It didn't matter to Bishop Malone that, as then-Governor John E. Baldacci explained: "The new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs," he told the National Catholic Reporter. "It does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees." What did matter to the Portland bishop was the defeat of marriage equality, no matter what the cost.

And indeed the cost to Maine Catholics has been great. William H. Slavick, a retired professor, recently detailed how Bishop Malone has alienated much of his flock by his highly active role in defeating marriage equality.  Slavick wrote in a recent op-ed in The Maine Sunday Telegram the diocesan journal on social justice:

Recently, a parish cluster administrator acknowledged that the referendum repe