Posted on 03/29/2012 10:10:54 AM PDT by NYer
Discussing the HHS contraception/sterilization/abortion-mandate debate during an interview that partially aired on The O’Reilly Factor last night, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Catholic bishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: “Our opponents are very shrewd because they have chosen an issue that they know we are not very popular on and that is why . . . we have to be very vigorous in insisting that this is not about contraception, it’s about religious freedom.
He went on to say:
And I don’t want to judge people, but I think there would be a drift in the administration that this is a good issue and if we can divide the Catholic community — because it’s already divided — and if one can caricature the bishops as being hopelessly out of touch – these bullies who are trying to achieve judicially and legislatively what they’ve been unable to achieve because their moral integrity has been compromised recently. There is that force out there trying to caricature us, all right? But we can’t back down from this fight because it’s about religious freedom, it’s close to the very heart of what the democratic enterprise what we know and love as the United States of America is all about.
Cardinal Dolan took on the mainstream worldview that insists the faithful be on the margins of civic life: “To think that there’s a Berlin wall between one’s religious convictions and one’s political activities is crazy; it’s ludicrous. It’s not only non-Catholic, non-Christian, non-Biblical, it’s also un-American.”
“Every great movement in American history has been driven by people of religious conviction,” Dolan said. “And if we duct-tape the churches – I’m just not talking about the Catholic Church — if we duct-tape the role of religion and the churches and morally convinced people in the marketplace, that’s going to lead to a huge deficit, a huge void. And there are many people who want to fill it up — namely, a new religion called secularism – which would be as doctrinaire and would consider itself as infallible as they caricature the other religions doing. So to see that morally driven, religiously convinced people want to exercise their political responsibility, I think that is not only at the heart of Biblical religion, it’s at the heart of the American enterprise.”
As a recent statement from the bishops made clear, they are in this fight for the very principle of religious freedom, not some kind of special privilege, or accommodation.
Video here.
Ping!
My only complaint with the interview was at the end. Archbishop Dolan, your congregations get angry with the bishops when they jump into cultural debates on the side of the liberals (healthcare, immigration, et al)... essentially elevating social justice to the highest truth.
We are waiting with bated breath, however, for the bishops to look at the Democratic party as an enterprise and point out that they support intrinsic evil in their party platform (abortion, embryonic stem cell research and homosexual marriage). The problem is that the bishops find it easy to go along with popular culture in the fights of the day but don’t have the guts to stand up for the solid cultural truths.
So... ARCHBISHOP DOLAN, PLEASE STAND UP WITH ONE VOICE WITH YOUR FELLOW BISHOPS AND DENOUNCE THE EVIL THAT IS THE CURRENT DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
You march for life, support traditional marriage and fight the mandate... big deal. When the Catholics of this country remove their support for the Democrats (a 28% voting block) until they quit supporting evil... THEN we will have real change. Until then, it’s all just smoke and mirrors.
I am a Republican and a Catholic.
For Archbishop Dolan to denounce the "current Democratic party" as evil would be evil of Archbishop Dolan. Your very broad paintbrush misses the point.
The Democrat health mandate is EVIL. The idea is evil but that doesn't make an entire group of several million people evil. The female who aborts and the doctor who performs the abortions are doing EVIL acts but that still doesn't necessarily make them evil people.
Satan is evil. I can think of some individuals who are evil, but an ENTIRE POLITICAL PARTY? I wouldn't be so arrogant as to condemn the entire entity, though some IN THAT PARTY are evil.
Name one good thing about the democratic party.
1. It makes the GOP look so sane, normal and centrist.
The ENTIRE Dem “Party” is EVIL! Oh and a great many RINOs are evil too!
2. It drove ME to become a Republican back in the Clinton era.
In agreement!
Lots of Catholic talk about our political parties as always presented as a theoretical, but as Democratic and Republican politics havent shifted since 1980. The choices are and have been clear. The ‘culture of death’, and ‘the dictatorship of relativism’ are goals pursued by the democratic party. Unfortunately it can be said that the Republican party, has served as nothing less than a bad doorstop to a door that is swinging toward wide open. But the choices are clear.
Amen, Brother!!! Preach it!
You’re obtuse, at best.
Read the Democratic Party platform before you hit me with relativistic platitudes.
There are five issues considered ‘intrinsic evil’ by the Catholic Church when voting... abortion, embryonic stem cell research, homosexual marriage, euthanasia and cloning. The Democratic Party platform has open advocacy for three out of the five. Although the other two intrinsic evils are not enumerated in their platform, the Democrats support them (death panels anyone?).
There is no reason any Catholic should support such an organization and no reason the Catholic bishops should be silent while their sheep give 50% or more of their vote to such an organization. The political party of Satan could hardly be worse. Certainly, the Church wouldn’t stay silent if the Satanic Party gained prominence in our elections... but in a way, they already are...
But then I consider YOUR IDEAS just plain tired, old, boring....and STOOPid.
I believe a lawyer would call that "a rebuttable premise."
Dream on. Cardinal Dolan is a “staunch union supporter” (”my father was a union man” - he declared on his arrival to NYC) and IMHO a Kennedy Catholic. Died-in-the-wool.
I mean “dyed”.
Dolan is correct here.
Are you aware that abortion is a plank of the demoncratic (misspelling on purpose) party?
They advocate killing babies.
Previous dimocratic (also spelled wrong on purpose) need to regain their wits and reasoning and vote Republican for life!
Note — I didn’t say vote Romney — he supports abortion and has flip-flopped on the issue numerous times.
Again, Cardinal Dolan is correct about the evil in the dims.
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