Mario Cuomo, Politician | Commonweal Magazine

Mario Cuomo, Politician | Commonweal Magazine:

"Former New York governor Mario Cuomo, who died January 1 at the age of eighty-two, was a reader and supporter of, and occasional contributor to, this magazine. Cuomo’s unwavering support for abortion rights set him at odds with Commonweal’s opposition to the Roe decision and the magazine’s advocacy of restrictions on access to the procedure, but his willingness to engage his critics and explain in some detail why he thought prohibition was not a realistic or prudent option set him apart from most prochoice Catholic politicians.
So did his command of the church’s social teaching and tradition of moral reasoning, especially on the complex relationship between morality and the law. “I can offer you no final truths, complete and unchallengeable,” he said in his controversial speech on abortion at the University of Notre Dame in 1984. “But it’s possible this effort will provoke others—both in support and contradiction of my position—that will help all of us understand our differences and perhaps even discover some basic agreement.”
 Such agreement may seem even further from our grasp today than it did thirty years ago, but that never stopped Mario Cuomo from making the effort. His example should compel us to do the same.  "

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