Bishops' health care bulletin inserts go nationwide

Before anyone goes and says this is a Republican thing, what part of the Republicans' proposals call for care for immigrants? The bishops have said that the bill would be unacceptable without it. All the Democrats have to do is revise the bill to explicitly deny federal money for abortions. Then they would have the Bishops' support! But no, they are so entrenched in the abortion industry that they deny amendment after amendment that would do this. If abortion were to be excluded from these bills, then why wouldn't they just appease those who want it banned--since it would not make a difference anyway? But no, abortion is back-doored into all of these bills. Factcheck.org has done a good job pointing out the inaccuracies (lies?) of the president and congressional leaders every time the vaguely say that abortion is denied. It happens again and again. When questioned, they say abortion can't be funded, and yet the wording of the legislation and other policy statements consistently say the opposite. Democrats, you have 2 options. You can exclude abortion and have the bishops be a major force behind the bills as public support wanes. Or you can give into the abortion lobby and lose millions of supporters.

"Most Americans don't want to pay for other people's abortions via health care either.'

Except we do all the time through private insurance policies. Why is there no equal call for Catholics to dump their private insurance policies that cover abortion? It just seems to me that this is another moral stance being waged on the backs of those Americans who are without, and has little to do with those who have.

Reform must start over; current reform efforts are using government’s advantages to force consumers and employers to pay even more money which will then be given to insurers and hospitals that have a long history of failing to serve us fairly.

Nobody can collect the money to pay for health care as cheaply as the government can through a national sales tax, and nobody can deliver high quality care and medications as cost effectively as the VA.

Two choices should be offered to everyone to use either; free public health care, no insurance, no co pays, free period, sales tax funded, delivered from a new system of government owned and operated hospitals, using the VA format, which would provide all government funded care, or alternatively consumers could choose to purchase private insurance and private care.

Employers could turnover health care to government.

We would save hundreds of billions annually being morally fair.

I congratulate the Bishops for issuing this statement. Now what are they prepared to do to Bishops and Dioceses that refuse to issue the statement to the faithful?

The Diocese of Cleveland (Ohio) is ignoring the appeal. As well, hand-delivered copies have been presented to pastors who have blatantly refused to even mention it let alone insert anything in the Sunday bulletin. I always thought that the one defining attribute of the Roman Catholic Church was obedience to authority. Evidently I was wrong.

There are hundreds of thousands in the Cleveland area alone who are being deprived of the Bishops' statement and appeal. Is this partisan action by our Diocese and some clergy? Absolutely!

It's time for these "Social Justice" catholics to find another church. I understand that there may be room and fellowship available in the local Episcopal parish.

At first I was angry when I read about this insert, and then saddened that the bishops are so short-sighted that they haven't thought about life after birth, but now I am sort of at the place where I believe that this insert, along with the future document on marriage will simply hasten the demise of an outmoded system of governing the church and alow a new mode to emerge. Which is probably a good thing.

If we as a national family can chose to be our "brother's keeper", then as our "brother's keeper", we will respect life from conception to natural death.
When we can see each other as a unique miracle of life, we will be seeing ourselves in him who with our Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit is the Source and Goal of life, the resting place for our restless hearts.
This miracle can only happen in the union of a man and a woman with the presence of God. Sadly and sinfully, this miracle does not always spring from holiness. Abuse and concupisence are sometime witnesses of conception. Inevitably, it is the womb that suffers not only the pangs of childbirth, but often, the wounds of paternal absence as well, physical, material, spiritual and final.
We have heard enough about "respect for life", an undeniable attribute of the Lord and Giver of Life. So how do we help the "sower of life" understand, accept, nurture and collaborate with the "cradle of life" to help each new miraculous life grow in wisdom and grace before God and God's family? Abortion is not a failure or sin of the mother. It is the lack of responsibility and accountablity of the father. It is the want of fraternity and community of the junior, contemporary and especially of the mother's elder sisters and brothers. When each and every new miracle of life is not welcomed and celebrated and cared for by each and every one of us, then the gift and blessing of new life offered to us by God is not received, opened and shared. God's gift is aborted, not only by the mpother, not only by the father, but by each and every one of us.
Health care reform is past overdue in our national family. We are losing our future, aborting it for profit, power and position. If we as a free and democratic republic with a strong Christian presence cannot take care of our children and of our suffering sisters and brothers, then we are not really free or democratic. We are not a republic. And we are poor witnesses of Christianity.
Paz y Bien, your repentant brother, Rolando.

And don't forget to mail in your FOCA protest cards!

Our diocese just started a $40 million fund raising campaign. No way is healthcare going to be allowed to dilute that message.

"The Diocese of Cleveland (Ohio) is ignoring the appeal. As well, hand-delivered copies have been presented to pastors who have blatantly refused to even mention it let alone insert anything in the Sunday bulletin. I always thought that the one defining attribute of the Roman Catholic Church was obedience to authority. Evidently I was wrong."

As a technical point, the decisions of the USCCB are not binding authority. As such, local priests and bishops do not have to show obediance to them.

Hopefully most will. Though I have alot of hope for my parish in this area, I do not have much hope for my Pastor. He has evidently never demonstrated enthusiasm for pro life issues. He is, however, due to retire soon.

Dear Shirley

President Obama said that there would be no free abortions. As a liberal do you know why he broke this promise? Is he giving you what you really want to get you on board with Af-Pak?

Obedience to authority also includes abiding by IRS regulations prohibiting charitable tax exempt organizations from specific involvement in political ballot issues or threatening consequences (excommunication or denial of the Eucharist) for voting a specific way...

Brought to you by the same hierarchy that connived and enabled criminal abusers to prey upon their unsuspecting vicimes in new places time and again for decades...

The message from the USCCB is that public funding for abortion is too high a price for expanded health care. The logic, one assumes, is that the good of providing people with the care that they cannot get today is offset by the harm that would occur from public funding of abortion.

As Colkoch 1 pointed out, the source of funding for abortion should not be the issue. If the USCCB advocates a boycott of a public insurance that pays for abortion, they should advocate a boycott of private plans that currently do as well. It is possible that the (unstated) idea is that public funding of abortion will increase the number performed. If so, that would have to be supported by facts to be persuasive and not just speculation.

Conversely, there is a great deal of very persuasive data that shows that increased access to health care, (and futrher than that, a single-payer national health system) would not only save more lives, but also improve those lives while saving billions of dollars each year.

So the thinking behind the USCCB's insert is fundamentally flawed. It weighs in favor of a possible bad effect against an guaranteed good effect.

In reality, the marginalized in our society are just as vulnerable as an unborn child, and without proper and necessary care they will be just as dead as any aborted child. Denying health care to anyone is simply passive euthanasia; you cannot be pro-life without being pro-health.

Our priority is not to judge which is more important, (health care or abortion prevention), that is a false conflict designed to distract rather than illuminate. It is also a message of "no." Our Christian mission is how to go about securing both. That is the "yes."

It's possible some of the parishes don't want to get caught mixing religion and politics thereby losing their tax-free status. I think this bulletin which urges political action is really getting close to if not outright crossing the line into politics.

Dear Catholic Church in America,
How about not sloughing your Christian mandate to care for the poor and marginalized yourselves onto the principalities and powers, ok? How about getting your bishops to put as much energy into redressing the poverty within their own diocesan purviews as they do playing democratic politics and leave the US to its own devices? How about you stop trying to play your game by their rules? Thanks ever so much.
Regards,
me

Just give the bishops more vouchers for Catholic education and their other "faith-based" initiatives and they'll back off...the same way Jeb Bush "bought" the bishops' support in Florida for two terms in office.

p.s. I trust that this clearly POLITICAL masquerading as PASTORAL insert has been properly vetted by the USCCB's legal advisors and is in complete compliance with the Tax Code Section 501, just in case someone somewhere does issue a legal challenge for a tax exempt organization's violation vis a vis the American separation of church and state. CAVEAT PASTOR!

http://www.irs.gov/charities/churches/index.html

Trying to think of a peaceful way to protest this.... Maybe Catholics who oppose should mail the insert back to bishop w/a question mark or comment. Or just leave it in the pew. This will be an interesting Sunday in my Parish.

The Bishops are correct in trying to fight against a bill that will further enshrine the murder of innocent unborn children. They are right in demanding that no taxpayer money be used to fund this horrible practice. I commend them for their courage and their faithfulness in defense of life.

To those who say that Catholics already pay for abortion in their insurance premiums, I respond to you that having medical insurance is a personal choice, not a requirement (not yet). Some may choose, for whatever reason, to refuse coverage. That is directly unlike taxes, which we are required to pay, regardless of our personal or religious objections. The first is a personal choice, the second is a requirement under penalty of law.

The plan currently under debate in the US House of Representatives provides for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to have the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government plan (line 17, page 110, section 222 under "Abortions for Which Public Funding is Allowed"). Further, on line 16, page 96, section 213, under "Insurance Rating Rules", the bill requires that a monthly abortion premium must be charged to each enrollee in the public government-run plan. This premium, no less than $1 per month per enrollee, will be deposited in a US Treasury account and these federal funds used to pay for abortion services.

This is unacceptable. If the Democrats want to promote health care reform, fine. But they simply cannot resist the temptation to get their "sacrament of death", abortion, stuck into the bill at the expense of taxpayers. This kind of disregard for millions of Christians whose beliefs stand in direct opposition to abortion is emblematic of the extreme left who do not care what the majority of Americans want, who do not believe that anyone should have any say in government or politics if they disagree with the liberal, leftist ideology. It is emblematic of why this horrible bill will never become law.

Hah, the pro-life Democrats stepped up and gave the bishops got exactly what they wanted with the house bill. Now it's time for them to walk the walk and send another bulletin supporting this bill.