Obama Administration Picks a Fight With Catholics

The Washington Post ^ | 1/20/12 | Patrick J. Reilly

[marshmallow]

The Obama administration has chosen to ignore the First Amendment and add insult to injury for Catholics whose schools, hospitals and charities help make this nation great. Now the real fight begins.

Religious leaders had feared the worst from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her Department of Health and Human Services, which since September has been considering whether to exempt Catholic and other religious employers from a regulation mandating insurance coverage for sterilization and contraceptives, including some that cause abortion.

But on Friday afternoon, Sebelius announced the bad news in the most offensive way possible. Refusing even the smallest compromise with religious employers, she simply gave them an extra year to comply with the law.

“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty,” Sebelius wrote in a brief statement from HHS. “I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

Her attempt to appear compromising is absurd. What “balance” could Sebelius possibly mean? The HHS regulations include the narrowest exemption for religious employers ever proposed by the federal government, and even more restrictive than such exemptions in most states.

Any pretense of seeking “common ground” with faithful Catholics--which President Obama offered during his much-protested appearance at the University of Notre Dame nearly three years ago--has been stripped away. Only weeks ago, it seemed that the White House might be more sympathetic than Sebelius to the concerns of Catholic and other religious leaders. President Obama met personally with Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, reportedly assuring a good outcome to the HHS debacle. But now one newspaper is reporting that the president himself gave the bad news to Archbishop Dolan on Friday morning, something akin to.........

[Nachum]

The list, Ping

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[Nachum]

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

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[KosmicKitty]

My biggest surprise here.

The article is in the WA compost!!

[wintertime]

Far too many Catholic bishops and those among the elite Catholic intelligentsia have been playing with Marxist Liberation Theology snake for decades. Now, they are surprised that the snake has bitten them?

Wintertime ( graduate of Villanova University)

[wintertime]

She has just proven herself to be completely out of communion with the Catholic Church. If her bishop does nothing about this, it’ll be a shame.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I didn't know Sebelius was Catholic. Gee!

[georgia peach]

The only fix to the crisis being Obamacare...the faculty at Notre Dame should be aplogizing for their stupidity.

[Salvation]

Supreme Court of the United States — be forewarned.

[Salvation]

What about other religions/denominations? Where were they then? Where are they now?

50 percent of Catholics (Catholics make up about 22 percent of the U.S. population.) approve of his presidency, down from 67 percent in his first six months in office.

DOWN 17 POINTS

 

among non-Catholic Christians, who make up 55 percent of the U.S. population, had fallen from 58 percent to 43 percent.

DOWN 15 POINTS

 

Mormon respondents, who represent about two percent of U.S. adults, fell from 43 percent to 26 percent

DOWN 17 POINTS

 

About 78 percent of Muslim respondents approved of the Obama presidency, down eight percentage points from when the question was first asked.  (86)

DOWN 8 POINTS

 

atheists, agnostics, and members of other non-Christian religions, who comprise about 13 percent of the U.S. population -- While about 75 percent of these respondents approved of President Obama at the start of his term, their approval declined to about 64 percent.

DOWN 11 POINTS

 

Jews were the religious group third likeliest to approve of President Obama, giving him 61 percent approval. This too is a decline: in January-June 2009, their approval rating of the president was 77 percent.

DOWN 16 POINTS

 

Overall, 48 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s job, down from 63 percent in the first months of his presidency. Gallup claims that its survey of over 276,000 adults claims an overall margin of error of plus or minus one percent.

DOWN 15 POINTS

 

 

 

 

[Salvation]

Obama won the overall religious vote, 52 percent to 46 percent, reversing President George W. Bush’s 51 percent to 48 percent “values voter” victory over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in 2004. Obama also won the Catholic vote, persuaded young evangelical voters to choose him and began to squeeze shut the so-called “God gap” yawning between religious Democrats and Republicans during the Bush era.

How will the roughly 9.1 million evangelical Christians who voted for Obama vote in the next election? Will Obama's actions compel the 31.2 million evangelicals who didn't vote in the 2008 election to vote next time?

Obama Receives 77% of Jewish Vote-- More Than Kerry
White US Catholics move toward GOP, Hispanic Catholics toward Democrats
Among Catholics, Obama job approval rating decreases to 50 percent

[Salvation]

Obama won the overall religious vote, 52 percent to 46 percent, reversing President George W. Bush’s 51 percent to 48 percent “values voter” victory over Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in 2004. Obama also won the Catholic vote, persuaded young evangelical voters to choose him and began to squeeze shut the so-called “God gap” yawning between religious Democrats and Republicans during the Bush era.

How will the roughly 9.1 million evangelical Christians who voted for Obama vote in the next election? Will Obama's actions compel the 31.2 million evangelicals who didn't vote in the 2008 election to vote next time?

Obama Receives 77% of Jewish Vote-- More Than Kerry
White US Catholics move toward GOP, Hispanic Catholics toward Democrats
Among Catholics, Obama job approval rating decreases to 50 percent

[A.A. Cunningham]

Catholics, who accounted for about a quarter of the electorate, supported Obama, at 54 percent, over McCain, at 45 percent.

Correction: People who self-identified as Catholics, who accounted for about a quarter of the electorate, supported Obama, at 54 percent, over McCain, at 45 percent, according to unscientific and highly unreliable exit polls.

[jjotto]

ping

[hlmencken3]

Interesting claim that 9 million evangelical Christians voted for Obama...

[ansel12]

Evangelicals are clearly the most conservative voters in America, but some percentage of them are naturally going to stray for some reason, but I can hardly find fault with our rock solid block of right wing voters, I only wish that others could come even close to their vote.

Seventy and eighty percent pro-life, conservative voting, is a goal that the rest of conservative Christians should fight to get their churches to equal, I’m sure that Evangelicals could use some help. It sure is better than being a Democrat voting block.

[ansel12]

Correction Catholics who are so identified by the Pope and the official Catholic Church, voted 54% for Obama.

[Polyxene]

Dittos! How do “Catholics” like Sebelius, Pelosi, the Kennedys, Kerry, et al. maintain their standing in the Roman Catholic Church? Why don’t the bishops, cardinals, or others in the heirarchy excommunicate them? I would think the Church would want to rid itself of these people who blatantly flaunt their distaste for what the Church teaches.

[marshmallow]

Correction Catholics who are so identified by the Pope and the official Catholic Church, voted 54% for Obama.

"The Pope and the official Catholic Church" don't spend their days "identifying" Catholics. They have better things to do. Neither does the Church keep a list of who is and who is not a Catholic nor does it issue a membership card which identifies the carrier as officially Catholic with the Pope's signature and valid stamp.

There's a good reason for that.

It's because being Catholic entails interior assent to certain beliefs and the living out of those beliefs on a daily basis. Obviously, that's something that God can very well keep track of but it's a little difficult for mere mortals.

Individual parishes keep historical records of who was baptized, who was married, who died etc, but you'll appreciate that this is not quite the same thing and it's not a job for "the Pope and the official Catholic Church". The office workers take care of it and says nothing about adherence to those tenets of faith which the Church professes.

[ansel12]

So the Vatican is not in any way a source for the number of Catholics?

[BlackElk]

She is also the daughter of Ohio Governor John Gilligan who crammed a first time state personal income tax down Ohio's throat in 1971.

According to Wikipedia, her Catholicism is at an end. Raymond Cardinal Burke, who is the Chief Justice of the Signatura (the Vatican's highest court) has publicly instructed Sebelius NOT to approach for receipt of the Holy Eucharist anywhere since she no longer qualifies as Catholic based upon her persistent public sin of support for baby-killing. It is not very likely that she will ever seek forgiveness and she will likely have to do so at the Vatican. Given that she was a close ally of the late Killer Tiller of Wichita, she has a LOT to repent!

[WPaCon]

I didn’t read the full article, because I prefer not to give the Washington Post hits, but did the Washington Post actually run an article critical of Obama?