Posted on 02/27/2012 9:59:56 AM PST by marshmallow
Warning that the Church is being “despoiled of her institutions” as “freedom of conscience and of religion become a memory from a happier past,” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago observes that “the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must ‘give up’ her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations.”
“So far in American history, our government has respected the freedom of individual conscience and of institutional integrity for all the many religious groups that shape our society,” he continues. “The government has not compelled them to perform or pay for what their faith tells them is immoral. That’s what we’ve meant by freedom of religion. That’s what we had believed was protected by the U.S. Constitution. Maybe we were foolish to believe so.”
Cardinal George adds:
What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the Church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the Church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down ...
Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship-no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works..........
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
To say they take the US flag off and put a pall on the coffin is one thing. True statement.
To say they take the US flag off and put a church flag on sounds a whole lot more conspiratorial and sinister.
Google tells us that a Vatican Flag exists, along with numerous Christian flags.
That's the national flag of the Vatican City-State.
It's not a "Church Flag". It's a secular national emblem, same as the US Flag. As such, it is every bit as inappropriate a funeral pall as a US Flag or any other secular symbol.
A really "stylish" funeral pall (with accompanying vestments):
On the other hand, the Vatican Flag:
I, for one, don't see the resemblance.
Now, for something completely different.
You would think that if ANYBODY would have the Vatican flag on his coffin, this guy would:
But no, no Vatican flag.
It's likely this contraception mandate is just the latest step in liberalizing government diktats against religion - eventuating that which you describe.
Fines? Prison? I believe most of Paul’s epistles were written from one prison or another. And let’s see, weren’t Christians tortured and killed rather than forsake their God? D’ya think Obama will top that?
Frankly, before Obama would institute mass arrests and incarcerations his agents would suffer enough casualties to cause him to reconsider. I know several people who would pull the trigger on any officer that mistreated a Pastor or Bishop.
All that promote socialism shall perish by socialism.
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