(From New York) The one between the cardinal of New York, Timothy Dolan, and the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is an all-out controversy after the approval of a state law that permits abortion until birth. Cardinal Dolan wrote an open letter to the devotees, at the priests’ invitation, and, last Sunday, in all the churches, the pastoral notice was read out at the end of every Mass. Dolan defines the rule as “blood-curdling”, since it removes any charge for those who witness the death “of an aborted child who has survived the scissors, the scalpel, the saline solution and the dismemberment” without doing anything. The law also repeals conscientious objection for healthcare professionals who refuse to witness such “macabre procedure”. “I am a pastor, not a politician – Dolan pointed out in his letter –, but, as a pastor, I have to challenge our political leaders, to urge them to rethink their priorities and to respect and protect unborn children in their mothers’ wombs with the same force and passion that is used for paperless immigrants, for single mothers who take care of their families, dying grandparents, or poor people who struggle to get by”. On his part, Cuomo answered with a long interview with the New York Times, in which he explained his support for the law and defined Dolan’s position as belonging to “the religious right-wing”. On his blog, the cardinal called the Governor, who has often defined himself as a Catholic, to reconsider his statements, because “reducing the defence of the human rights of a premature baby to a ‘Catholic matter’ is an insult for the supporters of the many religions who have joined” this battle, as well as to the Constitution and to biology. Then, he added: “The Governor does not consider me to be right-wing when he asks me to help him with the rise in the minimum wage, the reform of prisons, the protection of migrant workers, the homing of refugees and the defence of university schemes for convicts. In those circumstances, I think I belonged to the ‘religious’ left-wing”. Dolan goes on to point out that his is not an interference, because faith “is a personal matter, not a private matter, as was shown by Martin Luther King, a pastor who fought for the civil rights of his people”.