Posted on 11/06/2012 1:53:30 PM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 5, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A liberal pressure group has accused the U.S. Catholic bishops of breaking tax law by faithfully proclaiming the non-negotiable issues of Church teaching, including the right to life.
These teachings, the organization argues, disadvantage President Barack Obama.
On Friday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked for “an immediate Internal Revenue Service investigation into the activities of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops for using their position as leaders of the Catholic Church to persuade parishioners to vote against Barack Obama in Tuesday’s election.”
The USCCB “may be engaged in prohibited electioneering,” which would require the IRS to revoke its 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt status, according to CREW.
The complaint cites letters written by Bishops including Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, David Ricken of Green Bay, Edward Burns of Juneau, and Paul S. Loverde of Arlington.
None of the bishops endorse a candidate. However, each reminded Catholics of the importance of preserving religious freedom against the HHS mandate, protecting innocent life, and defending the institution of marriage.
Often portrayed as a “non-partisan watchdog,” CREW’s complaints fall heavily upon conservative and Republican targets.
Executive Director Melanie Sloan served as Nominations Counsel for then-Senator Joe Biden’s Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993.
CREW is funded by George Soros’ Open Society Institute, as well as the Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The left-leaning group has regularly challenged the tax-exempt status of groups whose views it does not favor.
Its intent is to “harass and try to intimidate the Catholic Church,” Deal Hudson, president of Pennsylvania Catholics Network, told LifeSiteNews.com.
Frivolous complaints and lawsuits have “the double effect of getting good people to be timid and secondly to provide arguments for the pro-abortion Catholics to try to argue that to defend Church teaching is partisan,” Hudson said.
“There are good people who simply will hold back, because they simply can’t afford that kind of legal defense.” he said.“Bill Donohue’s Catholic League had to spend several hundred thousand dollars defending itself after 2008. Archbishop Chaput, when he was at Denver, had to spend nearly $50,000 defending himself after 2008.”
Although the Catholic bishops’ stuck to the issues, a few priests – and many Protestant clergy – have openly defied the 1954 tax ordinance and endorsed a political candidate from the pulpit.
Nearly 1,600 pastors took part in last month’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday, arranged by the Alliance Defending Freedom. The IRS has not yet investigated any participating church.
Hudson said that makes CREW’s complaint more transparent.
“If this were Great Britain and these groups had to pay when they lost, there wouldn’t be a single lawsuit, because they know they will lose,” Hudson concluded. “They know it’s bogus.”
They should probably be deported somewhere else. Didn't David Duke find a home? If he did, they can!
No, they’re just saying, this is what we can support, and this is what we can’t. If Mitt is just about right according to what they’re saying, and Barry sucks, whose fault is that?
My pastor (in West Virginia) read excerpts from Bishop Jenky’s letter and some comments from Francis Cardinal George, tying them together with the First Reading and Gospel about the commandments. Very well done ... and these letters get a hearing far from the diocese in which they are written.
Sadly our Spineless Bishop DeLorenzo, only co-signed the letter from the bishopf Arlington in the Catholic Paper, he didn’t have the priests read anything in Mass.
Sell the cathedrals, put the taxes into the budget, and preach the Gospel. If that is what it takes, do it. My own congregation has had some talk of the same.
If they’re going to cr@p all over the church with thier anti-Christian policies, what makes them think the church won’t scrape it off and fling it back? ......”He who soweth spairingly, reapeth spairingly....”.
Headline says Bishops Electioneering...Wish the hell they were.. that bishops letter was hardly inflamatory ....I had members place a car top sign on their vehicle in the church parking lot facing the entrance posted at each of our 3 Sunday masses without getting pastors approval. Some of our “leading catholics” had demo-com yard signs at their residences, promoting every candidate. In fact one who serves as an usher busily chewed out the parrishoner who put that sign up....Parrish is in central Wisconsin LaCrosse diocease.
Won’t know if it did any good till count comes in.
To ask that question is to answer it.
Ak Kresta said today that while 50% of self-identified Catholics voted for Obama this time, this was down by 4% from 2008. 59% of practicing Catholics voted for Romney, which is up 4-5%. If the bishops presses their attack, the percent of the latter will continue to arise. But it suggests that in the past the Church has failed to look closely at the issues. The focus should be on religious liberty. That might make some liberal Catholic congressmen and senators tell the administration not to extend their mandate lest Catholics in their district begin to turn against them. If the local party seems them weakened, it might replace them with secularists.
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