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Posted on 04/01/2012 6:16:01 AM PDT by NYer
The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has a fascinating interview with New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in which the president of the US bishops’ conference discusses the interactions he’s had with President Barack Obama over the last several months regarding the birth-control mandate handed down by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Dolan describes the 45-minute meeting he had with Obama last November, at which he understood the president to say that the Catholic Church’s religious freedoms would be protected as the health-care law was implemented:
“I said, ‘I’ve heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?’ [Mr. Obama] said, ‘You bet it does.’”
The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. “You don’t have my permission, you’ve got my request,” the president replied.
Dolan describes himself as “chagrined” at Obama’s apparent change of heart when, at the end of January, he received a call from the Oval Office telling him that not only would the birth control mandate be enforced, but that the bishops had until August “to find out how you're going to be able to comply.” Dolan says he told the president: “Well, sir, we don't need the [extra time]. I can tell you now we’re unable to comply.”
Dolan tells Taranto that for the USCCB, the primary issue remains religious freedom, not contraception.
What rankles him the most is the government’s narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.
“We find it completely unswallowable, both as Catholics and mostly as Americans, that a bureau of the American government would take it upon itself to define ‘ministry,’” Archbishop Dolan says. ...
It also amounts to penalizing the church for not discriminating in its good works: “We don’t ask people for their baptismal certificate, nor do we ask people for their U.S. passport, before we can serve them, OK? . . . We don’t serve people because they’re Catholic, we serve them because we are, and it’s a moral imperative for us to do so.”
Dolan does say that a lack of clarity on Catholic teachings regarding sex is partly to blame for the recent furor over contraception; even many Catholics don’t understand the Church’s prohibition of birth control, and use it without scruple.
For this he faults the church leadership. “We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality.” He dates this diffidence to “the mid- and late ‘60s, when the whole world seemed to be caving in, and where Catholics in general got the impression that what the Second Vatican Council taught, first and foremost, is that we should be chums with the world, and that the best thing the church can do is become more and more like everybody else.”
Dolan also takes aim at the attitude of many American Catholics toward public service and religion, epitomized by John F. Kennedy’s assertion that, as Dolan puts it, “my Catholic faith will not inspire my decisions in the White House.”
“That’s worrisome,” Archbishop Dolan says. “That’s a severe cleavage between one’s moral convictions and the judgments one is called upon to make. . . . It’s bothersome to us as Catholics, because that’s the kind of apologia that we expect of no other religion.” Read all of Taranto’s interview with Dolan here.
Arrogant ... how surprising! (Not!!)
When you sup with the devil .....you need a long spoon.
Well, shape up! Teach the truth in season and out of season.
Notre Dame invited Obama to speak and granted him and honary doctorate. Now the Catholics have to eat the bitter fruit.
If people, and groups of people, have not learned it yet take note: Do not enter into any negotiations with Obama. He already has a predetermined outcome. He is not interested at arriving at a solution or in compromise. He is just using you, or your group, to go through the motions and appear to be arriving at solutions.
He is a calculating, manipulative, two-face, double speaking lier who will say ANYTHING to get what he, and his comrads, want!!!
Even if he doesn’t get what he wants he is putting his nutso ideas out there so that the next time they will seem less shocking.
chastity and sexual morality...Bring the back fire & brimstone...& the nuns in full habit!
devil boy ohbamma mamba jamma lenin khomeini, is incapable of coherent thought,he uses sharp turns to deceive folks, gives them no time and wants to hammer them, look at the health care law and God knows what else he has slipped into the pool
that we have not heard about yet..all I know is we need to get the scum out of the pool before he calls on his minions to do his dirty deeds..
I think a lot of this is due to people not saying what they believe, to hell with civility when you are attacked, isn’t that special, we are now at the point where we are tongue tied, deceived, concerned and know this POS POTUS is a traitor to the highest degree and I believe to God as well..
So to cap this, Catholic Church just say it, we do not accept Ohbamma’s ideas of fairness, fair play, contraception ..in fact we see this president as hostile to our freedoms, and is a out and out lying POS..
See who marches then...
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Their obligation as bishops of the Catholic Church is not to sit down with "Caesar" and negotiate with him to carve out exceptions -- for their own organizations -- to Federal mandates that are outrageous on their face and diabolical at their core. Their obligation as bishops of the Catholic Church is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ even when "Caesar" has no interest in listening and has basically sold his soul to Satan.
I would like to have Archbishop Dolan and the rest of his Catholic bishops stand up in the pulpit next Easter Sunday and provide clear, unequivocal direction to the members of their flocks on one important point:
What instruction would the Catholic Church give to a lay Catholic business owner who is being forced to provide insurance coverage for abominations against God's will under the terms of ObamaCare?
The SCOTUS will give us all an Easter present and Super-Duper Justice John Roberts will change the precedent of the Court, by announcing, from the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, along with Cardinal Dolan, that the first vote was 6-3, the mandate is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and the second vote was 5-4 that the whole of obamacare has been cancelled.
Sweet dreams and Happy Easter.
Unless I am mistaken, many of Catholicism's very public faces and voices in politics seem to be speaking against very basic teachings.
Where is the correction?
People in and out of the Church are paying attention! We see that a lot of housecleaning is just not getting done anymore. What's up with that?
How could I be so insensitive? I forgot.
allah akbhar.
They've already "rendered unto Caesar" what should have been "rendered unto God."
A Great Chronicle of roadside historical monument proportions. The article, the comments and the tag lines all demand “snare drum roll / kabooms”.
Wait, you mean Obama said one thing in a meeting then just completely changed his mind later?
It’s almost like he says whatever he wants when he wants and has no intention of keeping his word....
The archbishop is a fool if he thought Obama would respect religious opinion or go against Lib opinion on birth control.
God’s blessings to you and yours in Christ, our risen Lord and Savior..
What rankles him the most is the government's narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.
This is what "rankles him [Dolan] most" ... because ObamaCare is forcing the Catholic bishops to do something they never wanted to do: Take their institutions -- such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens -- and return them to what should have been their main purpose all along: PROSELYTIZATION
So . . . Does that mean that Catholic schools, not being religious, qualify for federal funding like any public school?
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