The USCCB is rotten and Dem to the core, but I think the problem was primarily that they went for one objection (abortion) that they were sure they could get all the bishops to sign onto and backed away from dealing with all the other important issues where there may have been more dissent.
This left it wide open for the House to simply approve something that would meet the bishops’ very minimal demands and then move ahead with the rest of it.
More than anything else, the bishops are cowards, or at any rate, those acting in the context of the USCCB. There were many individual bishops who were excellent, but unfortunately, the institutional presence of the USCCB makes it the focus of the media and the individual bishops are ignored.
Also this: "For three quarters of a century, the Catholic bishops of the United States have called for national action to assure decent health care for all Americans."
The only real chance of defeating the health care legislation came when the bill was lacking a majority of votes for passage in the House. That's when the first deal was made. This was the deal that made all other deals possible. Acting at the behest of Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Catholic Bishops, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to a vote on the pro-life amendment introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak. It passed and then the bill itself was approved.
But why did Republicans vote for the Stupak amendment if they opposed the basic premise of the bill? House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner got his marching orders as well. He was told by Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that the Republicans shouldn't scuttle the Stupak amendment.
The Senate then proceeded to pass its own version of the legislation, without the Stupak language. Predictably, Stupak is complaining about that. But he-and the Democrats and Republicans who voted for his amendment-only have themselves to blame. At least five lobbyists for the Bishops worked with Pelosi and Stupak on the deal that is now also predictably falling apart. Clearly, the pro-life deal was a ploy designed to keep the legislation alive.
The USCCB is guilty of gross malfeasance in pushing socialized medicine in the context of the current Democrat controlled WH, House, and Senate.
When the current health care reform precipitates hundreds of thousands of cases of passive euthanasia every year (there are already 1.5 million hospice and palliative care patients yearly, and less than a third of them are terminal cancer patients) will the bishops take responsibility for their role in facilitating these deaths?
The USCCB is still dominated by compromise, when so many bishops get together.
But another problem is the lay staff. I think they are almost all leftist dissidents. The USCCB won’t really straighten out until they broom out all those dissenters in their chanceries and in the central organization.
Unfortunately they don’t seem to have the guts to take such a step. No, it’s not nice to fire a bunch of people in a lousy job market. But it’s worse to keep a lot of aging heretics in place, constantly undermining the Church.
Which should have the priority, the jobs of dissident staff or the souls of their flock?
but I think the problem was primarily...
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It is primarily due to breaking the First Commandment to worship God.
Far too many leaders in the Catholic Church and among its members worship Karl Marx instead of God.