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Little Sisters in the Political Madhouse - “President Obama vs. The Little Sisters of the Poor”
First Things ^ | January 9, 2014 | Pete Spiliakos

Posted on 01/09/2014 2:38:40 PM PST by NYer

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1 posted on 01/09/2014 2:38:40 PM PST by NYer
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To: Tax-chick; GregB; Berlin_Freeper; SumProVita; narses; bboop; SevenofNine; Ronaldus Magnus; tiki; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 01/09/2014 2:39:03 PM PST by NYer ("The wise man is the one who can save his soul. - St. Nimatullah Al-Hardini)
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To: NYer

Should Ms Sotomayor succeed in giving the dork the finger, I totally apologize for any doubts I had about her integrity.

There is only one logical conclusion to the problem, and she has nailed it...the dork is wrong. (Of course, when can one say he was correct?)

Something really smelled at Harvard when they let in the quota baby idiot.


3 posted on 01/09/2014 2:43:29 PM PST by Da Coyote
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To: NYer

Holder can shutdown the streets in front of their homes. That’ll take of them!


4 posted on 01/09/2014 2:44:04 PM PST by Dr. Ursus
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To: NYer

Reaching for my wallet to make a donation


5 posted on 01/09/2014 2:45:06 PM PST by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: NYer
“President Obama vs. The Little Sisters of the Poor”

DC style Knockout Game.

6 posted on 01/09/2014 2:48:06 PM PST by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: NYer

How clueless do you have to be to go on record busting on a group called “Little Sisters of the Poor”? But I guess nothing about this administration surprises me.

If you ever get a chance to tour one of the Sisters’ homes, do it. What a life-affirming experience. You don’t expect to see such joy and dignity among the indigent elderly. It would be a huge loss if the Sisters had to move their ministry out of the country.


7 posted on 01/09/2014 2:58:53 PM PST by mrs. a (It's a short life but a merry one...)
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To: TigersEye

Many moons past when I consulted for the IL Dept. of Public Aid, the sisters were enrolled as a Medcaid provider. The Provider DB didn’t allow for the full name to be displayed so some clerk entered it as “Little Sisters of The Poo”. Not belittling the work they do but I always got a chuckle when I saw that on a claim, voucher, or check.


8 posted on 01/09/2014 2:59:39 PM PST by RonInNaples
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To: RonInNaples

Shades of Monty Python! heh


9 posted on 01/09/2014 3:03:32 PM PST by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: NYer

Not since the Big Bad Wolf blew away the Three Little Pigs has there been a clearer example of a powerful bully (Obama) striking down poor innocent victims (the Little Sisters of the Poor).

THIS is what the public needs to see, but which the liberal media is so blatantly suppressing.

The same liberal media that has gone hysterical because a New Jersey official serving a Republican governor blocked bridge lanes, causing an elderly woman to die, is silent when a Democratic president insists on undermining a charity that specifically takes care of the elderly, which will inevitably result in pain and suffering, if not death, for MANY elderly women who won’t be able to be served.


10 posted on 01/09/2014 3:17:18 PM PST by Bluestocking
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To: Dr. Ursus
Holder can shutdown the streets in front of their homes. That’ll take of them!

These "homes" are a centrally located building on private property. Since the residents are the poorest of the poor, they usually don't have any living relatives.

11 posted on 01/09/2014 3:18:26 PM PST by NYer ("The wise man is the one who can save his soul. - St. Nimatullah Al-Hardini)
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To: Jimmy Valentine
Reaching for my wallet to make a donation.

God bless you! The Becket Fund is handling their case before the Supreme Court. In a recent email they wrote:

Let me explain why we had to petition the Supreme Court on New Year’s Eve: As you know, the beginning of 2014 ushers in the dreaded fines forced by the government on many employers that refuse to comply with the HHS contraception mandate. Courts all over the country had already granted relief to other groups. However, the Little Sisters, who live to serve God by caring for the elderly had been singled out and denied this temporary relief only three days before the fines would kick in. So, we had to go all the way to the Justice in charge of the Circuit that denied the Sisters the protection they deserved.

They are also representing Hobby Lobby. You can make a donation to the Becket Fund here.

12 posted on 01/09/2014 3:23:14 PM PST by NYer ("The wise man is the one who can save his soul. - St. Nimatullah Al-Hardini)
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To: NYer
http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.org/images/stories/slideshow/dsc_6926.jpg
http://www.littlesistersofthepoor.org/images/stories/slideshow/DSC_0155.jpg

Little Sisters Of The Poor

Little Sisters Of The Poor

13 posted on 01/09/2014 3:48:52 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Mia San Mia)
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To: NYer

It's a disgrace when the only people with the guts to face down Obama is a group of Catholic Nuns God bless you Sisters— Charlie Daniels (@CharlieDaniels) January 4, 2014


14 posted on 01/09/2014 3:53:35 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Mia San Mia)
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To: mrs. a
If you ever get a chance to tour one of the Sisters’ homes, do it.

Done it ... there is a home nearby. Sadly, this particular group of nuns is so aged that they can no longer care for their residents. You can read the details here. Part of the problem stems from a lack of vocations. The major difference in approach is that the sisters do this work out of love for Christ vs the government which provides services for votes.

15 posted on 01/09/2014 4:00:36 PM PST by NYer ("The wise man is the one who can save his soul. - St. Nimatullah Al-Hardini)
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To: TigersEye

Obama doesn’t know how powerful prayer can be; the Little Sisters of the Poor will win.


16 posted on 01/09/2014 4:59:59 PM PST by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: mrs. a

Bad Optics: Obama and HHS vs Little Sisters of the Poor

September 25, 2013 By Elizabeth Scalia

The Little Sisters of the Poor are heroic social servants: they serve the indigent poor and go begging on their behalf. They are tremendous women offering companionship, love and hospitality to people who often have no one else in their lives willing to see and affirm their dignity and worth, and they don’t ask “are you a Catholic” before they make that offer: it is for all.

Likewise, in their many facilities across the nation, the Little Sisters employ nurses, and aides and helpers, and they do not ask, “are you a Catholic” before they hire them.

And because the Sisters do not discriminate in their service or their hiring, they, and their ministry, and the aged population they serve, are all being imperiled by the United States Government, specifically by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Obama Administration.

How can that be? How can these religious Sisters, living in a country where the first amendment to its constitution insists upon a free expression of religion and the exercise thereof be in peril? Because the HHS and the Obama Administration have written one of the strangest laws imaginable, a law that says if a church-related organization serves or hires people outside of its religion — in other words, if they do not discriminate against others — then they are not “religious enough” to claim the primacy of a religious conscience over a government mandate.

So, if the Sisters do not deny their own consciences and offer insurance policies to their employees that include free coverage for sterilization procedures, artificial contraceptives and abortifacients, these vowed-to-poverty women will have to pay more than a million dollars in IRS fines, effectively making their work near-to-impossible.

Yes, they’ll be punished and perhaps driven from serving the poor in America — the poor of every race and creed — for the sin of not prostrating themselves before a secularist culture that has made an idol of preventing the conception and growth of human life — a strange god endowed with so much power that the government believes it can and must stomp on fundamental human freedoms of conscience in order to serve it.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor, in an effort to protect their freedoms and win an exemption from this government, so they can continue to serve the poor in America.

Catholic religious sisters more or less created the idea of social service networks; often in the face of resistance, they organized to meet the healthcare and educational needs of the poor and the abandoned long before government began to even think of it. Whoever would have believed that in America, they might be fined out-of-existence rather than freed to operate and assist. The Little Sisters of the Poor are precisely the sort of religious sisters that are held up, and should be held up, as innovators and heroes of faith, and models of good citizenship.

But that’s not happening.

I happen to know that the Little Sisters did not want to pursue this lawsuit; they had hoped to simply get an exemption and get back to their work, because public talk of the HHS Mandate and its ruinous effects on their residences was creating awful anxiety for their residents, and they couldn’t bear to see them so worried. That they are now moving forward through the Becket Fund, and thus going public, is a measure of how deeply committed they are to not abandoning their people.

Really, what is the Obama Administration thinking? What is the HHS thinking? Do they really want these optics? The intrusive, overbearing the government forcing dedicated sisters to abandon their work with the elderly and the poor?

The Little Sisters of the Poor should be extolled as role models, and encouraged — not punished — by the government. They are too busy begging for food and material sustenance for their clients to travel about on a comfortable bus and raise awareness (and wouldn’t it be wonderful if whoever funded those bus treks for other sisters would be as generous to them?) so we must.

Please, send this around. Let your friends and co-workers and your email lists know that the Little Sister of the Poor do important necessary work toward raising up the Kingdom; they serve everyone, not just Catholics, and they ought not be fined for that. Urge everyone you know to call their congressional representatives, imploring them to petition the Obama Administration for an exemption on their behalf.

And if you want, send a note of encouragement to the Sisters at a residence near you. I’m sure they would appreciate knowing that they are not alone in their fight. I’m going to drop a card to my gals in Queens today — along with a little check — because they actually, really are poor; they really do give everything they have to the effort of serving their clients.

You know…they do the “brothers keeper” thing Obama keeps talking about. Maybe he only means that when its about taxes and government programs, and not real, human outreach within communities.


17 posted on 01/09/2014 5:50:34 PM PST by Dqban22 (IVINIC)
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To: NYer
...the sisters’ beliefs are an example of unauthorized diversity

Unauthorized diversity! What a perfectly Orwellobaman phrase. Mentally filing....

18 posted on 01/09/2014 5:54:02 PM PST by workerbee (The President of the United States is DOMESTIC ENEMY #1!)
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To: NYer

The “wise Latina” did this just for show. Watch and see. All “charity” must come from the state.


19 posted on 01/09/2014 6:56:19 PM PST by informavoracious (Root for Obamacare and healthcare.gov failure!)
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To: NYer

Excellent article. The best comment:

Ed James says:
Thank you for a well written article. I think it is necessary to extend the logic to an even larger examination of the relationship between institutions of faith and government. Make no mistake: when we mix faith and politics, politics wins. There is a lesson here for the church and, yes, even for Pope Francis. Be cautious when you advocate for government. The church has a track record of seeing government as the solution to economic and social ills. When we get in bed with the Devil, he will at some point ask for his due.


20 posted on 01/09/2014 9:26:10 PM PST by Jeff Chandler (Obamacare: You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.)
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