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What do ya’ll think of this? (I tried to link the story, but you have to register, so I just pasted it below)
**Flynn takes on Pawlenty **
**Patricia Lopez **Star Tribune Published May 20, 2005
After more than a decade of quietly leading the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Harry Flynn has stepped into the spotlight on the most secular of issues, openly advocating higher taxes and taking the governor to task for his insistence on holding to a no-new-taxes pledge. Flynn has also spoken out against Catholic gay activists who have taken their protest to the very heart of Catholic ritual, holy communion. He discussed both issues during an interview with the Star Tribune’s Patricia Lopez this week. Excerpts:
On his decision to speak out for higher taxes:
“It’s so easy to make decisions on a budget without really knowing how that decision is going to affect a single mother, someone who needs assistance in health care, someone who needs child care. When I heard them [legislators] talking about cutbacks and no increase in taxes at all, I was compelled to do something. I pay taxes, you know, and my salary is about $2,200 a month plus room and board, so I’m not starving. I wouldn’t mind a tax increase. I would be happy to pay it if I knew a single mother was going to be assisted, to put her child in a day care center so that she could go out and do her work and not worry about that child. I’m not going to let this go. I’m hosting a meeting of religious leaders at my residence within the next month, simply to keep revisiting this, so we don’t let it get lost, this idea that the state budget is a moral statement.”
On meeting privately with Gov. Tim Pawlenty:
“I met with him earlier in the legislative session. I think the governor has a real good heart. I think he’s obviously made a promise of no increase in taxes. And we all like to stand with our promises. But I’ve made promises too in my life. Then when I hear the other side of the story … I’ve changed my mind. It’s my hope and prayer that the governor, listening to the stories of the many, will modify his position. I asked him to listen to the stories. Otherwise, the poor are out there, a nebulous cast of people who we don’t even know. How can he change? Do exactly … what I did. Walk to the day care centers, watch the mothers coming to pick up their children, ask a little child, ‘Did you enjoy your meal today, your hot meal, and what are you going to do when you go home for dinner? Are you going to help your mother get dinner?’ And listen to the answer, ‘Oh, we don’t have any food in our house.’ That’s the way to change hearts. And any heart should be able to be changed by that.”
On helping the poor:
“We live in a society where if someone has a broken marriage, if someone is on welfare, if someone loses a job, we have a tendency to say you didn’t try hard enough. You were lazy and that’s why you’re unemployed. It’s your fault, whatever it might be. So added now to the misery of not having a job is the guilt that I didn’t try hard enough. And that’s not it at all. Generally speaking, if someone is unemployed, that person wants to make a living, to live a respectful life. We as a society should always ask that question, how is this going to affect the most vulnerable among us? I’ve been a priest for 45 years. My experience has taught me that the inner core of every person is good. Every human being. That’s something taught to us by God. We try to encourage that person along the right pathway, so people will not get so discouraged they feel like they cannot make it another day.”
**On who takes care of the poor: **
“I had one man who wrote to me and said, ‘How dare you speak before the committee on taxes. It is up to the church and the church alone to care for the poor. The state has no obligation and this is from the Bible.’ I wrote back to him and I said, would you please tell me where I could find that in the Bible? I never heard of that before. It’s every person’s obligation to care for the other. I don’t need the Qur’an for that. I don’t need scriptures for that, or the New Testament, nor do I need the Old Testament for that. All I need is the sense of the human and a sense of the dignity of every person. Born out of that should be the realization that I have an obligation to this person.”
**Flynn takes on Pawlenty **
**Patricia Lopez **Star Tribune Published May 20, 2005
After more than a decade of quietly leading the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Harry Flynn has stepped into the spotlight on the most secular of issues, openly advocating higher taxes and taking the governor to task for his insistence on holding to a no-new-taxes pledge. Flynn has also spoken out against Catholic gay activists who have taken their protest to the very heart of Catholic ritual, holy communion. He discussed both issues during an interview with the Star Tribune’s Patricia Lopez this week. Excerpts:
On his decision to speak out for higher taxes:
“It’s so easy to make decisions on a budget without really knowing how that decision is going to affect a single mother, someone who needs assistance in health care, someone who needs child care. When I heard them [legislators] talking about cutbacks and no increase in taxes at all, I was compelled to do something. I pay taxes, you know, and my salary is about $2,200 a month plus room and board, so I’m not starving. I wouldn’t mind a tax increase. I would be happy to pay it if I knew a single mother was going to be assisted, to put her child in a day care center so that she could go out and do her work and not worry about that child. I’m not going to let this go. I’m hosting a meeting of religious leaders at my residence within the next month, simply to keep revisiting this, so we don’t let it get lost, this idea that the state budget is a moral statement.”
On meeting privately with Gov. Tim Pawlenty:
“I met with him earlier in the legislative session. I think the governor has a real good heart. I think he’s obviously made a promise of no increase in taxes. And we all like to stand with our promises. But I’ve made promises too in my life. Then when I hear the other side of the story … I’ve changed my mind. It’s my hope and prayer that the governor, listening to the stories of the many, will modify his position. I asked him to listen to the stories. Otherwise, the poor are out there, a nebulous cast of people who we don’t even know. How can he change? Do exactly … what I did. Walk to the day care centers, watch the mothers coming to pick up their children, ask a little child, ‘Did you enjoy your meal today, your hot meal, and what are you going to do when you go home for dinner? Are you going to help your mother get dinner?’ And listen to the answer, ‘Oh, we don’t have any food in our house.’ That’s the way to change hearts. And any heart should be able to be changed by that.”
On helping the poor:
“We live in a society where if someone has a broken marriage, if someone is on welfare, if someone loses a job, we have a tendency to say you didn’t try hard enough. You were lazy and that’s why you’re unemployed. It’s your fault, whatever it might be. So added now to the misery of not having a job is the guilt that I didn’t try hard enough. And that’s not it at all. Generally speaking, if someone is unemployed, that person wants to make a living, to live a respectful life. We as a society should always ask that question, how is this going to affect the most vulnerable among us? I’ve been a priest for 45 years. My experience has taught me that the inner core of every person is good. Every human being. That’s something taught to us by God. We try to encourage that person along the right pathway, so people will not get so discouraged they feel like they cannot make it another day.”
**On who takes care of the poor: **
“I had one man who wrote to me and said, ‘How dare you speak before the committee on taxes. It is up to the church and the church alone to care for the poor. The state has no obligation and this is from the Bible.’ I wrote back to him and I said, would you please tell me where I could find that in the Bible? I never heard of that before. It’s every person’s obligation to care for the other. I don’t need the Qur’an for that. I don’t need scriptures for that, or the New Testament, nor do I need the Old Testament for that. All I need is the sense of the human and a sense of the dignity of every person. Born out of that should be the realization that I have an obligation to this person.”
