From Religion News Service:
Santorum did not address the substance of the criticism and on Thursday fired back at Kennedy and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., accusing them of dredging up his 3-year-old comments for political purposes because the Pennsylvania Senate election is considered the next year's premier contest.
"It's sort of sad that they would use religion and this tragic time for purely partisan, blatantly political purposes," Santorum said. "I guess there is no depth in which they will stoop, including impugning and digging up very, very difficult times and difficult feelings and emotions from people who were harmed by that scandal."
So, according to Santorum, it’s not what he wrote in 2002 and then restated this week that’s at issue here. It’s some sort vast left-wing conspiracy.
Oh, and apparently one other thing:
At the time he wrote the column, Santorum said he was working hard with people within the church "to resolve that scandal, to bring the people who were involved to justice, to begin changes within the church so this would not happen again -- none of which I'm aware that either Sen. Kennedy or Sen. Kerry did."
Santorum then took Kennedy to task for not strictly adhering to "proper orthodox formation within the teachings of the Vatican."
"I don't think Sen. Kennedy would follow that very closely," he said, adding, "I don't think Ted Kennedy lecturing me on the teachings of the church and how the church should handle these problems is something I'm going to take particularly seriously."
Santorum also held a conference call yesterday with members of the Catholic press, during which he refused to take questions from a reporter from the
Harrisburg Patriot News
Read more about this controversy:
Words about Boston from '02 come back to bedevil Santorum,
The Philadelphia InquirerRomney begs to differ with Santorum remark,
The Boston Globe
