Posted on 09/08/2012 6:12:36 AM PDT by NYer
The Democrats still have a religion problem. No, not that religion problem. They just cant seem to get past wanting the blessing of a larger-than-life religious figure even when that figure has called their policies un-American and depicts their core beliefs as antithetical to our most cherished freedoms.
The circumstances leading up to Cardinal Timothy Dolans benediction last night were politically fraught, but they didnt have to be. First, Mitt Romney announced Dolan would be giving the closing benediction at the Republican National Convention. (At the time, I wrote that the move signaled Dolan had chosen sides with the GOP. Nothing he said last night seemed to suggest otherwise.) Under fire from fellow Catholics and others, and in an effort to appear nonpartisan, Dolan offered to perform the same function in Charlotte. While some observers have argued that Dolan was backed into a corner and working from a position of weakness he needed the Democrats to give him cover from the charges of partisanship the Democrats looked like the ones in the position of weakness. They couldnt, after all, say no.
Or could they have or should they have? The problem with celebrity benedictions and invocations is that they are necessarily political, no matter how much both the host and guest protest that its really about honoring God, and not about politics. Its a political convention! How can anything that happens at it not be political?
As Irin Carmon has detailed, Dolan took the opportunity to offer a prayer freighted with the hottest of the hot-button issues of the campaign abortion, contraception and marriage equality, the latter two framed as infringements of religious liberty, what Dolan last night called the first, most cherished freedom.
In other words, Dolan wasnt giving a final blessing on the proceedings, he was signaling to conservatives that he was there precisely to condemn them.
I think it was symbolic in many ways. Highlighted their sins, rebuked them, called them to repent and like Pharaoh, hardened a few hearts. Pearls before swine and the dust from our feet.
"...Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!"
-- Pharoah, to Moses, in Exodus 12:32
First. I want to very careful not to "point out their speck while ignoring my plank".
However, I got a sense that this was more than just a floor vote at a convention. For me it was as if the camera could almost pan backward and bring into view the judgment seat of God.
Methinks the democrat party - and perhaps by extension, the USA - has finally sealed their (our???) doom by not implicitly denying God (condoning abortion, homosexuality, etc.), but in fact by EXPLICITLY - 3 times - denying his supremacy.
Perhaps Rev. Wright is finally correct. It may be "God DAMN America" - unless we repent...
What they did, how they did it and Dolan....
We know, as Christians, this was no frivolous thing and neither was Dolan’s rebuke to the party.
I am not so much pointing out their speck,
Sorry - I wasn't very clear. I didn't mean to imply that you were pointing out a speck, I was trying (unsuccessfully) to make the point that in the context of judgment, I am not without sin...
Actually, nuns are not strictly clergy, in that they are not ordained and cannot perform any of the functions which are restricted to men in Holy Orders, e.g. hearing Confession, saying Mass, administering Confirmation or Anointing of the Sick. They are not deacons, priests, or bishops.
In that sense, they are laity.
Although ascetics, nuns, and unordained members of religious associations of men are not "clerics," as members of canonical congregations they are sometimes included under the title clergy in its wider sense as vowed religious.
This indicates that as people who have not received the sacrament of Holy Orders, they are still in a special way dependent under ecclesiastical authority.
No need to apologize, just wanted to be sure on both our context.
In reference to judgement, I offer you this verse to consider:
Revelation 18:4 ...’And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.’
It was a great prayer. Called the dimocrats on the dime.
It’s called Death Insurance. They love being atheists, pretending they’re too smart to believe in God, trashing Christians, pushing God out of the national mind. But in the end, somewhere in the back of their tiny minds is a voice that says “yes, but what if?” Somewhere, they know the evil they are.
So they keep a priest or two on call for the end. Kind of like Ted Bloato Boozo Kennedy’s last letter to the Pope, the one with the fat check if His Holiness would just pull a few strings and get His Murderous Fatness past the pearly gates.
Incontrovertible proof that the Star Wars bar scene was prophetic.
They don’t need a prayer, the Democrats need an exorcism.
I wonder too why the Dems allowed him to pray for the protection of traditional marriage, after they had waved the rainbow flag throughout the entire convention.
“In other words, Dolan wasnt giving a final blessing on the proceedings, he was signaling to conservatives that he was there precisely to condemn them.”
Right, it was very clear.
Many Dems were probably too dim to understand that’s what he meant by “Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of natures God. Empower us with Your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions You have given us for the nurturing of life and community.”
Also, with all the pro-sodomy stuff going on, the smarter Dems realized they needed to have him there to fool some of the Roman Catholic voters.
I think they are true to their own religion i.e. they aren't heretics. Their religion needs a bit of thought. What is the religion of a liberal? It sure has zip to do with the decency and dignity of an individual human being.
My problem with liberals has always been their desire to spread misery wherever they go. Normally, irrational misery isn't contageous. Liberals want the government to force everyone to be miserable.
They also like to tell me I'm stupid if I don't care to be miserable.
It's a heck of a way to live.
Article published September 6, 2012
Planned Parenthood settles with Illinois on Medicaid payments
By Andrew L. Wang, Crain’s Chicago Business
Posted: September 6, 2012 - 11:00 am ET
Tags: Illinois, Legal, Physicians
Planned Parenthood of Illinois has agreed to pay the state $367,000 to settle a dispute over alleged overbilling of the Medicaid program by the not-for-profit’s medical director.
Dr. Caroline Hoke, an obstetrician-gynecologist and the organization’s medical director since 2007, had been under threat of termination from the state Medicaid program since 2010, when the inspector general of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services sought to recover allegedly improper payments.
Dr. Hoke was the fourth-highest billing physician in the state Medicaid program in 2009-11, receiving $3.9 million, despite not receiving any payment for much of 2010 and all of 2011, according to a Crain’s analysis of Medicaid reimbursement records.
The settlement comes about a week after the mother of a Planned Parenthood patient filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the organization, alleging that negligence during an abortion contributed to her daughter’s death.
In the Medicaid case, the agency alleged that Dr. Hoke overbilled the state an estimated $430,380.02, mostly for services that were not documented, according to records in a DHFS administrative proceeding against Dr. Hoke.
The inspector general contested Dr. Hoke’s billings between 2006 and 2007, when she worked at Planned Parenthood of Illinois locations and at Erie Family Health Center. The West Side clinic separately agreed to pay the state $20,000 to settle its portion of the dispute.
With the settlement, neither Planned Parenthood of Illinois nor Erie admits any wrongdoing or responsibility for the overbilling.
More than 80 percent of the amount being paid back to DHFS was for recordkeeping matters related to billing for birth control, Planned Parenthood said in a statement.
Read at:
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20120906/INFO/309069993/?template=printpicart
Was the best speech at their convetion.
Guess so. Maybe he was their token religious person.
Did C-span show it?
****
I think I was still watching cspan during the Benediction, but I was mostly just listening to Cardinal Dolan.
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