Bishops Restate Vow vs. Obamacare's Abortion

The nation’s Catholic bishops have drawn a line in the sand over the Democrats’ refusal to include strong language excluding abortion from coverage under healthcare reform.

The three key bishops heading up the church’s healthcare reform lobbying efforts ? Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia; Walter Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and John Wester of Salt Lake City, Utah ? told Congress in a letter Thursday that the church has no choice but to oppose the healthcare reform legislation as it stands.

Spurring their renewed opposition were committee defeats of several amendments that would have prevented abortion from being.

On behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the letter said, "we are writing to express our disappointment that progress has not been made on the three priority criteria for health care reform that we have conveyed previously to Congress. In fact, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a conscience rights amendment accepted earlier by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

“If final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill,” said the letter, the bishops' sixth missive addressing healthcare reform since July.

The bishops, however, also reiterated their commitment to working with Congress and the administration to produce healthcare reform legislation that “clearly protects life, dignity and health of all.”

If the final legislation fails to include strong language protecting the conscience rights of healthcare workers and preventing abortion coverage, the bishops pledged they “will have to oppose the healthcare bill vigorously.”

The Obama administration, however, claims the bishops are mistaken in their opposition, claiming the 1977 Hyde amendment would keep federal funding from going to pay for abortions.

Millions are scandalized that this "official Catholic" response to Obamacare from Hell is so tepid and un-electrifying--- and scandalized with good reason. People rightly expect a lot MORE of the Catholic Church. "Of those to whom more has been given, more will be expected."

But what of the 292 members of Congress who are Protestant? Who knows how many Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran, or non-denom "Christian" legislators are voting pro-abortion? Nobody has ever tallied up an answer to that question: not in 2009, not in ANY year since abortion has been legal.

Pulling back for a moment from this current crisis, refocus your attention on the Big Picture: the Culture of Death which is all around us. Find me another Church that gives an explicit and accurate moral critique on the whole gamut: contraception, sterilization, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, suicide, relativistic medical ethics, homosexuality, torture, slavery, terrorism, unjust war, WMD's, holocaust: it is the Catholic Church alone that opposes all these evils and sees the connections between them.

Name one global leader other than the Pope who has articulated a coherent moral teaching on these issues. Name one humanly-authored document other than the Catechism of the Catholic Church which offers Christ-centered scope and depth on every single interrelated moral and ethical challenge, from the personal to the global.

I am so glad I am in the Catholic Church, which teaches that right is right and wrong is wrong, and teaches with authority, "not like the scribes." Nothing wrong with the teaching, my friend. The problem is (as always) with the many who reject the teaching.

Now think of the issue of so-called believers' political involvement in abortion. Everybody knows there are self-described "Catholic" politicoes involved, because as of posting time some 32 Catholic bishops have told such individuals that they should not come forward to receive Holy Communion without confession and repentance.

Nor have I heard of any -- any --church, other than the Catholic Church, which has attempted to publically discipline its members who are political supporters of these "socially acceptable" forms of perversion and murder.

Think about that.

There is a battle raging. Christ told Peter that "Upon This Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it"; He didn't say it would be without a fight. Every one of us has to take up whatever weapons he has been given, spiritual and temporal, by the Spirit Who is Lord and Giver of Life, by the precept and example of Christ, and fight.

Noting that SOME American Catholic bishops are acting like hypocrites by their expressing “shock” that the big O’s health care legislation is going to publically fund abortions is not a general flaming of Roman Catholicism.

>>> People rightly expect a lot MORE of the Catholic Church. <<<

On the topic of abortion: given _Humanae Vitae_ and JPII’s encyclicals, of course; given the behavior of American RC Bishops and American RC laity, not so much.

In a more general sense, what I was trying to say was that the bone of contention between traditional Protestantism (which I follow) and Roman Catholicism is NOT so much a matter of disagreement over social issues or “social teachings.”

My interest — or dismay — over what American RC’s have to do/say about abortion has to do with my overall concern about abortion and the disconnect between Christian teaching on abortion and the actions/statements of fellow Christians. For me, it’s not a matter of thinking “Oh, goody! Another opportunity to flame the RCs!”

Both Protestantism and Catholicism (and let’s not forget the Eastern Orthodox!) have had to deal with the problem of Modernism, especially in its birth-control/abortion/euthanasia form. It has not, and will not be easy.

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