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Pope Benedict: Faith and the Future

Feb 16th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

In 2009 Ignatius press released this prophetic little volume, written by our pope over 1969-1970 — while the world was in the first throes of the social revolution. I thought I’d share a few of Joseph Ratzinger’s prescient thoughts. They seem timely:

“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.â€

He goes on, saying: [the church]

“It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”

The book is only 160 pages. It’s available on Kindle, too.

I am frankly very consoled by these thoughts. At the dawn of the social revolution, Ratzinger saw all of this, and now he is our Pope, leading us through these first serious labor pains. Who knows if he will be with us through the delivery — I very much doubt it — but seeing him in Peter’s chair at this time reminds us that God has his hand in all things, even in the pastoral weaknesses of the past few decades that have helped us get to this place.

By the way, if you still have not read this brief but also prophetic document, written by Pope Paul VI, the time to read it is now. More on it here

And here is Elizabeth Duffy:

“Putting her on birth control would give her a pass to continue with that behavior. Then this unsavory guy would be hanging around wanting sex, which is not safe for her, or our family.”

The role of a guardian is not to provide a scuba suit so that a child can keep swimming in toxic water. It’s to pull the child out of toxic water, prevent her from making unhealthy alliances with poor potential mates at a vulnerable time in her life, and teach her about true love, so that the girl who is unfit to be a parent at 14, will be fit when she reaches adulthood.

This is where conscience clauses come in. Rather than thinking like Margaret Sanger, who advocated the use of birth control “to stop the multiplication of the unfit” the Catholic sexual ethic looks beyond the good of the state to see the ultimate good of the person.

And check out Obama, Athanasius and the Bishops

And correcting George Will and Jay Carney

Two related pieces, from 2009:
The Coming “Catholic Church of America”
The Shadow of the Jackboot

Tags: Benedict XVI, Bookchat, Catholicism, Culture of Life, Freedom of Religion, Human Dignity, Prophetic, Rome

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments »

Catholic Food Pantry, Surrender Your Conscience!

Feb 15th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

Some may remember that back in November, Mrs. Pelosi proclaimed her love for the church but noted regretfully, “they have this conscience thing”. And it is really getting in the way of where she thinks society should be.

Thus, the move to dismantle the Catholic conscience — or at least to redefine it as a threat to the public good — is underway. To that end an administration that didn’t need to involve the churches in its policies at all has gone out of its way to do exactly that.

And now, comes a “nuanced” assist.

Planned Parenthood called Paul’s Pantry, part of the St. Vincent de Paul Society and the biggest food pantry in Wisconsin, and asked them to come and pick up donations, which may have been noble, but wasn’t something the Catholic organization felt comfortable doing — sending a truck over and perhaps giving the abortion provider a photo opportunity. The American Life League reports what the worker at the pantry said:

All I told the young lady from Planned Parenthood was that I couldn’t send a truck to pick up, and gave her a list of other food pantries that might want to pick up, I gave her no reason at all and she didn’t ask why. Soon after, I started receiving the hate e-mail and phone calls. I politely explained to callers that although we are non-denominational in regards to those we serve, we are a Catholic organization who shares a board of directors with our sister organization, St. Vincent de Paul. We adhere to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and to the Rule of St. Vincent de Paul. I also explained our Gift Acceptance Policy and how acceptance of the donation would compromise our core values and possibly damage the reputation of Paul’s Pantry.

What happens next, of course, is entirely predictable, and of a piece with President Obama’s move with the HHS Mandate; this is all gauged to eliminate the churches from the public square. Here comes the creation of a narrative that supports that effort while being all out of alignment with what has always been true about Catholic missions:

Planned Parenthood (and its friends) are entities that serve the public good; the Catholic Food Pantry (and its friends) are entities that block the public good

Suddenly, PP needs to donate food to a Catholic food pantry (“come over here, little mouse, I have a nice bit of cheese for you…”) and snap!; just as suddenly the conscience of the church that has served the nation since its inception is problematic and a detriment to its communities.

Sudden and conveniently so. With a bit of publicity from the press, and the usual social media machinations, before you know it the government will insert itself into the story and say:

“Catholic Food Pantry, You Have No Right To Your Conscience; Surrender Your Conscience to The Civic Arena, Or Close Down!”

Things are moving very swiftly, and it is all meant to foment social chaos and division. Those willing to be manipulated will be, but if you do not wish to be manipulated, you need to understand: this is a deliberate move to provoke Catholics and others into confrontation with a government that is eager to define down the whole notion of conscientious objection.

This is descent into diabolical disorientation with a sidetrip to the dictatorship of relativity.

Tags: Catholicism, Conscience, Freedom of Religion

Posted in Uncategorized | 53 Comments »

To Defend HHS Mandate: Look at Anything but Constitution

Feb 15th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

The vacationing Deacon Greg Kandra has still managed, between spending time with Mickey and Minnie to post this interesting piece by Dave Gibson, who has written an informative article about what I called my First Things piece, yesterday, the “nuances between direct and indirect co-operation with evil”.

Gibson does his usual brilliant job in expanding on it, but he does so from a place accepting that President Obama’s recent “accommodation” did actually accommodate the churches. Completely ignored here is that the administration has already codified their decision in precisely the language — the original language — that gave most Catholics such agida to begin with.

How does this work? How does the illiberal language of the HHS Mandate — proposing unprecedented intrusion by the government into church matters — language that, pretty much all Catholics agreed in the first week could not stand, become codified in the next week with the approval of some of those same Catholics? Is this president’s word so trustworthy that it was enough for him to merely say he would change something he did not change and clearly has no intention of codifying?

Were some Catholics simply looking for a face-saving cover? Why, then? Because unity with their party was worth helping to set a bad precedent? What, specifically, in the codified language (or in Obama’s subsequent statement) has assuaged any conscience sufficiently to bring about an endorsement?

Much more importantly, with some Catholics now on board and making a variety of arguments supporting the administration, they are — intentionally or not — helping to distract people from the crux of the matter, which is simply this: when the CDC itself admits (as it did in 2009 [pdf]) that contraception is so widely available that fully 99% of women report using it at some point (so much so that, as Shea notes traces of birth control residue are found in our water supply), why did the administration find it necessary to even go where it went on the issue of contraception; why is it intruding on the churches own rights and abilities to own their conscience and define their missions?

That’s the question; it’s the ball we must keep our eyes on, and some are happy to get distracted, swing and miss.

It’s a political wedge issue, I get that, meant to divide and conquer, and the administration has clearly managed to do that, but this is also a genuinely bad precedent — so bad that I just cannot understand anyone’s willingness to support it, when this administration has demonstrated more than once that it means to put the churches in their places, and that their places are to be within the government’s mandates (hello Hosanna Tabor), or outside the public arena, altogether.

That anyone is willing to overlook the question of constitutionality for the sake of political expediency, I just don’t get.

But then, I was raised a classical liberal and I still actually believe that the press should be detached, people should be entitled to their differences and that (unlike monastic models, which are voluntary) government-enforced sameness is a tyranny, albeit a “soft” one, and I believe that the Bill of Rights is the thing you go to the mat for, no matter how much you like a candidate or (and, not without reason, are aghast at your other choices).

My parents adored Adlai Stevenson, but they voted for Ike because sometimes, no matter how much you like a guy, you have to know when you can’t trust him.

And to that point, here’s a good related question: Do employees of religious schools and other organizations get to make claims on employers that violate the tenets of the organization’s faith, but not on government on the basis of that same faith?

Gibson’s piece is undoubtedly smart and it will, undoubtedly, be effective in swaying many, but its efficacy depends upon ignoring a crucial reality, and it is a reality that we simply cannot afford to push aside.

Ed Morrissey has a great deal more on this, and I urge you to read him both at that link and at this one, too.

And btw, no one has asked me, and really, my opinion doesn’t matter except in my own little World of Lizzie, but I think the Blunt rule is an overreach that will backfire. Again, it’s taking the eyes off the ball, and playing into the administration’s hands. Which is precisely why Reid is allowing the vote. The GOP are such suckers.

More: Rivkin and Whelan say the Mandate is Unconstitutional

Max Lindenman is taking it all down for posterity

A thoughtful and worth pondering comment from “jkm” at Greg’s — it well-notes the validity of two sides of the argument but, to my way of thinking, too quickly shrugs off the constitutional issues. DOES the larger society want the government to insert itself into church affairs? Up until a few weeks ago, I think that answer was a resounding “no”. Now, suddenly, freedom of religion is a shrug-off? And if it IS something the larger society wants, is this something we do by presidential fiat or by constitutional amendment?

The Rhetorical Battle within the War:

“. . .in what way is the Catholic Church supposed to be depriving women of birth control? Is the Church picketing Walgreen’s? Is it highjacking shipments of Depro-Vira? Are they calling for the ban of condoms because they pose a danger to seagulls? No. They simply don’t believe that they should be forced to pay for their employees’ subsidized access to those things, accounting trick or no accounting trick.”

Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholicism, Constitution, Evil, Freedom of Religion, HHS, Obama, Political Expediency, Rome

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments »

Miss Ella’s Funny Valentine

Feb 14th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

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Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

The Stranding of the Catholic Left – UPDATES

Feb 14th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

Literally bleary with fever last night, boxing metaphors came tumbling out of my brain and into my column over at First Things:

To that end, the White House seemed to have conferred not with the concerned Bishops but with members of the “Catholic Left†whose criticism of his original plans had had a weighty effect on others, and whose progressive credentials made their alliance vital to retain; he effectively went to Sr. Carol Keehan, President of the Catholic Health Association, and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, and sought imprimaturs that were not theirs to give, on what the press has taken to call (in apparent ignorance of the word’s meaning) his “compromise.â€

Even before the president spoke, Keehan’s approving statement was released through the White Houses own press portals, with Dionne’s endorsement swiftly following. The one-two punch of Keehan and Dionne was meant to knock out the Bishops before they’d had a chance to find their mouth guards or rise from their corners, and also to signal that it was safe for the “Catholic Left†to regroup behind Obama.

It has not gone precisely as planned. If the matter has successfully been driven from the front pages–and why wouldn’t it be, since the press had initially tried to ignore the story–no one has yet been knocked down by members of the “Catholic Left†racing back into Obama’s corner. Stunned by Obama’s initial plans (which, by the way, were codified last Friday, in their original form, even as Obama was speaking) the “progressives†are paused and perhaps skittish.


You can read it all here

UPDATE: I wish I had seen Ross Douthat’s piece yesterday:

The original HHS rule almost seemed to have been deliberately written to leave Catholics like Sister Keehan with no alternative but to oppose it, even if doing so put the “the future of health reform†in jeopardy. The new rule, though, is much more savvy: Because it speaks the language of compromise and conscience, it provides grounds for anyone who desperately wants to believe in it to believe in it, even as it leaves the underlying policy more or less unchanged. (It’s telling, in this regard, that the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne managed to write an entire column today defending the compromise without once engaging with its substance.)

And by winning back the Catholics who wanted to be won back, the White House may have successfully defused the immediate crisis that its own ineptness created. Public opinion is highly malleable on this issue, and by dividing his critics, the president has made it more likely that this will be perceived as a left-right struggle on an issue (contraception) where social liberals have the public on its side, rather than a religious liberty issue that had centrist media types tut-tutting and swing-state Democrats jumping ship. (Compare this Kirsten Powers column on the supposed compromise to her take on the mandate last week, for instance, to get a sense of how the media conversation will probably shift.)

So the president has probably won today’s political battle. The question now is whether the Catholic bishops in particular, and religious conservatives in general, have a strategy for the longer war.

Right. Read it all!

Also: Te-DeumBlog has Cardinal-Designate Dolan’s thoughts:

“We bishops are pastors, we’re not politicians, and you can’t compromise on principle,” said Cardinal-designate Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “And the goal posts haven’t moved and I don’t think there’s a 50-yard line compromise here,” he added.

“We’re in the business of reconciliation, so it’s not that we hold fast, that we’re stubborn ideologues, no. But we don’t see much sign of any compromise,” he said.

“What (Obama) offered was next to nothing. There’s no change, for instance, in these terribly restrictive mandates and this grossly restrictive definition of what constitutes a religious entity,” he said. “The principle wasn’t touched at all.”

From Rome, Dolan tells John Allen that he is not an “Obama hater”. Because whenever you disagree with this administration, you are accused of hate:

“We didn’t start this battle, and I’m kind of uncomfortable with it,” he said, “We’d much rather be conciliatory.”

Dolan also said he was “disappointed†with the quick support given to the administration’s announcement by the Catholic Health Association, saying it amounted to “popping the champagne cork” before the bishops had a chance to react. There too, he said, he wants to keep the dialogue going.

UPDATE II: While Doug Kmiec has not yet — as far as I know — made any public pronouncements, someone just sent this “compromise”-supporting document, which Kmiec has signed, as have others.

It appears the premise of my piece is perhaps a little wobbly; the “Catholic Left” is not so much “stranded” as perhaps being discrete and speaking mostly to themselves?

Tags: Freedom of Religion, HHS, Obama

Posted in Timothy Dolan, Uncategorized | 43 Comments »

Obama’s HHS: Bring on the Penal Laws! – UPDATES!

Feb 13th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

Sure and it begins to feel like Grandad’s auld sod, what with the elites getting comfortable with the notion of telling us what we can and cannot do, what business we may or may not conduct, what materials we can or cannot own…because we’re Catholics.

Over at NPR’s Bench Memos Ryan T. Anderson ponders illegalities in the making:

Here’s an aspect of the HHS preventive-services mandate and the “compromise†announced on Friday that has gone unnoticed: It will soon be impossible, because it would be illegal, to be a faithful Catholic in America running a health-insurance company. Friday’s announcement — that health-insurance companies will be required to provide free coverage of contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and abortifacients — entails that citizens cannot operate a health-insurance company in accord with their moral values, if those moral values happen to align with historic Christianity rather than Obama.

Maybe market forces have made it all but impossible to be a major player in the health-insurance industry while holding to these views. But the outcry during the past three weeks about the HHS mandate shows that there are plenty of potential consumers for just such a health-insurance plan. In a free society, shouldn’t an entrepreneuring individual be legally able to run such a business? Not according to Obama.


Well, t’was ever thus, wasn’t it? They’ll be going after the home-schoolers, the crisis pregnancy centers next. And it will go on from there. This is what elites do when they wish to maintain power over folks who have the actual arguments against their doing so:

**Exclusion of Catholics from most public offices
**Ban on intermarriage with Protestants; repealed 1778
**Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the military
**Ban on Catholics buying land under a lease of more than 31 years; repealed 1778.
**Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics on pain of 500 pounds that was to be donated to the Blue Coat hospital in Dublin.
**Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land
**Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority’s hands)
**’No person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm’ upon pain of twenty pounds fine and three months in prison for every such offence.

Of course, in the traditional way of the bigot, Catholics who fall in line (“the good ones,” as Archie Bunker might say) will still be allowed to associate with the elites. All you have to do to be “one of the good ones” is unite with the administration, over your church.

UPDATE: I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Scalia has gone extreme.” And I don’t blame you. But then…did you know that the Obama administration just changed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, so that it now excludes those connected to the churches?: Brad Hirschfield writes:

So after telling us that pretty much everything qualifies, even going out of its way to highlight that neither the type of work nor nature of the organizations matters, the government slips in the fact that if faith or worship are part of your work, you don’t qualify. What?! [Emphasis mine]

. . .If the government wants to re-visit making loans to those who study for religious careers, fine. I would oppose any change there, but I get it. Likewise, if the government wanted to revisit the tax-exempt status of religious institutions, I would get that as well. I would also oppose that, but I would understand it. But taking this out on those who can least afford it is simply wrong.

I actually agree with Hirschfield in that “I get it” but, as he writes:

Perhaps the forgiveness program should be based on overall earnings, as opposed to public-/private or for-profit /not-for- profit distinctions. But as long as those are the distinctions being made, excluding those who work in the religious sector is misguided and counter-productive.

Especially given the otherwise broad definition of public service according to this law, clergy and religious teachers should be considered public servants. On balance, there is no doubt about the public value of faith in America.

I keep wondering if this means soon students at religiously-affiliated colleges won’t be able to get federal loans? I mean…that would be the next logical step, right? Tell me again that he has no animus toward religion.

Marc Thiessen writes today:

. . . many religious employers (including EWTN) “self-insure.†This means the religious organization acts as its own insurance company — paying for care directly and using insurers only to manage benefits and process claims. Many religious organizations took this step so they could opt out of state mandates to provide morally-objectionable services. As a result, in the case of religious employers like EWTN, there is no insurance company to provide the “free†abortion drugs and contraceptives Obama has mandated.

Bottom line: The Obama “accommodation†is a sham…

UPDATE II: Speaking of the Irish, Ed Morrissey notes the Notre Dame faculty is not falling in line, as they were probably expected to:

Three years ago, Notre Dame University provided Obama a platform to speak to Catholics and awarded him an honorary degree. Yesterday, the faculty at the Catholic university — which would be subject to the mandate — gave him the third degree instead, excoriating Obama for a “grave violation of religious freedomâ€


The press, with a few “credible Catholic liberals” in place, is treating this matter like it’s a done deal; the president, in his benevolence, had doled out to us a measure of something like our constitutional liberty, but it’s not the same, really. If he meant it, he’d never have intruded where he did not belong, in the first place. Once again, if his actual concern was providing pills, condoms, tubal ligations, vasectomies and abortifacients to whoever wants them, he had a ton of options. He wanted this battle with the churches.

UPDATE III:
Barack Obama: the most oppressed guy in the country! Even with the mainstream media and others running all that interference for him!

MORE: White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew this weekend:

. . .the policy holds true to the “core principles of our country,” which call for respecting religious liberty. He noted that the revision had earned support from liberal Catholics and lay groups.

“The solution that we reached is consistent with those core principles. That’s why it got the support of a range of groups from the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities [walked back - admin] to Planned Parenthood,” Lew said.

George Weigel: Live and Let Live is not the Endgame, here

Bad Catholic: writes a second letter to the president, with couple of gloriously funny captions

Tags: Catholicism, Freedom of Religion, HHS, Irish Penal Laws

Posted in Obama Bad?, Uncategorized | 51 Comments »

Why do Catholics Talk about Sex so Much?

Feb 13th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

The headlines, of course, are all about the HHS Mandate and response of the Catholic Bishops to last Friday’s blusterfest by Obama. The accepted narrative on Catholics and sex is, of course, that Catholics are mostly repressed, want to keep women enslaved to pregnancy and deep down they just don’t “get” sex the way the rest of the world does.

All of that is false, of course, particularly the last bit. Catholics “get” sex — they understand it more fully, more deeply and more ecstatically than most people realize because the church has admittedly not been great at teaching what she knows, and even when she does teach it, people don’t avail themselves of the teaching. Have you or your friends ever actually read Pope Paul VI’s brief and frankly prophetic Humanae Vitae?

For the past two weeks the Patheos Bookclub has been talking about Christopher West’s latest book, entitled At the Heart of the Gospel. It is an exploration of the saving power of sex — the “saving power of sex! Imagine that — from someone in a church that supposedly knows nothing about sex and doesn’t like it!

You can read the first chapter here.

Better yet, you can listen to him talk about sex, and love and the theology of the body with Tony Rossi:

“I had eaten from what I call ‘the fast food gospel of the culture’ which promises us immediate gratification for all our desires. But by eating the fast food, I ended up like the guy in the movie ‘Super Size Me.’ He ate McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a whole month, and he was dying. That’s me in my college years. I was dying inside . . . John Paul’s Theology of the Body takes us into a banquet!”

Check it out. As Dostoyevsky said, “the world will be saved by beauty”.

Tony Rossi is not the only one at Patheos writing about sex:

So is Katrina Fernandez. Here she is writing about Beautiful sex and the Impact of Porn in Marriage

So is Kathryn Lopez who wants to let the church’s teaching on contraception actually be heard in its fullness, not its caricatures. As does Marc Barnes

To boldly go: where John Paul II has led

Also, check out Brandon Vogt’s review of West’s book.

Yeah…we’re all talking sex. And it’s not the message the mainstream keeps telling you it is. It’s deeper, and it’s authentic, and it makes one rich instead of poor, full instead of empty.

CatholicVote: The poor really don’t spend the day copulating, Mr. Kristof

Tags: Catholicism, Election '12, Human Dignity, Sex

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

WH never “botched” contraception question

Feb 13th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

I have my own thoughts about last Friday’s “accomodation” by the White House and the HHS, but I am saving those for my First Things column, tomorrow, so here is what has developed over the weekend on that front:

Law Prof William Jacobson remembers the “odd” debate question:

Remember when George Stephanopoulos, at the New Hampshire Republican debate on January 7, brought up and harped on whether the candidates thought states could ban contraception?

Everyone, at least on our side of the aisle, shook their heads in disbelief as to why Stephanopoulos was bringing up the issue. There was no active controversy over contraception, it wasn’t in the news, and there were far more pressing political issues, yet what seemed like an eternity of debate time was devoted to the subject at the insistence of Stephanopoulos.

Read it all; watch the videos.

Oh, and in case you have not heard, over the weekend Catholic Charities has walked back its initial approval of the Obama “accommodation” which the press insists on calling a “compromise” and the administration calls a “negotiation”, as in “we are done negotiating with the Catholics”.

Which leads one to ask, “negotiating? When did you negotiate?”

Kind of like that moment in Friends, when a terminally dishonest Rachel says to Ross, “I’m over you!” and a stunned Ross asks, “you’re over me? When…when were you under me?”

Ace: Explaning the Shell Game

Francis Beckwith: The Right not to do Wrong and the Politics of the Ruse

Rod Dreher with a MUST-READ: Quoting a “liberal Catholic” friend (you know, one of the “good” ones to the bigots) who has seen enough of the administration:

I do not see how anyone serious trusts him now. What can be done by executive fiat can be undone by executive fiat.

Read it all: Democrats to Catholics: We Don’t Want You!

WSJ: The “Accommodation” Makes it Worse

Kathryn Lopez applauds Obama for the clarification he has brought. She’s not the first to say it, but she brings it up to date!

Boxer’s bad stats

Phil Lawler: Analysis of the “accomodation” and the Bishops second repsonse

Archbishop Chaput calls the “accommodation” — hey, it’s the first word the White House used — “insulting and dangerous

Today is a busy day of writing for me, but check back — I’ll add more links as I find them.

HHS Mandate and the Cloud of Witnesses

Tags: HHS, Obama

Posted in The Fourth Estate | 21 Comments »

Our Friend Greta…RIP

Feb 12th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

From Mark in the comments section, from another post:

Just wanted to pass on that my wife Greta passed away today. She died while I was reading her the Gospel of John which was her favorite and mine. Her last words to me were to keep fighting for the babies and against the party of death. What many do not know is that Greta’s sister died in the Nazi death camps. She was not a Jew, but a Catholic who happened to offend a Nazi about their policies on Jews. Great taught me and others that this holocaust in the US and what was done in Nazi Germany has many of the same components. The Nazi made everything they did legal and the taught that the jews were not really people, more like rodents. Sound familiar. They set up death camps and tried to hide what they did because it was so evil. Abortion mills try to use words like pro choice and planned parenthood as they kill 4,000 babies a day. They hate the term pro abortion. Or how about womens reproductive rights. what are they reproducing? The boldly list Obama as their Partner in the white house on their website and yet Catholics continue to support this party of death in the same way that FDR and the party of death looked the other way while blacks were being beaten and lynched and churches burned with children inside. when you bring this up your are attacked or banned from blog sites but it is all fact no matter how much people want to hide the facts.

While reading to Greta this afternoon, in the commentary on the Gospel of John, they had a quote quote from Thomas Aquinas. It went something like this: When I looked out into the sunlight, I could see. When I closed my eyes, the sunlight went away and I could no longer see the light. When we choose to close our eyes to evil, we lose our sight and become blind to the light of Christ and soon find ourselves justifying evil. I have one wish as I close off this sad day. I wish that everyone would take a moment to open their eyes to the light and see the evil that they are fighting to defend and think about stopping their support of the evil so that babies can have life denied by this party of death. If we stop giving them life, they will change or die and that is a good thing. Catholic support keeps the party of death alive and well and thus each vote provide direct material support to evil we know they are partner to. By giving them your vote and support, you are also a partner to the abortion mills.

Good night and maybe goodby. Pray for Greta and for the family. And pray for those who are blind that they might soon see that babies might live. Those who are fighting, keep up the fight. I will fight until I am gone to join my beloved because it was her last request of me, her last words. Do it not for political reasons, do it for the babies.

I am sorry to hear of your trouble, Mark. God rest her soul.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments »

Bishops to ‘Bam: “Nice first step…” -UPDATED

Feb 10th, 2012 by Elizabeth Scalia

Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia has it:

BISHOPS STUDYING INITIAL WHITE HOUSE MOVEMENT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

*New opportunity to dialogue with executive branch, obtain details :::

*Too soon to tell whether and how much improvement on core concerns:::

*Commitment to religious liberty for all means legislation still necessary:::

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sees initial opportunities in preserving the principle of religious freedom after President Obama’s announcement today. But the Conference continues to express concerns. “While there may be an openness to respond to some of our concerns, we reserve judgment on the details until we have them,†said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions or none at all worried about the erosion of religious freedom and governmental intrusion into issues of faith and morals,†he said.

“Today’s decision to revise how individuals obtain services that are morally objectionable to religious entities and people of faith is a first step in the right direction,†Cardinal-designate Dolan said. “We hope to work with the Administration to guarantee that Americans’ consciences and our religious freedom are not harmed by these regulations.â€

Emphasis mine. The USCCB is signaling that it is not backing down and that while the Obama administration spends the next months (up to and perhaps past the election) finalizing the language of this new “accommodation” the bishops expect to have input. This is a game of chess and they’re studying their next move.

Essentially Dolan has said, “yes, we see you have made a move; we acknowledge that you have engaged. That is a good first step.” Now, it’s going to get interesting. Right after Dolan gets back from Rome! :-)

And scholars and the universities are not fooled.

And so the story is not over, and no matter how much time and effort the mainstream media, the democrats and some of your own Catholic friends tries to tell you otherwise — it is not over. It is just going to recede to the backburners in the minds of many, while pressure is applied here and squeezes are put there.

We need to pray for our bishops in this time. And for the president, too, that his heart will be turned. They’re all certainly under pressure.

In particular, pray for Archbishop Dolan who is the head of the USCCB, and in the midst of all this is heading to Rome, for his elevation to Cardinal.

UPDATE Having had time to study the President’s move, the Bishops have issued a second statement: USCCB to Obama: Rescission of mandate only complete solution.

Too bad it’s a Friday night:

*Regulatory changes limited and unclear:::
*Rescission of mandate only complete solution:::
*Continue urging passage of Respect for Rights of Conscience Act:::
[...]
[The President] has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty. . .

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. . .But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services. [Emphasis mine]

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

Te-Deum blog has lots more including excerpts from what appears to be a leaked internal memo

But I’ll let you go find out what it says, for yourselves.

UPDATE II: “We were getting killed” – the inside story of the “accommodation”

For more check out The Shell Game and the Magical Thinking!

More Catholic reactions to today’s drama: in a roundup, here.

At Bad Catholic: A coolness that will be short-lived

Tags: Catholicism, Freedom of Religion, HHS, Obama

Posted in 'Remaking' America, The Fourth Estate, Timothy Dolan | 54 Comments »

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