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Posted on 10/23/2008 10:47:17 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the IRS to investigate the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J. and Rock Christian Fellowship in Espanola, New Mexico.
According to AU's letter to the IRS, Roman Catholic Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli has published a letter on Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J.'s website and newspaper attacking Barack Obama."
The letter criticizes Obama for his pro-choice stance and encourages parishioners not to vote for Obama.
AU also wants the IRS to investigate Rock Christian Fellowship in Espanola, New Mexico for posting a large display that encourages voters to support republican candidates over democratic candidates.
According to AU, the display has a picture of an aborted fetus with the names Obama, Udall (a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate) and Lugan (a Democratic U.S. House of Representatives candidate) underneath it. Next to that picture is a picture of a healthy baby with the names McCain, Pearce (a Republican U.S. Senate candidate) and East (a Republican U.S. House of Representatives candidate) underneath it.
According to AU, Michael Naranjo, the pastor of the church, told the Santa Fe New Mexican that his purpose is "educating on who stands pro-life and who is pro-death" and that "I'd rather lose my 501(c)(3) than my soul."
Catholic ping!
well, here we go
Uh oh. Jeremiah Wright and a whole bunch of other Obama-supporting clergy better watch their backs. Can’t have no partisan electioneering in church, no sir. Oh, wait. Nevermind.
His excellency was not endorsing a particular candidate. This is an empty lawsuit.
Barry Lynn is nothing to do about Separation of Church and State, it is communism he is a fake phony fraud.
Good! If these kind of people aren’t suing us we aren’t living the Gospel.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of me>
How did it ever get this bad?
Unlike ACORN and state election officials and AGs - like in Ohio
right
Amen, brother!
Yes! Good job, Father!
I think a lot of priests and bishops have had a wake-up call this election. If they're tolerating evil and even threats to the Faith for the sake of their tax exemption, they've clearly lost their focus!
That said, if somebody's going to attack Catholic opposition to the Dem program, somebody else better file a suit about those black churches and ministers who are telling their people to vote for Obama, chartering busses to take them to vote for him, etc.
Welcome to Obamanation!
This is nothing more than to fire up the Obama base and install fear that “those Christian kooks are going to run America if Obama loses.” This lawsuit was filed to get in the papers. Nov 5 the suit gets dropped.
Unlike Jeremiah Wright
Satan is riding a crest right now!
The editorial in question:
A Politician’s Promise: No Right to Life! No Freedom!
After committing a murder in Rome, the famous 17th century Italian painter Caravaggio went to Malta to avoid the death penalty. While there, the Great Master of the Order of the Knights of Malta commissioned him to do a painting for the chapel of the Co-Cathedral of St. John in Valletta. Caravaggio chose as his theme the martyrdom of John the Baptist. He produced The Beheading of St. John, his largest work, the only one he ever signed. No doubt the scene touched him personally.
Herod was married to Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Because John the Baptist preached against this sin, he incurred the hatred of Herod’s wife. The day her daughter Salome delighted Herod with her seductive dance, Herodias had her make Herod promise to kill John the Baptist. Within the severe architecture of a 16th century prison, Caravaggio vividly depicts the grisly moment when Herod kept his promise.
Caravaggio’s work, considered his greatest masterpiece, immortalizes the misguided fidelity of a ruler to his gruesome promise. With the stroke of the soldier’s sword, John dies and so does freedom. Freedom is based on the truth of the human person as created by God and protected by his law.
When a ruler can decide against God’s law, true freedom is sentenced to death.
Recently, a politician made a promise. Politicians usually do. If this politician fulfills his promise, not only will many of our freedoms as Americans be taken from us, but the innocent and vulnerable will spill their blood.
On April 18, 2007, in Gonzales v. Carhart, The Supreme Court upheldthe Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. The very next day prominent Democratic members of Congress reintroduced the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). The bill is misleadingly packaged as a freedom bill. It is not! It is a clear act of unreasoned bias to end abruptly and brutally the debate on the pressing and fundamental moral issue of the right to life.
For thirty-five years, Americans have been wrestling with The Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade. Most Americans now favor some kind of a ban on abortion. Most who allow abortion would do so only in very rare cases. In fact, in January, 2008, the Guttmacher Institute published its 14th census of abortion providers in the country. Its statistics showed that the abortion rate continues to decline. Abortions have reached their lowest level since 1974. There is truly a deep sensitivity to life in the soul of America.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would mortally wound this sensitivity. In effect, it would dismantle the freedom of choice to do all that is necessary to respect and protect human life at its most vulnerable stage. FOCA goes far beyond guaranteeing the right to an abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. It arrogantly prohibits any law or policy interfering with that right. While advocates trumpet this law as the triumph of the freedom of choice, they hide the dark reality that the law would actually inhibit choice.
Laws protecting the rights of nurses, doctors and hospitals with moral objections to abortion would no longer stand. Health and safety regulations for abortion clinics would also vanish. Gone the freedom of health care professionals to be faithful to the Hippocratic Oath “to prescribe regimens for the good of …patients…and never do harm to anyone, to please no one [by prescribing] a deadly drug nor [by giving] advice which may cause his death.” Gone the freedom of conscience so essential for a civil society!
If a minority of avid abortionists succeed to impose this law because of the ignorance or apathy of the majority, the law would force taxpayers to fund abortions. Gone the freedom of taxation with representation!
In its 1992 Casey decision, The Supreme Court ruled as constitutional state laws requiring that women and young girls who seek an abortion receive information on the development of the child in the womb as well as alternatives to abortion. The ruling also determined that a period of waiting, usually 24 or 48 hours before making a decision about an abortion is not an undue burden. The Freedom of Choice Act would nullify these laws immediately. Gone the freedom of women and young girls to have all the information they need to make their own choices!
In about half of the States, there are parental notification or consent laws in effect for minors seeking an abortion. The Supreme Court has ruled that these laws are permitted under Roe v. Wade. With the stroke of a pen, these laws would be abolished. Gone the freedom of parents to care for and protect their children and grandchildren!
Advocates of FOCA redefine a woman’s “health” so as to expressly permit post-viability abortions. Thus, a child who survives an abortion can be left to die for the health of the mother. No politically correct word can mask this reality for what it is. This is infanticide. Gone the freedom for a baby, once born, to live!
Science does not dispute that the child in the womb already has all the characteristics that he or she will develop after birth. Notwithstanding, abortionists obstinately refuse the right of the child within the womb to live as a fundamental human right. They are not happy that Americans have not swallowed their distorted propaganda that denies the dignity of the human person from the first moment of conception.
Pro-abortion advocates close their eyes to the fact that abortion even hurts women as it undermines the very fabric of our society. Their zeal for the Freedom of Choice Act sounds the alarm for decent Americans to wake up! The more the right to life is denied, the more we lose our freedoms. The “pro-choice” movement is not pro-choice. It stands against the freedom to choose what is right according to the truth of the human person.
In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, the present democratic candidate voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act. This law was meant to protect a baby that survived a late-term abortion. When the same legislation came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served, he held to his opposition. First, he voted “present.” Next, he voted “no.”
Along with 108 members of Congress, the present democratic candidate for President continues his strong support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In aspeech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, he made the promise that the first thing he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. What a choice for a new President!
At the time when Herod murdered John the Baptist because of his promise, Rome practiced the principle “one man, one vote.” Whoever the emperor in Rome placed in authority over a subject people, ruled. Today we live in a democracy. We choose our leaders who make our laws. Every vote counts. Today, either we choose to respect and protect life, especially the life of the child in the womb of the mother or we sanction the loss of our most basic freedoms. At this point, we are still free to choose!
You can read his editorial here and there is a link to send him a message. Please drop him an encouraging note... you know he is catching hell (literally) for his strong stance.
I called his office to offer a kind message and was told that it was "greatly" appreciated.
The rights here spoken of, belonging to each individual man, are seen in much stronger light when considered in relation to man's social and domestic obligations. In choosing a state of life, it is indisputable that all are at full liberty to follow the counsel of Jesus Christ as to observing virginity, or to bind themselves by the marriage tie. No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage ordained by God's authority from the beginning: “Increase and multiply.”[3] Hence we have the family, the “society” of a man's house—a society very small, one must admit, but none the less a true society, and one OLDER THAN ANY STATE. Consequently, it has rights and duties peculiar to itself which are quite independent of the State.
Somebody needs to investigate Barry Lind for being a Nazi.
One of Hitlers Children (Barry Lynn) “Asks IRS to Investigate NJ Catholic Diocese.. for Partisan Electioneering”
His organization is totally political and is given tax exempt status so how can we the people as the IRS to investigate these anti-American Nazi scum?
I expect the IRS to be used against the Catholic Church if Obama wins, to try to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, and maybe to try to get the church to ordain women as priests. Of course that won't succeed, but they could force Catholic hospitals to cease operations.
Yeah. And they will never investigate the churches that are campaigning for obamma.
This is a long-time anti-Catholic organization, going back at least 50 years...it used to call itself “Protestants and Other Americans United.”
Barry Lynn is ordained through the Untied Church of Christ.
Yes, the same gang that gave us Jeremiah Wright.
I hope our Church (the Roman Catholic Church) isn’t wasting too much time on ecumenical dialogue with this group of nitwits who clearly don’t respect us at all.
The IRS needs to investigate ACORN and pull their 501(c)3 for endorsing a candidate.
The problem is that Barry is asking the IRS an arm of congress to apply a law limiting the free exercise of religion by defining and placing limits on what constitutes religion and thereby establishing religion or what is religion. The state cannot be a controlling or governing body of religion without usurping religious freedom - the very reason for the founding of the nation. Barry is on the horns of a dilemma - He wants to use the first amendment to punish churches while violating the same to accomplish his ends. He doesn’t understand the reasons for church tax exemption in the first place, or at least he doesn’t like those reasons. Either way he is trying to rewrite our history and the constitution.
And next will be the Reverend Wright’s church and ACORN.
Bring it on
WHY doesn’t someone INVESTIGATE BARRY LYNN’ BACKGROUND??? I’m pretty sure he was born a Jew....he was an ACLU lawyer..)ANTI-CHRISTIANS LOVE US)...then he decided to become a FIFTH COLUMN “Christian Minister”, so he could do MORE damage to the Church. There isn’t one thing Christian about him.
Barry Lynn’s family was United Church of Christ, the denomination which ordained him when he was in his early 20’s. He does not come from a Jewish family, and I wish there were some way for you to withdraw this suggestion, since it is rather insulting to Jewish FReepers who are as appalled by AU as we are.
“...published a letter on Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J.’s website and newspaper attacking Barack Obama.”
This Bishop published his thoughts on a website—not in a sermon during church services.
Does a church’s tax exempt status remove the clergy’s 1st amendment rights?
Send your bouquets and high-fives here:
Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli
Diocese of Paterson
777 Valley Road
Clifton, NJ 07013
973-278-3202, FAX 973-279-2265
Deo gratias
Can't recall where I read it but if this legislation passes, I believe Catholic Hospitals would no longer offer Women's Services.
That’s funny, because the Jews I know that are no longer Jews belong to the UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST!!hmmmm WEIRD. Don’t be insulted.....I have TED KENNEDY, JOE BIDEN, NANCY PELOSI,,etc....geesh...Barry Lynn is PEANUTS compareed to those heathens.
Here's their Pagan Power website, by the way. It looks like they're pretty consistently anti-Obama, bless their witchy hearts!
the Catholic Church & USCCB has been donating to ACORN for over 30 yrs. through the CCHD collection.
Dear Bishop Serratelli,
You are clearly in the right as pastor and teacher in warning the faithful against Senator Obama and the wrongly-named Freedom of Choice Act. "Freedom"? Nonsense. The whole purpose of this treacherous FOCA is to coerce everyone into supporting the killing of babies before they are born. If FOCA passes they will come to shut down Catholic hospitals, health care services, and anybody else who refuses to cooperate with the Herodian crime of our age.
Be strong. You will be harrassed and persecuted. Don't let it bother you. God is with you; you are in the companionship of the Saints and Angels. For this you were born, baptized, ordained and consecrated. Rejoice!
Sursum Corda --
(signed)
P.S. Let's stop the Campaign for Human Development from sending any more money to ACORN, shall we?
That is sad to hear. I’m sure ACORN has been active in Paterson, where the Diocese HQ is located.
I do commend the Bishop as one of the growing number of Catholic Church leaders who are finally drawing a direct line between doctrine and support of political leaders.
The Catholic prelates who do this are striking a blow right into Democrat strength, as many RC voters are Democrat, and the Church has looked the other way while not taking American catholic politicians to task on abortion.
The resounding attacks on the erroneous pronouncements of Pelosi and Biden on when life begins and on abortion, and the many RC church leaders who are taking a stand will be pivotal on this election.
I wonder what the good Bishop has to say to his Congressman Bill Pascrell, D-NJ?
More Catholic and Protestant church leaders has to speak out. We are in 1932 Germany today, about to see a monster take the reigns of power.
I am no longer am amazed at how a maniac like Adolph Hitler came to power in an educated society. I just never thought it would only take 75 years later for it to happen in America.
Does the persecution start already?
thank you.
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