Letter decrying contraception compromise attracts bishops, professors

Where is the website for us to sign our own letter to the bishops re our freedom of conscience? Joe Yankech

This is an attack on the President and the Democratice Party by the Republican culture warriors, pure and simple.

APOLOGISTS' APPLAUD, SO? ........ No surprises, here, Joshua. The "usual suspects" have been rounded up to show their "loyal support" for their generous hierarchical benefactors. It is as predictable as the daily rallies in Tehran and Damascus expressing support for the current leaders there.

The "anti-contraceptive ploy" of the pope and his well funded right-wing "virtual papal Super PAC" to replace Obama with Santorum or the like is obviously well organized and well funded, if not misguided. Obama and his Justice Department are getting too aggressive in pursuing child sexual abusers and they must be replaced to save some bishops from potential criminal prosecution.

One wonders how well these apologists and their bishop sponsors will utilize their consciences on the numerous other Santorum positions that conflict with Catholic teachings. Please note the relevant article today by Prof. Juan Cole at the independent University of Michigan, accessible by clicking on at:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/02/14/top-ten-catholic-teachi...

Given the bishops' shameful public record, it is understandable to me as a lawyer that the bishops are very worried about another four years of Obama as US prosecutor-in-chief. The "anti-contraceptive Trojan Horse" is even a creative, albeit unconscionable, effort to disquise their real purposes. Yet so far, few Catholics have been fooled.

An interesting, but underreported, aspect of this ploy concerns Cardinal Rigali's role. He was mentor in St.Louis for both Timothy Dolan and Robert Finn, the indicted Opus Dei bishop in KC, who is likely to be involved in Obama's Federal prosecution of the pedophile priest Finn criminally failed to report.

Chaput, meanwhile, appears preoccupied with shielding Rigali from being prosecuted in Philly along with Rigali's former aide, Msgr. Lynn. Rigali is a longtime curial power, remains on key Vaticans committees with Cardinal Law and surely has the pope's ear.

For more evidence of the papal ploy to replace Obama with a friendlier Republican as US presecutor-in-chief, please note the three comments, "Founding Fathers' Shock", "Obama Dream Come True" and "No Deal Ever, Obama", all readily accesible by clicking on at:

http://ncronline.org/news/politics/bishops-study-revised-contraception-m...

This, most assuredly, will help Obama gain votes!

Seems the Bishops(now a branch of the GOP) and their minions are pushing back full force. This bishop in South Dakota advocates violence to prevent women from getting birth control. This kind of extremism and oppression will fail and the Catholic laity are going to close up their wallets even tighter, or should.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/14/1064774/-Bishop-of-Sioux-City-c...

Too bad this kind of vehemence couldn't be directed toward helping people without health insurance survive. 42 thousand die every year from it according to Harvard Medical School. But that doesn't concern the bishops.

There is an outstanding article in Washington Post that NCR has linked to. The article on Washington Post is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/bishops-contraception-ob...

Near the end, the article includes this quote: “This is Moral Theology 101,” said one moral theologian who, like several others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the hierarchy on such a sensitive topic.

"...spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the hierarchy..."

And there in lies the problem in getting authoritative voices to speak out against what the bishops are doing. They dare not.

James Joyce, great Catholic novelist, pegged it in Episode Eight of Ulysses, the greatest novel of all time:

"Home always breaks up when the mother goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear he'd collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows If you could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting L. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence. Mum's the word."

If these guys had any loving they would make condom use a sacramental ritual, a religious requirement of all insurance policies, if they had any children to raise and to house and to feed.

Instead, mum's the word . . .

Instead they serve obsequiously the capitalist requirement for ever increasing markets by demanding overwhelming fecundity.

If they had any families to feed, bread would be a sacramental right freely given and freely received, and a living wage a human, civil and religious right, required for the free exercise of religion, not the absurd stuff they make up now, the further onus they place upon our over stretched families, like the scribes and pharisees of old.

Their time is not long, but neither is their bosses' on Wall Street

Come find the Liberation bishops, in Latin America, the ones who are left, by cunning and God's great and merciful grace and compassion for the Poor Pilgrim People of God.

Find our Church in truth and fullness, in sanctity and grace, in Love and in peace, in humility and in poverty.

Not in these Republican spokes-models, this anglophonic bishopric . . .

“The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization,” it continues. “This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.”

## I don't like the fact that here in the UK my taxes got to a lot of things that are not exactly very Christian - such as armaments. Where is my religious freedom not to pay, however indirectly, for contraception, etc. ? Don't Catholics pay taxes that - however indirectly - pay the expences of executions ? How is that compatible with Catholic teaching ? And why did the Catholic bishops not denounce Dubya, and other Presidents & candidates & Presidents-elect, for their approval or defence or toleration of the death penalty, their failure to reject it, their use of when State Governors, & their failure to pardon those on Death Row ? OK, so they were not Catholics - but neither is Obama.

If Catholics in the US can pay for armaments, many of which are pretty horrible: why can the US bishops not allow US Catholics to contribute (equally indirectly) to paying for *other* government measures that are not exactly compatible with Catholic Christianity ? Why don't the bishops denounce the arms trade as anti-Christian (which it is) ? Why do they not tell Catholic servicemen, of all ranks & services, from 5-star generals (are there any ?) to recruits, to refuse to serve ? OK, so that would be hugely inconvenient, and probably illegal, & punishable with all kinds of penalties. It would take a lot of courage, and a lot of heroism. But that is what the bishops require of a lot of married Catholics. So why do the US bishops not either (a) go further, and stand up to the government over *everything* incompatible with Catholicism & Christianity, however culturally admired (like the Army), regardless of the consequences; or (b) take the view that if it can be morally tolerable for Catholics to pay (even indirectly) for the Army or its weapons, or to serve in it directly; then paying for contraception (even indirectly), though not desirable from a Catholic POV, is at least not utterly immoral & does not violate the Catholic conscience ?

Did the US bishops in August 1945 complain of the wickedness (& anti-Catholicism, in bombing Nagasaki) of Pres. Truman ? If not, why not ? If that was not a great evil & a sin - what in this intended legislation qualifies Obama to be an almost-AntiChrist ?

what troubles the bishops: Michelle.
Not only having an "active" President (unlike those Republican ones)
but they all love Michelle, too, like we all do . . .
and that disturbs their sense of religious freedom.
She's taken.
Kinda cramps their lifestyle . . .

http://www.animalpolitico.com/click-necesario/17-parejas-presidenciales-...

same nonsense is going on in this election year in Mexico, with a corrupted bishop using the same pretexts of religious freedom and anti-abortion, etc., (plus marriage as one man one woman) to tell people who to vote for (call this religious freedom?)

Nevertheless, in calling for protection of the vulnerable sectors of society and the environment, this is way to the left in many ways of what we have in the USA:

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Lanza Iglesia Católica guía para orientar el voto
Reforma | 14-02-2012 | 15:29
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Distrito Federal— La Arquidiócesis Primada de México publicó hoy un documento para orientar a los fieles a decidir por quién votar en las elecciones presidenciales.

De acuerdo con el Arzobispado, a cargo del Cardenal Norberto Rivera, los católicos deben tomar en cuenta que los candidatos y los partidos estén comprometidos con respetar la vida desde la concepción hasta la muerte natural.

También, señala, tienen el derecho a exigir a los aspirantes a Los Pinos que dejen claro si están a favor de una verdadera libertad religiosa.

"Los fieles cristianos católicos deben tener claridad que no es posible hacer una opción política por quienes son partidarios o promotores de falsos derechos y libertades que atentan contra las enseñanzas contenidas en la Sagrada Escritura, la tradición y la doctrina de la Iglesia", indica.

El escrito, firmado por Rivera Carrera y sus obispos auxiliares, y publicado en la página del Sistema de Información de la Arquidiócesis, enumera además nueve aspectos a considerar por los votantes cristianos.

Los criterios incluyen que los candidatos promuevan los valores humanistas, que pongan a la persona en el centro del trabajo político y por encima de los intereses partidarios; la educación, vista desde una formación integral y no sólo desde la transmisión de conocimientos; así como la promoción y el fortalecimiento de la familia.

"(...) Teniendo en cuenta que el matrimonio constituido entre un hombre y una mujer son la base de la sociedad humana y cristiana, impulsando la educación de las nuevas generaciones en los valores morales y cívicos para su integración en el desarrollo social de nuestro País", apunta.

También pide a los fieles que analicen que los aspirantes impulsen el combate a la injusticia social, la lucha contra la corrupción, iniciativas para el desarrollo económico del País, combate al crimen organizado, la protección y la integración de los grupos vulnerables, y la preservación del medio ambiente.

El Cardenal y los obispos indican que es deber de los feligreses votar y dar seguimiento al cumplimiento de las promesas de las autoridades electas.

while Dolan and Winter's annointed one, this man has NO shame:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/meet-newt-gingrich-faith-leaders-drea...

jc watts . . .??!!

oh
my
gawd . . .

Romance is in the air for the GOP and the Catholic church

United by a belief in the evil but simultaneously sacred nature of sex, these institutions are made for each other

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/14/catholic-church-gop-...

I regard this entire fiasco as nothing more than a stage on which Dolan and the other bishops have and continue to be skewing the logic in order to stay in the limelight and try to recreate the image of leadership they lost during the cover-up scandals. Throwing their weight around (and it isn't heavy to begin with) is the name of the game. Their arguments against Obama's plan is illogical on both points: 1)teaching of the Church (which it isn't--it's only the hierarchy's), 2) violation of religious freedom (that's a stretch; it isn't)

We Catholics don`t understand the stance of the catholic leadership here. The fact is that we don`t hear anything about anti-gay marriages during messes in the Church..

The Catholic leadership does not say anything about man marrying man or woman marrying woman in America.. One begins to ask does the Catholic leadership have any say in this in America?

I personally, I am shocked to not hear anything again man marrying man or woman marrying woman in America from these so called bishops in America.

Sad, Jesus you have to come again to save us...

Dear Signers,

The ecclesial magisterium has failed to make its case in support of Humanae Vitae, published in 1968. It's deader than Monty Python's famed Norwegian blue parrot.

Using the cloak of "religious liberty" to attempt the resurrection of a dead parrot might produce a brief comic sketch, along with a lot of laughs. (Remember the "Spanish Inquisition?!) And that's about all.

Several million good Catholic women say your bird won't fly. Believe them. Get used to it.

Respectfully keeping to the point: church-affiliated businesses are being compelled to "buy" this coverage due to the simple fact they pay these employees. What difference does it make which pool of employee compensation dollars (wages or insurance benefits) are used? If they had the option of giving employees a lump sum to buy their own insurance, would the next claim be the Church could deduct $xx from the amount given women capable of becoming pregnant in order to maintain this supposed claim of religious freedom? Even then, if an employee were to spend those reduced dollars to buy contraceptive coverage privately, how could the Church claim it wouldn't be indirectly paying? This whole direct versus indirect payment is a specious red herring meant to confuse those willing to be confused.

If the Church wants to claim First Amendment protection for businesses competing in the public arena, it needs to operate those businesses with primarily volunteers, pay only those who are true ministers of the faith for the Church and use actual Church income (not patient billing or student tuition from those outside the congregation) to fund the enterprises. When it does that, It has the right to discriminate all it wants against any set of employees without infringing on the employment rights of employees of other faiths, or no faith.