Responding in a published letter to a May 14 New York Times article citing opposition by “feminists and population control advocates” to the appointment of Boston mayor Raymond L. Flynn as ambassador to the Vatican, Patrick Riley of the League’s Washington office noted that the Times had failed to list many of their objections.
Riley wrote that once the opponents had moved past the more obvious rhetoric about Flynn himself they turned to a direct attack on Roman Catholic doctrine and the status of the Vatican as a sovereign state. They even attacked Vatican policy toward its married women employees, stating that the policy required them to resign if they became pregnant.
Riley set the record straight on all points including quoting in detail the extremely liberal Vatican employee maternal leave policy which includes six-months at full pay and an option to extend it another six at half-pay! In addition, he noted, “the workday of a new mother is cut by two hours so that she can nurse the child.”
