E-Mail This Article to a Friend The Church’s weak hand The hierarchy resorts to browbeating its members over gay marriage. Plus, voters should choose the next senator, and Mitt Romney (surprise!) panders on taxes.

IT’S SAD, but unsurprising, that Massachusetts Catholics are being urged to punish legislators who opposed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Though some advocates of church-state separation argue that the Catholic Church should lose its tax exemption, the actions of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference appear to fall well within the bounds of constitutionally permissible educational activity. What’s truly fascinating is also less obvious: what this effort says about the weakness of the modern Church.

In the first few decades of the 20th century, Massachusetts legislators dared not act on matters of interest to the Church without first ascertaining the views of "Number One," as William Cardinal O’Connell was known. Later, all it took was an arched eyebrow from Richard Cardinal Cushing — beloved and respected in a way that is unimaginable today — to signal to Catholics, and their elected officials, where they should stand on a particular issue.

Over the past generation, though, Church leaders have forfeited the trust their followers once placed in them. First the Church lost touch with its increasingly well-educated, affluent parishioners over such issues as abortion rights, birth control, and the status of women. Then the hierarchy forfeited any claim to moral leadership as it became clear that the bishops — and Bernard Cardinal Law in particular — had covered up and enabled the misdeeds of scores of priests who sexually abused children in their care. The current round of church closings, though necessary, is further evidence that a once-powerful institution remains in turmoil.

Today, the sheer number of Catholics who vote remains impressive, but those votes have long since ceased to be cast as a bloc. In that context, the new campaign against gay marriage appears to be aimed more at browbeating than persuasion. A self-confident and powerful Catholic Church could afford to be take a subtler, more secular approach.

If the shepherd were more in tune with his flock, he wouldn’t have to use his staff to whack the sheep.

DEMOCRATS IN the legislature are taking part in some political gamesmanship aimed at denying a prize to Governor Mitt Romney. Under consideration is a bill that would take away the governor’s power to name an interim senator if one of the state’s two Senate seats becomes vacant — as would be the case if John Kerry is elected president. The law as it now stands would allow Romney to name a replacement — presumably a fellow Republican — who would serve until Kerry’s term expires, in 2006. The bill being considered would leave the seat vacant until a special election could be held.

Republicans have cried foul, complaining that the change would mainly benefit those Democratic congressmen who would like to move up to the Senate, and who could run in a special Senate election without losing their House seats. The GOP lament is that no Republican could raise enough money or gain enough name recognition in a short campaign to compete against a well-known, well-funded Democrat.

Well, too bad. Filling a vacant Senate seat by gubernatorial appointment is undemocratic, and the law that gives the governor such power is an anachronistic holdover. If a special election were held, Republicans would, after all, be allowed to run and to compete. It is hardly the fault of Democrats that Republicans fear they can’t win without a two-year head start. As for finding a Republican who’s popular and flush enough to win, Romney himself could run. That is, if he dares risk losing.

Romney’s assertion that the public shouldn’t vote on filling a Senate vacancy comes just months after his insistence that the public should be allowed to vote on whether to approve a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. One might imagine that consistency would demand that Romney support the public’s right to vote in both instances — or, for that matter, that gay-marriage proponents, such as this newspaper, which opposed a public vote on same-sex marriage, also oppose doing away with the governor’s right of appointment now.

But these are two entirely different situations. The constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (but creating civil unions), which may appear on the 2006 ballot, gives the majority the power to deny basic civil rights to a minority group. Just as we would not tolerate a ballot question banning interracial marriage or reinstating slavery, so we should oppose letting people vote on whether their neighbors are entitled to the same rights everyone else enjoys.

By contrast, the right to vote on who our next senator ought to be is a basic part of living in a representative democracy.

LATE LAST MONTH, Governor Romney hosted a party at the Park Plaza for 106 Republicans he’s recruited to run for the legislature — the largest field of Republican candidates since 1992. Days later, he gave them an expensive present: a proposal for an irresponsible, though potentially popular, combination of tax cuts and spending increases aimed squarely at the middle class.

Following painful cuts aimed at closing a $3 billion budget gap, the bulk of which have fallen on the poor and others who depend on state services, the state appears finally to have turned a corner. No one, though, would argue that the fiscal crisis is over.

No one, that is, except Romney, who has proposed cutting the state income tax from 5.3 percent to five percent, boosting the politically popular local-aid program by about $100 million, and spending another $250 million on such crowd-pleasing projects as road and bridge repairs, park renovations, and improvements to swimming pools and beaches. (The governor has also proposed much smaller appropriations for less sexy programs, such as adult education, substance-abuse treatment, and health care for the poor.)

For Romney, it was mission accomplished: he gave his legions of legislative wanna-bes a platform they can run on, while avoiding such divisive social issues as gay marriage and the death penalty. But wiser heads must prevail. Senate president Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Thomas Finneran may not see eye to eye on some issues, but they both understand the carnage created by three years of devastating budget cuts.

The public’s business ought to be about restoring those cuts to the extent possible rather than moving ahead with a tax cut that, for most taxpayers, would amount to just $2 a week.

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