“His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,’ and said he campaigned on an ‘extremist anti-life platform,’ Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture ‘Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul.’”
“’Because man is a sacred element of secular life,’ Stafford remarked, ‘man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.’”
“’For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,’ Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. ‘On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.’”
“Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the ‘hot, angry tears of betrayal’ by beginning a new sentiment where one is ‘with Jesus, sick because of love.’”
“How serious are they? So serious that they won’t bother to sell the hospitals. They’ll shut them down and take the losses in order to prevent their use as abortion clinics. To do otherwise, the bishops stated, would be to cooperate in the evil of abortions.
What kind of impact would that have? The Catholic Church is one of the nation’s biggest health-care providers. In 2007, they ran 557 hospitals that serviced over 83 million patients. The church also had 417 clinics that saw over seven million patients. If they shut down almost a thousand hospitals and clinics nationwide, the US would not just lose a significant portion of available health care, but the poor and working-class families that received the health care would have fewer options.
Also, the Catholic Church runs this on a non-profit basis, spending vast sums of its money to ensure access for those unable to pay. That’s the kind of model that many on the Left believe should exclusively provide health care — and FOCA would spell the end of the major provider already in that model.”
excerpt http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/12/catholic-bishops-fight-foca/
FOCA, as it stands now, would force Catholic hospitals, and pro-life nurses and doctors, to perform abortions.