Santorum resolute on Boston rebuke, Insists liberalism set stage for abuse

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, refused yesterday to back off on his earlier statements connecting Boston's ''liberalism" with the Roman Catholic Church pedophile scandal, saying that the city's ''sexual license" and ''sexual freedom" nurtured an environment where sexual abuse would occur.
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''I was just saying that there's an attitude that is very open to sexual freedom that is more predominant" in Boston, Santorum said yesterday. Reminded that the sexual abuse occurred across the country, Santorum said that ''at the time , there was an indication that there was more of a problem there" in Boston.

The senator's words sparked instant reaction from Massachusetts political leaders, who ridiculed Santorum's suggestion that priests were driven to abuse children by the city's liberal culture.

US Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, called Santorum ''a jerk" and pointed out that the senator tried to use the levers of the federal government to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, an act that Santorum likened to ''execution." An autopsy found that Schiavo's brain was half the normal size and that she could not see anything.

''This is one of those people who claims to have had eye contact with a blind woman," Frank said.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/07/13/santorum_resolute_on_boston_rebuke?mode=PF