RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND PUBLIC MORALITY:
A CATHOLIC GOVERNOR'S PERSPECTIVE
Preparing the remarks I would deliver at the University of Notre Dame was more like writing an academic paper than writing a speech. It is the piece of work that took more of me than any other. As I noted in my introduction to this book, I labored over it for weeks. It produced one of the first full and candid debates of the difficult question as to the proper role of religious belief in the public forum, focused specifically on abortion and Catholics. I’ve been told it helped turn the discussion toward a more constructive phase. The truth is, since 1984, the discussion has been more reasonable, and whatever part in that development this speech had, the change relieves and gratifies me.
-Mario Cuomo More than Words, The Speeches of Mario Cuomo, 1993.
