, 2004. With their backs against the wall, a deeply divided State House and State Senate came together in a constitutional convention in an attempt invoke a procedure that would eventually allow the state’s citizens to have a vote on this critical issue. Pro-family groups and gay-rights advocates from across the country flocked to the Bay State as the entire world looked on.
At the center of the storm was Speaker Finneran, who waded in forcefully defending traditional marriage. “I’ve run several Boston Marathons, but participating in this convention felt as if I had run three of them in the same day without the normal feeling of satisfaction that goes with completing a race,” he says. “I have never seen the Legislature this divided before over an issue. We were all facing our own Passions: please Lord if you will allow this cup to pass…” he said, his voice trailing off.
The Speaker points out that the courts are forcing the Commonwealth to engage “in an experiment with the most important human arrangement we have. Marriage consisting of one man and one woman is critical to our society from a social, cultural, spiritual, and legal basis.”
The courts have taken a “huge issue with so much at stake and trivialized it,” he continues. They didn’t “even think through the consequences, they have just embarked on a high-risk road without a way to appropriately address the issue.” He adds that “instead of allowing such an issue to be debated and letting the emotional air escape through the legislative process, which is where it should be vetted, the courts came to us and said ‘here it is, a fait accompli.’”
Speaker Finneran sees the assault on marriage as a continuation of the general tearing down that began in the 1960s of many of our society’s institutions such as “the church, fatherhood, schools, police, and our political infrastructure.”
A greater travesty to the Speaker than the attacks on our nation’s cherished institutions over the last forty years, however, are the attacks on life since Roe v. Wade.
What abortion has brought to Massachusetts, like every other state, is an “extremely frightening indifference and coarse casualness towards human life,” he says. “My gosh, we spend more time trying to defend the beeping toad of Arizona or some grasshopper from California then we do about protecting human life. Its nuts.”
Speaker Finneran points out that “today’s medical science such as 3-D imaging has made a laughingstock of the original premises of Roe. Life is so clearly there from the point of conception and it continues to develop; it boggles the mind that anyone can think differently these days.”
When it comes to legislating, the Speaker brings a consistent approach whether it is abortion, the environment or taxes. “I tell my colleagues that as often as not, regardless of the issue, we are going to get it wrong. It’s not that we are dumb, it’s that we don’t always have all the answers or our initial premises may be wrong.”
That being the case, he instructs other legislators, “Let’s err on the side of caution, especially when it comes to human life. Let us be in error in defense of human rights rather than be on the side of extinguishing it,” which is why the Speaker also opposes the death penalty.
While Finneran understands and articulately communicates the legal, philosophical, and theological foundations of the Church’s position on the sanctity of human life, for him and his wife Donna, the issue is poignantly personal as well.
“Donna came from a family of six and I came from a family of seven and when we got married we both wanted a huge family and joked about having eleven kids,” he says. Rather than being blessed with a large family, Donna and Tom Finneran instead endured a tremendous amount of suffering.
“We lost a number of children along the way. We had a son who lived for only a few hours after he was born and a set of twins who died in the womb,” he recalls. “There were also ectopic pregnancies and other setbacks along the way. I guess our big family was not meant to be.”
This tragic experience has made him “much more philosophical. The scar tissue is definitely there. It’s part of who I am,” he explains.
The Finnerans do have two children, Kelley and Shannon. “While we would always cherish our girls regardless, those miscarriages and losses have made us truly aware that life, every life, is a gift from God,” he says. “It’s truly a miracle.”
Given his hectic schedule as Speaker, he is out many evenings during the week. “The weekend is my family time and I am very strict about that,” he says. “I try not to schedule anything regarding work, with one exception. If a pro-life group invites me to participate in a weekend function, for that cause, I will accept their invitation.”
The Finneran family will grow by one son-in-law next New Year’s Eve when his daughter Kelley gets married at St. Gregory’s Church in Dorchester, the same church that the Speaker attended as a boy with his family and where he is still an active member. “It’s a beautiful parish where I am a lector and an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist,” he explains.
With issues like embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage, abortion, and euthanasia threatening us every day, it’s reassuring to know that God has placed faithful servants like Tom Finneran in high places.
St. Thomas More, pray for Speaker Finneran and for us.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange
Craig Richardson is the founder of the recently launched Catholic Action Network, an organization committed to calling Catholics to authentic and faithful citizenship particularly on issues of life and family. He has twenty years of national, state, and local political experience and is currently the principal of Richardson Consulting, LLC, a political fundraising firm based in Washington, D.C. He was confirmed as a Roman Catholic in 2000 and in the fall of that year he enrolled in a master’s of arts program in Catholic Systematic and Moral Theology at the Notre Dame Graduate School affiliated with Christendom College. He is married to Elizabeth Richardson and is the father of two boys.
