Posted on 03/09/2012 5:13:08 AM PST by NYer
During a recent conversation about the HHS anti-conscience mandate, a friend, neither Catholic nor particularly religious asked the following rhetorical question about Obama's administration: Do these people know who they're messing with? Her point, of course, was the Church has spent nearly two millennia crushing attempts by secular rulers to dictate the way it carries out its charitable ministries. Commanding Catholic hospitals to fund sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortifacients isn't like twisting the arm of some roundheel congressman. It's going to take more than the usual Chitown chicanery to cow a venerable, well-funded organization that has brought more than one emperor to his knees.
The Church's charitable work has been seen as a threat to the power of the state as far back as the reign of Julian the Apostate. Julian was the Roman Emperor who tried to drag his subjects back to the crumbling altars of old state gods a half a century after his uncle, Constantine I, had legitimized Christianity by converting to the new faith. Julian's project didn't go well, and he complained in a letter to one of his high priests that the effort was failing because "impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well." What's an Emperor to do with opponents whose tactics include such dirty tricks as lending aid and comfort to all who need it, including people with religious and political views that differ from their own?
Julian tried to counter the effect of such "impious" tactics by restructuring the administration in such a way that it could compete with the "Galileans" in good works and thereby erode the connection in the public consciousness between charity and the Church. In a move that eerily echoes the progressive vernacular of our own age, Julian issued the Tolerance Edict of 362.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Catholic Ping
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The organized prayer by many good sisters, brothers, deacons and priests....not to mention lay persons... going on right now is pretty astounding. THAT is the secret weapon being wielded....and there is NO defense against it.
;-))))))))))))))))))
I don’t understand the headline. If it’s refering to Christianity, person can’t apostasize from a religion he never believed. There’s every indication that Obama has been totally faithful to the Marxist faith.
The “Vichy” GOP - I really like the phrase, very fitting!
You are over analyzing the title. The author is likening Obama to 4th century Emperor Julian who, though not a christian, was given the title: "the Apostate". As he goes on to say: "The president, like Julian, wishes to "transform" his country into a place in which every aspect of the citizen's life is connected to and controlled by the state. He wants the federal government to be seen as the ultimate arbiter and provider of the electorate's needs."
You better get moving immediately. Seize the initiative and hold it in every church and pulpit in the US. Enlist Catholics to speak out. Condemn Obamacare and Obama himself and Secretary Sibelius before they get the upper hand.
Do it now. And keep condemning it until the White House shouts "Uncle".
To do less will give the devil's master politicians the high ground and you will be back-pedaling forever after until you have no church left and face bankruptcy.
Act now!
That's typical for me.
Winning this is going to take some sort of incredibly direct and forceful statement that Catholics, in good conscience, cannot vote to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama.
Frankly I don’t think the Church has the stomach for it.
In a perfect world I would love to see the Pope and the College of Cardinals put the full weight of the Catholic Church right on Obama's scrawny neck.
I know it won't happen, but can you imagine the fallout if all of a sudden every Priest, every Sunday, were urging all Catholics to vote for the Republican this Fall...?
I think, through the annals of history, this might have actually happened...if not exactly this way, certainly by influencing parishioners worldwide for the greater "good" of the Church.
The actions of the Medicis and the Borgias in Renaissance Italy come to mind....
“apostate”? Doesn’t that assume a proper baptism? Fuggedaboudit.
This IS a survival issue for the Church. They have to strap on their backbone and show the power of the Church. If they do not the Obamacare law will bankrupt every Catholic institution. They will have nothing left.
All they are is mouthpieces. They can speak for the record, that’s all. The war is fought in the trenches, by the grunts.
Archbishop Dolan has really been pounding the table over this and calling Obozo to task
Obama wants Catholic hospitals to close.
1) gives him/them free reign to demonize the church
2) gets to fully implement the death panels. And we will suddenly get the Canadian/British heath care model with only approved elective proceedures with a 6-12 month wait.
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