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Posted on 01/31/2012 12:10:15 PM PST by Kaslin
At the end of Sunday mass at the church this writer attends in Washington, D.C., the pastor asked the congregation to remain for a few minutes.
Then, on the instructions of Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl, the pastor proceeded to read a letter.
In the letter, the Church denounced the Obama administration for ordering all Catholic schools, hospitals and social services to provide, in their health insurance coverage for employes, free contraceptives, free sterilizations and free "morning-after" pills.
Parishioners were urged to contact their representatives in Congress to bring about a reversal of President Obama's new policy.
Now, not only is this a battle the Church must fight, it is a battle the Church can win if it has the moral stamina to say the course.
In forcing the Church to violate its own principles, Obama has committed an act of federal aggression, crossing the line between church and state to appease his ACLU and feminist allies, while humiliating the Catholic bishops.
Should the Church submit, its moral authority in America would disappear.
Now, undeniably, the church milquetoast of past decades that refused to discipline pro-abortion Catholics allowed the impression to form that while the hierarchy may protest, eventually it will go along to get along with a Democratic Party that was once home to most Catholics.
Obama's problem today is that not only is he forcing the Church to violate her conscience, he dissed the highest prelate in America.
In November, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, held what he describes as an "extraordinarily friendly" meeting with Obama at the White House.
The president assured the archbishop of his respect for the Church, and the archbishop came away persuaded Obama would never force the Church to adopt any policy that would violate her principles.
Ten days ago, Obama sandbagged the archbishop.
He informed Cardinal-designate Dolan by phone that, with the sole concession of the Church being given an extra year, to August 2013, to comply, the new policy, as set down by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, will be imposed. All social and educational institutions of the Catholic church will offer health insurance covering birth control, or face fines.
"In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences," said Archbishop Dolan, who went on:
"To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their health care is literally unconscionable. ... This represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."
Where do Obama and Sebelius get the power to do this?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law on March 23, 2010, the colloquial name for which is "Obamacare."
NARAL Pro-Choice America is celebrating the new policy. Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, calls it a "health care issue ... based on what's best for women's health." Others have argued that many Catholic women practice birth control.
But that Catholics choose to ignore doctrine does not justify the U.S. government imposing on Catholic institutions a policy that violates Catholic teaching.
Even Washington Post liberal E.J. Dionne, in a Jan. 30 column titled "Obama's Breach of Faith," charges that the president "threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus. ...
"Speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government ... the Church's leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings."
Why did Obama do it?
Facing a close race for a second term, Obama chose not to antagonize his left. Yet he must have known that siding with them meant leaving Archbishop Dolan with egg all over his face. Obama, calculatedly, came down on the side of those he believes to be more crucial to his re-election.
This affront should tell the Catholic hierarchy, if they did not already know, where they stand in the party of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Kathleen Sebilius. And where they sit -- in the back of the bus.
Yet if the bishops will look upon this crisis of conscience, this insult, as an opportunity, they can effect its reversal and recapture a measure of the moral authority they have lately lost.
Not only should the bishops file suit in federal court against the president and Sebelius for violation of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, they should inform the White House that no bishop will give an invocation at the Democratic Convention.
Then, they should inform the White House that in the last two weeks of the 2012 campaign, priests in every parish will read from the pulpit at Sunday mass a letter denouncing Obama as anti-Catholic for denying the Church its right to live according to its beliefs.
If Obama loses the Catholic vote, he loses the election.
The White House will come around, fast. Rely upon it.
When you look to the State to enact your moral principles (liberation theology, Christian charity and service, alms giving, the Beatitudes, whatever you want to call unconstitutional redistributionism), the State becomes your religion.
Misguided Catholic fools. Freedom is the ultimate principle that religious people should demand from their government.
It constantly amazes me at how supposedly smart people are so freaking stupid politically.
More compelling evidence that shows how liberalism and Christainity are incompatible with each other.
Obama seems to have forgotten, AGAIN, that he is not god. Our rights come from God, and the state dare not stand in the way. That’s why tyrants are overthrown. Does he know nothing? Obama cannot take away our freedoms, and he cannot change his mind and GIVE them to us.
They are ours, from God, and O had darned well better step aside.
Obama has no fear of these people. He can shove this down their throats, and watch as they march off to the polls in November to vote for.... Obama.
If only the Church would get back to basics and realize, you reap what you sow.
Cardinal Wuerl, get off your ass and publically excomunicate Kathleen Sebelius. Thank you your eminence.
Which is exactly why Obama did it.
“Obama stood beneath the blacked-out symbol of Christ, and Christianity, to deliver his speech. Once word of this latest slap in the face of Christians got out it became a hot topic on the internet.
OpposingViews.com reports that Catholic League president Bill Donohue made the following comments.
“The cowardice of Georgetown to stand fast on principle tells us more than we need to know about what is going on there, but the bigger story is the audacity of the Obama administration to ask a religious school to neuter itself before the president speaks there. No bishop who might speak at the White House would ever request that a crucifix be displayed behind him. Moreover, the same church and state fanatics who go nuts every time a polling place is set up in the basement of a Catholic school have been noticeably silent over this incident.”
Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition says,
“Now that the White House has publicly admitted covering a sacred faith symbol for the name of Jesus at Georgetown University, it is imperative that they release a public apology for their disrespect of faith expressions. For President Obama not to address the issue publicly would show utter contempt for religious expressions as well as a slap in the face to all those who cherish the name of Jesus.”
All of this comes just days after Obama stood in Turkey and announced that the United States is no longer a Christian nation.”
Source: opposingviews
Her own bishop has already told her publicly not to present herself for Holy Communion, he is telling the world that she has excommunicated herself. The Church always leaves the door open for a sinner to return.
Someday, “we” need to grow some true courage and face our true enemy.
God has not given us these gifts that we should be ashamed to give him credit or hide our faith.
If we do not defend our faith, neither will God continue to shed his grace on us.
I’m not Catholic, but it’s seemed to me over the last 20 years or so that the church leadership had more in common with the RINOs than with their own teachings. CINOs?
White House isn’t going to come around to anything. This is a party that is used to cheating in order to win.
Who’s going to take the WH to task? The AG? Supreme Court? The Press?
They are acting like no matter what we do, they’re going to win again. It’s as if they don’t think there is going to be an election in November.
He never bothered to send attorneys to Georgia last week, and now there are six other states considering keeping him off the ballot.
Bank holiday in late September?
Romney sure looks like the new Democrat in the WH every day.
Leadership in our Catholic Church is lacking. They blindly bought into Obamacare because they were promised certain things (and two certain things specifically). 1) Abortion not covered 2) No madate on contraception.
Oooops!
Now they have to fight for what they were promised after trying hard to sell it to parishoners everywhere.
“We were for it before we were against it.”
I’m embarrassed (but faithful and loyal).
Vote for? Probably, to their shame. Campaign for? Absolutely not.
Lie down with jackals, get up with fleas. And the stink of rotting carrion.
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