Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 11/27/2009 4:19:13 AM PST by Kaslin
With the House debate on health care at its hottest, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a stunning ultimatum: Impose an absolute ban on tax funds for abortions, or we call for defeat of the Pelosi bill.
Message received. The Stupak Amendment, named for Bart Stupak of Michigan, was promptly passed, to the delight of pro-life Catholics and the astonished outrage of pro-abortion Democrats.
No member was more upset than Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, son of Edward Kennedy, who proceeded to bash the Church for imperiling the greatest advance for human rights in a generation.
Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin responded, accusing Kennedy of an unprovoked attack and demanding an apology. Kennedy retorted that Tobin had told him not to receive communion at Mass and ordered his diocesan priests not to give him communion.
False! The bishop fired back.
He had sent Kennedy a private letter in February 2007 saying that he ought not receive communion, as he was scandalizing the Church. But he had not told diocesan priests to deny him communion.
As Rhode Island is our most Catholic state, Kennedy went silent and got this parting shot from Tobin: "Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church."
The clash was naturally national news. But Tobin's public chastisement of a Catholic who carries the most famous name in U.S. and Catholic politics is made more significant because it seems to reflect a new militancy in the hierarchy that has been absent for decades
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., just informed the city council that, rather than recognize homosexual marriages and provide gays the rights and benefits of married couples, he will shut down all Catholic social institutions and let the city take them over. Civil disobedience may be in order here.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York sent an op-ed to The New York Times charging the paper with anti-Catholic bigotry and using a moral double standard when judging the Church.
During the "horrible" scandal of priest abuse of children, wrote the archbishop, the Times demanded the "release of names of abusers, rollback of the statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records and total transparency."
But when the Times "exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuses in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish Community ... 40 cases of such abuses in this tiny community last year alone," wrote the archbishop, the district attorney swept the scandal under the rug, and the Times held up the carpet.
Dolan singled out a "scurrilous ... diatribe" by Maureen Dowd "that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish or African-American" faith.
Dowd, wrote Dolan, "digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription ... into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics and his recent welcome to Anglicans."
Dowd, said Dolan, reads like something out of the Menace, the anti-Catholic Know Nothing newspaper of the 1850s.
The Times' refusal to publish the op-ed underscores the archbishop's point.
Nor are these the only signals of a new Church Militant.
The Vatican has reaffirmed that Catholics in interfaith dialogues have a moral right if not a duty to convert Jews, and reaffirmed the doctrine that Christ's covenant with his church canceled out and supersedes the Old Testament covenant with the Jews.
When Abe Foxman, screech owl of the Anti-Defamation League, railed that this marks a Catholic return to such "odious concepts as 'supercessionism,'" he was politely ignored.
The new spirit was first manifest last spring, when scores of bishops denounced Notre Dame for inviting Barack Obama, a NARAL icon, to give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree.
Among the motives behind the new militancy is surely the wilding attack on Pope Benedict for reconciling with the Society of St. Pius X, one of whose bishops had questioned the Holocaust. The pope was unaware of this, and the bishop apologized. To no avail. Rising in viciousness, the attacks went on for weeks. Having turned the other cheek, the church got it smacked.
In his May address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke said, "In a culture which embraces an agenda of death, Catholics and Catholic institutions are necessarily counter-cultural."
Exactly. Catholicism is necessarily an adversary faith and culture in an America where a triumphant secularism has captured the heights, from Hollywood to the media, the arts and the academy, and relishes nothing more than insults to and blasphemous mockery of the Church of Rome.
Our new battling bishops may be surprised to find they have a large cheering section among a heretofore silent and sullen faithful who have been desperate to find a few clerical champions.
Ping.
Perhaps these bishops are real men like priests used to be rather than Bernardin wannabes. I’m sure Cdl. Rigali will counsel moderation.
The Bishops should now apologize to the faithful for spending those decades as enablers for moral relativists everywhere. When the final health care bill finally emerges with taxpayer funded abortions and death panels these same bishops should apologize to the faithful because, to a man, they are boundlessly stupid to think they could lobby for this unconstitutional nightmare with abortion as an outsider looking in.
ping
I think I’m correct in saying that Cardinal Rigali signed the Manhattan Declaration.
Whatever your comment about him means, (I’m not sure), I am glad that the Cardinal signed the Declaration-—and grateful to all the outstanding Catholic people, well-known or not, who also signed it.
The future belongs to those who never give up and recognize any and all signs of hope.
As long as the Bishops back socializd health care, they are not good Catholics. They fail to realize what harm a government with full and complete access to a persons health records can do.
They also fail to realize that taking from one group to give to another, by force, is against Gods will.
And they are fools to trust a liberal that they will keep thier word.The left are like Muslims in that it is Ok for them to lie to unbeievers to get what they want.
As a Catholic in New England, I would like nothing better than to believe that the Catholic clergy has actually become more ‘militant’. Unfortunately, except for a few notable (and noted) exceptions, the vast majority of Catholic clerics remain firmly in support of a strongly socialist, leftist and government run country. They continue to honor and support ‘Catholic’ politicians like Shaheen in NH, Pelosi, Cuomo, etc. They blindly accept the ‘word’ of proven liars about the Stupak amendment providing their endorsement and support to bad, unconstitutional legislation, then asked surprised when the amendment is pulled. Sorry, I think Pat is WAY too optimistic and complimentary to our clergy.
I hope so! The nasty infiltrators are being swept away, retiring, or dying off and the young men studying to be priests now seem to be true warriors for Christ. There’s no glory in being a priest now for the young generation; but there is a great deal of personal satisfaction in serving Christ. This is as it should be.
The cleansing of the Church continues. I am very happy about it. The pendulum is swinging back toward traditional orthodoxy. I think the infusion of traditional Anglicans can only help us.
Lord, may your words be in our thoughts, on our lips, and in our hearts.
Too little too late. Like the slow loss of conservative values in this country, Catholic officials have “lost” many members of the church due to pc crap and calling themselves Catholics(CINOS) —rather like RINOS.
1. The right of the government to deny life saving care, even if they have it, due to rationing. Doesn't matter if the doctor can do it and you can pay for it - skip the heart surgery, government wants him to do a sex change surgery instead.
2. Death is cheaper than hospice. As the cancer patient in Oregon found out, they will counsel euthanasia instead of providing aggressive care to save lives. It's cheaper, so they choose death over actual medical care.
3. Abortion is cheaper than a delivery of a baby. So opt for the former on financial grounds alone. They already prefer to import obedient tax payers anyway.
4. While Democrats won't outright execute murderers, all of those liberals who say conservatives shouldn't be allowed to speak or raise children could easily find themselves black listed from medical care. This has already happened to abortion opponents in England. They won't execute a mass murderer, but oppose the official line, and you don't get that knee replacement you've waited for. This is a violation of conscience Catholics have sought to protect AND puts Catholics at direct risk of being denied life saving care given their pro-life stance.
The USCCB claims that health and welfare of Americans is their priority, but does not even have one economist on its staff to advise them on legislative matters. The health care bill will not only not lower costs, but will degrade the quality of care and is not something that the US economy can even begin to afford. It is the start to the slippery slope of government run healthcare with NO PRIVATE OPTIONS and will jeopardize the entire US economy - all in the name of “social justice”.
When he was here in STL, he never missed a photo op with Gephardt, et al; yes he signed. There’s signin’ and then there’s fightin’.
What people like about Tobin and some of these others is they seem to have the stomach for the fight, whatever it needs.
realistic lament...unfortunately
Actually the current crop of Bishops haven't been around for decades. I hope these actions are a sign of things to come from these "youngsters".
Ping.
A group calling itself "Catholics United," organized by Obama activist Chris Korzen, apparently launched the meme that the Catholic bishops have given their "stamp of approval" to HR 3962 (the Health Care Reform Bill) as being "unambiguously pro-life." Within 36 hours of the "Catholics United" statement, news sources inaccurately attributed approval of HR 3962 to "Catholic Bishops" or "the USCCB".
Here's the Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SUNA_en&q=catholic++%22full-throated%22++bill&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
18,000 results (0.16 seconds)
I, myself, was the one who used the statistically improbable phrase "full-throated" to trace out how that the phrase originated with Chris Korzen and was rapidly picked up by over 10,000 news media and blog sites.
In fact, the USCCB has refrained from endorsing HR 3962.
http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/
NO Catholic Bishop has endorsed HR 3962.
And EWTN's Raymond Arroyo has stated that almost 50 bishops have raised objections to the Health Reform Bill on the grounds of subsidiarity (Catholic-speak for "Why So Socialist?"), from which we can reasonably infer that their objection remains, notwithstanding the passage of the Stupak Amendment and the ban on abortion funding.
http://www.ewtn.com/news/blog.asp?blog_ID=2
The battle is raging within the USCCB as we speak. But so far, the good guys (you could call them the "Catholic faction") of the USCCB is holding the line. I know (painfully) (so painfully!)that their staffers have blurred the line for years, but the bishops are not endorsing, and have not endorsed any iteration of "Health" "Care" "Reform" legislation.
Much as the socialist staffrs would like you to think they have.
It's a battle for the control of the USCCB and the soul of the Church in America.
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Here in Baltimore they are finally clearing out a rats-nest of liberalism. Many liberal priests are “retiring” or go away on long retreats with a new attitude when they return. They are inspecting all schools for Catholic identity and ousted the school chief Valenti! (Of course it was reported that he simply “retired”-LOL)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.