Obama, Casey laud Catholic Health Association

Sr. Carol Keehan has made a tragic error and has caused great damage. I pray that she repents and begs forgiveness for her actions. Our country, and any nation for that matter, will not experience true peace and prosperity until we stop killing babies.

Finally, praise for the ADULT Catholics in this discussion.

Isnt it amazing that the bishops have to meet "behind closed doors" again! When everyone says we need more transparency, here is a good example of weak church leaders who are afraid to speak out in the open and risk their cushy careers! Whereas our beloved nuns are courageous enough to withstand the heat!

Oh dear! Watch some knucklehead bishop excommunicate the who CHA now because the President thanked them for getting health care through Congress! Let's hope the dumbest ones are sleeping this week.

As far as abortion coverage goes, the new American health care legislation is more stringent than European laws, yet I have never heard a bishop in Europe, not even the current Bishop of Rome, complain about their laws being against life. So I have a hard time understanding why our American bishops are so opposed to the legislation.

It profit not a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul, but for praise from Obama and alleged Catholic Casey?

I'm sure glad you added that very last sentence - a very weak quote from the Bishops. Otherwise, this story comes off as positive rather than negative. You almost praise the whole situation, which leads to your readers feeling/thinking that the passage of the bill was the correct thing for Catholics. Quite the opposite! And it never had any possibility of being a "pro-life" law - none whatsoever. The USCCB came in a day late and a dollar short - AGAIN!

The Catholic Church invernted hospitals. It/we should be leading the way in providing life-giving procedures, even to those who are poor. It can be done. And it IS being done in many places - and WITHOUT government aid/intervetion.

American Catholics need to wake up!

The U.S. bishops are holding behind-closed-doors discussions! These guys are very brave. I wonder who will be excommunicated next? Any bets it's Sr. Carol Keehan? I mean she's a woman and sort of defied the U.S. bishops, so she's gotta go.
You may realize I have no respect for the U.S. bishops ~ oops, I may be excommunicated next!

Let us hope that the bishops are behind closed doors so that they can begin the process of discerning how they lost their way.

I thank God for Sr. Carol Keehan and the leadership she has shown in supporting the Health Care Reform bill; I am so glad it passed, and it has been so needed for a long time. And I thank NCR for reporting on this gathering of the Catholic Health Association and the speakers. I trained to be an RN in a Catholic Hospital over 52 years ago and I know the extent of the dedication and committment of the Sisters and staffs. They live in the field so to speak, and know first hand the needs and existing problems. Well done, faithful ones.

Sr. Keehan has lost her job as a result of her support for Obamacare. It will be interesting to see how many more of its supporters lose theirs come November.

This president who is against life and what the Catholic Church stands for insults Catholics who are faithful to the magnesterium. Obama and his party are against life from natural conception, soon with his "health care" the elderly or others deemed not as important will not be able to have "life until natural death". The CHA should be ashamed for supporting this sham of "health care".

Sad.

Our seven children were born in Sisters of Providence
hospital in Seattle. I was attended to by various
Sisters and other Catholic Health workers...and never
saw a Bishop...thank goodness. Thanks to the good Sisters
who stood up for health care when it was so needed in this
country. Let the Bishops have their "closed meeting"...
maybe they can figure out a way to come back to the good
graces of the people in the pews after mishandling the sex
abuse disaster and not supporting a health care plan.

A point of clarification: Sr. Keehan has not lost her job.

Don't you have an opinion Mr. Allen. I do but it wouldn't be polite to speak it.

This tribute from Obama might irk the bishops a bit but I truly believe the CHA position is correct. The new law prohibits tax dollars going to abortion, even without the "executive order" subsequently signed by Obama. I identified at least two separate clauses in the law that guarantee freedom of conscience to those who refuse to cooperate with abortions. I can't for the life of me understand why the bishops opposed this law on the basis of these two criteria. Is there some deeper agenda that they are concealing from us?

Was the "wound to Catholic unity" caused by CHA and other like-minded voices or was it caused by the bishops? Is it a breach of unity whenever one fails to march lock-step with the bishops on the legal interpretation of a law? I think not.

This is not about the morality of abortion. I hope we all agree on the moral question. But it is about the legal interpretation of the provisions of the newly passed law as it pertains to abortion. On that we can respectfully disagree without causing disunity.

Obama is probably happy the CHA and the bishops are divided. He doesn't want Catholics to stop his agenda.

If you are being praised by the likes of this, you know that you have moved far far away from God and his Holy Catholic Church...

If there were still any doubts regarding the depth of Sr. Keehan's betrayal of the unborn, Mr. Obama's lavish praises of her dispel them. This President promised Planned Parenthood that he would sign FOCA and the passage of this "health care" law is a big step toward doing just that. That fact that he did it with the help of a Roman Catholic nun must have made it even sweeter. Certainly Planned Parenthood and NARAL have expressed their gratitude to CHA and particularly to Sr. Keehan.
It's ironic that Mr. Obama mentions the "I can't wait" video(in which CHA members urged the passage of the health care bill) since in an interview for EWTN Sr. Keehan kept insisting that the video did not endorse Obamacare but simply a "universal health care". Now we know better.
Naturally Sen. Casey also joined in the praises--his false and opportunistic pro-life stand is well known.
As a sign of his gratitude Mr. Obama gave the good sister one of the pens used to sign the new law. Hopefully Sr. Keehan keeps that pen in a prominent place to remind her of the little lives she threw under the bus to achieve her agenda. And hopefully the Bishops will find the courage to end the scandal this nun is causing in the Catholic Church.

Let us not pretend that passing a Health Care Bill that would serve to preserve Human Life by providing Government sponsored quality and affordable Insurance plans WITHOUT the option to purchase insurance for elective abortion, wasn't possible. Let us also not pretend that abortion is Health Care. Despite the fact that there are those who argue that the termination of a Human Life "cuts costs", one cannot be preserving a Human Life while destroying a Human Life, simultaneously. Without the Government sponsored Health Care plans, the additional option to purchase elective coverage for abortion as part of these plans would not exist, and for this reason,the government sponsored plans are helping to fund abortions. Let us not pretend that we don't all know the lie from the start- the claim that abortion is Health Care to begin with.

Kudos to Sr. Keehan and CHA for the courage to back a beginning modest health care bill. CHA and Sr. Keehan definitely represent me and I am committed to prolife. What else would the President and Congress have to do to convince thse ultra, unreasonable. single minded people. Rep. Stubeck is also to be commended. I believe that he is very mystified and disillusioned by the American Bishops and their unreasonable demands. What would Jesus do in this situation?

Sr. Carol,

Way to speak truth to power!

It cannot be lost on anyone that the RC religious women are the only part of the official church left with any moral credibility. I'll bet that really frosts the bishops, who have no one to blame but themselves.

Ah, yes. Another (non) "Catholic" organization playing the fool for pro-abortion Democrats.

John,

So good to see you at this meeting. I hope you are able to offer some extended coverage at a later point. I always appreciate your balanced approach. I presume you're off to Florida ... safe travels.

Why is it that when "pro-life" and "Democrat" come together, usually the former is sacrificed to the political aims of the latter?

Casey
Stupak
the list goes on

I found the bishops' behavior to be "a wound to Catholic unity". They created such terrible divisiveness among Catholics over this issue and some were extremely vindictive towards those Catholics who, in following their consciences, disagreed them. I think they showed extremely poor leadership.

The actions of those laymen and laywomen who worked to improve the health care law and then helped to have the legislation passed illustrate that in the world the determining acts belong to the laity. Whereas the bishops individually and collectively have a vocation to teach, preach, santify, and govern the Church the laity have an obligation to evangelize the world, and make the Kingdom of God a material reality here. This in practice means that neither the USCCB, nor individual bishops are lobbyist, writers of legislation, nor bullies in a pulpit.

One has to wonder, now that Archbishop of Rome has reminded the universal Church that the laity are co-responsible, why the bishops are meeting behind closed doors.

The health care reform bill NEVER funded elective abortion. Why can't everybody get that straight? But yes the Bishops argued that it funded elective abortions---didn't do their homework.

In response to Brian K....women/girls not having abortions by itself will not bring peace and prosperity to our country. We need to do the work to eliminate all those cultural and economic factors that force so many women into those difficult and often agonizing decisions. All one needs to do is work in Social Services and you will be inundated on a daily basis by the difficult, nearly impossible circumstances which confront these women and their families. That is not to say there aren't abortions taking place that I would have difficulty accepting, but I would refrain from making judgments because most of the time we don't fully understand that person's situation. Our attitude must always be one of compassion. The world is hardly ever black and white except that we are always called to be loving and compassionate.

I put this story right up there with those who contend that Benito Mussolini was a great leader because he was the one leader who could successfully make the trains in Italy run on time. Who cares what Barack Obama thinks? His opinion has no validity when it comes to Catholic teaching.

The American bishops are flirting with irrelevance. Sadly, I now largely ignore them, where I once truly looked to them for guidance on how to make moral sense of difficult political issues. Their behavior in the health care debate was so irrational and political that I lost all respect for the organization and now largely ignore what they say. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way.

The bishops worried about "wounds to Catholic unity" are just James Dobson wannabes, who envy the sheeplike obedience of his supporters. When HE says jump, his followers ask, "how high?" That's how they want it.

What is NOT said is that our current 'health care' system relies on for-profit insurance companies which ALL provide abortion services. (Abortion is far more cost-effective than to allow an unborn child be carried to full-term, delivered, and then cared for. And we all know that our current system is delivered solely for the purpose of raising profits for corporate shareholders - and they gain their profits by kicking sick people off their list, denying millions of claims every year, and keeping the prices affordable. It's capitalism at its worst - but born on the back of our nation's poor.

Of course, the 'Christian' right believes far more in raw capitalism, a rugged individualism that continues to blame the poor for being poor, than they do the truly Christian sense that we are a community with the mandate to treat each other as Christ has taught us. I remain grateful that, in principal, the US Bishops support universal health care. But it is sad they they continue to fall short, not calling our current system of wealthy winners and 43 million losers the "sin" that it is.

I guess we shoucd not blame the bishops for knowing whivh side their bread is buttered on.

The USA is not the Vatican.
We have a law in this country that abortion is legal. Like it or not. it is the law.
If the Bishops don't like it, they should run for election instead of using well-meaning Catholics to promote the Bishop's own agenda which is to control the lives of women, much like they control the lives of priests.
In a democracy, we have substituted persuasion for burning women at the stake.
The Bishops wish to control 300 Million people by manipulating government officials. They each have one vote.
Not to mention a wide variety of tax exemptions for their churches and affiliates.
I do not see much Jesus -like in their behavior.
Suffer the little children. This means after they are born too.
PS. Half of little children are women. This is a democracy. That means 50% of the vote. Get used to the idea guys.

The behavior of the bishops certainly seemed to dismiss the suffering of so much of the population who have had limited access to health care for far too long. In this way, they seem far more interested in political gains than in serving the people. Despite supposedly being men of great devotion, the end result of their actions looks little different than the self-serving behavior seen in far too many politicians.

I'm trying to reply to the comment by rintz yesterday about President Obama which is completely unfounded. Why do so-called "faithful" Catholics and their Bishops wallow in sneer and smear when it comes to Obama, liberals, dems, or healthcare?
Why attack Sister Keenan? You have no scriptural blessing on your haughty assertions. Read the catechism about the 8th Commandment--are "real" Catholics still obliged to observe it?

Isn't it true that the wingnuts have finally arrived at a simple clarification?

Any Catholic who supports anything tied to President Obama is no longer a Catholic.

That makes it easy for you, doesn't it?

Certainly couldn't have anything to do with him being a (gasp!!) black man, could it?

Thank God that someone stood for the well-being of the many who will now be able to access health care. Yes, abortion is a moral wrong, but this bill does not extend abortion assistance beyond what was already in our health care laws. The Hyde amendment is still in force. Sometime we have to choose the least bad effect. It would have been morally wrong to deny the health care coverage that is now available. I fear our American church is in danger of becoming a one-trick pony. That is an over statement I know, but whatever happened to the idea of a "seamless garment" put forward by Cardinal Bernardin? Abortion is not the only "anti-life" issue in our country. Work with the homeless some time! What about capital punishment! What about the hatefulness of some of the so-called Christians toward the mothers, homosexuals, and anyone else that do not subscribe to their narrow ideas. I think that the killing/attacking of abortion providers is also anti-life. We need to learn to lead and persuade, not attack with the venom shown so often.

Hmm, My last comment did not print, so I will try again.
I applaud those who worked so hard to pass health care reform. Yes, abortion is a moral wrong, but this bill did not extend abortion support beyond what already existed. The Hyde amendment is still in force. What we do need to look at some times is the least bad effect of actions. In fact, there are fewer abortions when the Democrats are in power primarily because they provide other means of assistance including education and support during pregnancy. Instead of just looking at abortion, how about if we look at anti-life issues which includes the hatefulness of some opposers of abortion, support for capital punishment, and failure to provide health care sufficient to preserve life. How about working in outreach to the homeless, to pregnant women, to aids patients, etc. That would really be a prolife stance in the style of Cardinal Bernardin who preached of "the seamless garment" of prolife action. We need to teach, support, and lead; not perpetuate hatred. While never good, I think there are some circumstances which justify abortion. As it stands now, women are just throw-away people.

As of today no evidence of a signed abortion executive order.