Archbishop: Obama Needs To Stop 'Intruding Into Internal Life Of Church'

[JimG]

washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-overreach–obamacare-vs-the-constitution/2012/02/16/gIQAmupcIR_story.html

Charles Krauthammer makes some great points in this article. He points out that there are three main threats to the Constitution that are currently known, in relation to Obamacare.

1. The widely discussed threat to religious liberty by forcing persons of faith to violate basic tenants of their religion upon mandate of the state.
2. Forcing American citizens to purchase something through unjustified use of the commerce clause.
3. Forcing private business to provide a service which they do not wish to provide and even going so far as telling them that the service must be given away for free.

I am hardly a lawyer let along a Constitutional one, but I cannot see a way that Obamacare passes legal challenge in either one of those situations, let alone all three.

We need to pray that our judges are given wisdom by the Holy Spirit and side on the part of justice and liberty.

Peace,

This Krauthammer column makes some cogent points. The “compromise” causes more legal problems while failing to solve the ones it was intended to. Now it mandates insurers to provide a product for free on behalf of employers who have moral objections to providing it. How can the government order a private company to provide a product for free? And in the case of a Catholic insurance company, to provide a product for free even though it considers the product morally objectionable in the first place? No exemption for a Catholic insurance company–it will have to go out of business.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Pro-life women don’t count? Cecile Richards misleads that no women testified about HHS mandate

lifesitenews.com/news/pro-life-women-dont-count-cecile-richards-misleads-that-no-women-testified
Scott Brown op-ed on HHS mandate

bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20220217health_mandate_vs_religion/
Obama’s Imaginary Mandate Compromise: Don’t Hope for Change

lifenews.com/2012/02/17/obamas-imaginary-mandate-compromise-dont-hope-for-change/​

Washington Post Fact Checker:

**The claim that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception: a media foul **

washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-98-percent-of-catholic-women-use-contraception-a-media-foul/2012/02/16/gIQAkPeqIR_blog.html?wprss=fact-checker

 

[JimG]

spectator.org/archives/2012/02/16/the-little-sisters-of-limousin

Please read this article. It provides an interesting, albeit disturbing, angle. We need to step up and demand better of our Bishops, Priests, and Religious.

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious.”

----Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,

I just got around to reading this article. It’s quite enlightening. In discussing Sister Keehan and the CHA, the writer comments: “Who knew that lobbying for the corporal works of mercy paid so well?”

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I just got around to reading this article. It’s quite enlightening. In discussing Sister Keehan and the CHA, the writer comments: “Who knew that lobbying for the corporal works of mercy paid so well?”

Indeed, it does.

This reminds me of a snippet I read in the WSJ which pointed out that until relatively recently people in the business of charity were, if not living a life of poverty, at least not living high on the hog. And the reason was a respect for the contributor. The argument was that it is the person who created and shared the wealth, not the person managing the contributed wealth, who was deserving of praise.

Somewhere along the way this become corrupted and the idea arose that those who managed charities were praiseworthy and, of course, deserving of big salaries.

Charity is great career choice now, especially when it can suckle at the teat of the state.

 

[InLight247]

I think the 2nd page is very disturbing.
spectator.org/archives/2012/02/16/the-little-sisters-of-limousin
I don’t know what to make of it.

 

[JimG]

Well, presumably salaries paid to members of religious orders are turned over to the religious orders, not retained by individuals.

I can’t help thinking, though, of the nuns who taught me through eight years of grade school and lived in a convent next door. The order was not wealthy, and the nuns lived simply. Their service of teaching children was itself a huge contribution to the parish.

 

[_Abyssinia]

The World over Live

CARDINAL DONALD W. WUERL, archbishop of Washington, DC and the author of a new book, SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM, on the US Catholic Bishops’ response to the HHS mandate.

MARK REINZI, senior legal counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and DORINDA BORDLEE senior counsel and vice president of The Bioethics Defense Fund on the latest news regarding the HHS contraception/sterilization mandate and the accommodation for religious groups offered late last week by the Obama administration.

youtube.com/watch?v=9d0jhhWgUio
Sunday Night Prime - Cardinal-Designate Timothy Dolan comment on the HHS contraception mandate

youtube.com/watch?v=0DkHpaOPasU

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Well, presumably salaries paid to members of religious orders are turned over to the religious orders, not retained by individuals.

Sure, but the question then becomes what is done with the funding to the order? If a wall street broker brings home a wad of cash he doesn’t keep it for himself, he turns it over to his family. It’s used to pay for his home, for his wife’s car, for his kids braces, etc.

I can’t help thinking, though, of the nuns who taught me through eight years of grade school and lived in a convent next door. The order was not wealthy, and the nuns lived simply. Their service of teaching children was itself a huge contribution to the parish.

Ditto, I think, for many.

 

[Wiljo2050]

from the article: “The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church,” Dolan told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer."

The issue is not whether Catholics may or may not use contraception. Nobody in the Church is following them around to check up on them.

The issue is whether the government can force a Catholic institution, hospital, or charity, to violate its own religious beliefs.

Constitutionally, the answer is clear. It cannot.

That is why this mandate must be fought. If the government can force a Catholic institution to reject its own Catholicism, religious freedom is dead in this nation.

 

[Wiljo2050]

Wiljo2050:
Obama said the federal government will not mandate contraception. for faith base insurance! .I love Jesus!Love Mother Mary! I go to mass To thank the lord! I do not go to Mass for the church to be bedfellows with political parties!Especially parties that says they respect catholics when it comes to voteing for a certain party,then they go to their congregations and speak of the evils of the catholic church! Lets concentrate on Jesus"he said my kingdom is not of this world"He is all we need!

 

[jwinch2]

I just got around to reading this article. It’s quite enlightening. In discussing Sister Keehan and the CHA, the writer comments: “Who knew that lobbying for the corporal works of mercy paid so well?”

Fr. Powell, OP said earlier “who knew that 30 pieces of silver could cost so much?”

 

[northernstar]

I’m trying very hard not to believe that your entire post is tongue in cheek and you don’t really believe such things.
. The argument you use has been used to justify evil for centuries: I don’t choose to own slaves but they really do a lot of good for others so I won’t stand in the way of this violation of human rights. I mean there is some good that comes of this mandate so no matter that we blow off the Constitution, force Catholics to participate in a grave sin, and if implemented may very well destroy many Catholic organizations that ALSO do a lot of good.

Tell me your post was all in jest please
Lisa

I think it is a case of 50 50 you take the gain and work on the rest after the fact. More can be gained by a national health system than leaving it to Medi-care. So shut up and take it. Then move your forces in to fix it.

We all know the Booomer are coming they will cost tax payer’s their pension if nothing is done to stop the drain hole. Plug it now, the plug may be weak but it can be replaced with a better plug, a more enlightened knowledge can create that plug.

I just say let the health bill pass – get rid of the corrupt and expensive old system. It can be fixed… EVERY SINGLE LAW CAN be REPEALED, no man made law is written in stone. Take and use a gift horse when you got it.

 

[LisaA]

I think it is a case of 50 50 you take the gain and work on the rest after the fact. More can be gained by a national health system than leaving it to Medi-care. So shut up and take it. Then move your forces in to fix it.

We all know the Booomer are coming they will cost tax payer’s their pension if nothing is done to stop the drain hole. Plug it now, the plug may be weak but it can be replaced with a better plug, a more enlightened knowledge can create that plug.

I just say let the health bill pass – get rid of the corrupt and expensive old system. It can be fixed… EVERY SINGLE LAW CAN be REPEALED, no man made law is written in stone. Take and use a gift horse when you got it.

I’m sorry but your post makes absolutely no sense to me.

More can be gained by a National Health System than leaving it to MediCare? WHAT IS MEDICARE? A national health system!

Let the health care bill pass? Far as I know it passed in 2009. It CANNOT BE FIXED. It is a mess. If you remember the bill had not been reconciled between House and Senate. They knew it was a mess and had Scott Brown not been elected they would have wrangled back and forth. Who knows if it would have been improved but at any rate the only way to pass was to just take it as is.

We have nearly 3000 pages, most of which no one knows exactly the contents thereof. Worse yet the bill is full of “The Secretary shall…” And we have now seen just what the Secretary has in mind.

It must be repealed and replaced. Improving our healthcare reimbursement system can be done but not with a top down, one size fits all system that is and will always be a mess.

I only hope that the Justices see exactly what is going to happen if the healthcare bill continues in its current form. From a Constitutional point of view, it seems like a no brainer but given Kelo and a few other SCOTUS blunders, anything is possible.

The important thing is to keep up the pressure and focus on the Constitutional issue while the Obama administration tries to convince us it’s all about mean old Catholics denying “women’s health care.”

Lisa

 

[PTL]

The HHS debating sometimes is frustrating. Liberals remain liberal, conservatives remain conservative. I found this book encouraging.

In INDIVISIBLE, James Robison, the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, a Protestant, partners with Jay Richards, Ph.D., a Catholic writer who has appeared in both the New York Times and The Washington Post co-write together the book, not about GOP or Democratic, not about liberal or conservative, but express things in an honest and profound point of view. *INDIVISIBLE *is a good book to read in times like this.

The fact a Protestant and a Catholic co-write a book is encouraging.

amazon.com/gp/product/images/B004QX0750/ref=dp_readdesc_e?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text

 

[JimG]

Obama said the federal government will not mandate contraception. for faith base insurance! .I love Jesus!Love Mother Mary! I go to mass To thank the lord! I do not go to Mass for the church to be bedfellows with political parties!Especially parties that says they respect catholics when it comes to voteing for a certain party,then they go to their congregations and speak of the evils of the catholic church! Lets concentrate on Jesus"he said my kingdom is not of this world"He is all we need!

Actually, the HHS mandate does mandate contraception for “faith based insurance,” if by that you mean, for example, a Catholic insurance company. There are Catholic insurance companies now which offer morally acceptable coverage which does not include contraception, sterilization, or abortion inducing morning-after pills. With the mandate in place, they would be required to offer only insurance which includes that coverage. They have the option of rejecting their religion or going out of business.

In the same way, Catholic charities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic social services, are mandated by HHS to provide morally unacceptable insurance.

It is important to protect our religious freedoms no matter which party is in power.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Ohio Churches Become Battlefields in Contraception Debate

businessweek.com/news/2012-02-16/ohio-churches-become-battlefields-in-contraception-debate.html

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Ohio Churches Become Battlefields in Contraception Debate

businessweek.com/news/2012-02-16/ohio-churches-become-battlefields-in-contraception-debate.html

There is a lot in this article to shake your head at but the concluding paragraph was about as absurd as any I’ve seen the subject:

“I don’t know anybody that’s against religious liberty; I don’t know anybody that’s against providing people with good health care,” he said. “So how do you fit those things together?”

Gee, how about not treating access to contraceptives as a human right and a duty of employers to provide? How did “good health care” come to depend on compelling employers into the business of guarding against pregnancy?

 

[LisaA]

There is a lot in this article to shake your head at but the concluding paragraph was about as absurd as any I’ve seen the subject:

Gee, how about not treating access to contraceptives as a human right and a duty of employers to provide? How did “good health care” come to depend on compelling employers into the business of guarding against pregnancy?

Honestly these people are seemingly brainless. No one is PREVENTING women from accessing whatever ghastly chemicals they want. The Left has perverted the reality of the situation to posit the theory that religious objections means lack of access. As many have pointed out, even on the Leftist MSM, birth control is easy to obtain and is not expensive. The entire issue thus not prevention of “health care” but is who actually pays for the ABC, Ella, etc…the person who wants it or (directly or indirectly) that person’s employer. Funny how these folks are all about choice unless it means someone’s choice is opposed to the Left’s sacred cows: abortion, fossil fuels, light bulbs that don’t look like someone’s intestines or public schools.

How hard is this? Sheesh!
Lisa

 

[_Abyssinia]

There is a lot in this article to shake your head at but the concluding paragraph was about as absurd as any I’ve seen the subject:

Gee, how about not treating access to contraceptives as a human right and a duty of employers to provide? How did “good health care” come to depend on compelling employers into the business of guarding against pregnancy?

Exactly, and how is contraception even classified as ‘health care?’

 

[_Abyssinia]

Mark Steyn at NRO says the mandate is like handing out condoms on the Titantic.