Crisis Magazine:The Attack on the Catholic Church

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A remarkable article that uses history of Poland, its Communist political and secular leaders and…a work by Father Boniecki, The Making of the Pope of the Millennium: Kalendarium of the Life of Karol Wojtyla,…to analyze where we are today as Catholics in USA…the precise dangers now and ahead of the Church/faithful…and what to do about it…it is not a diatribe about/against President Obama but a precise insight into what is really happening…based on history and objective decisions made under his leadership and in/by his administration.

Pax Christi

Crisis Magazine
Barack Obama, Władysław Gomułka and the Attack on the Catholic Church

by John Hittinger
John Hittinger is a professor in the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St Thomas, Houston and the author of Liberty, Wisdom and Grace: Thomism and Democratic Political Theory. He is the founder and director of the Pope John Paul II Forum for the Church in the Modern World and president of the International Catholic University, founded by Ralph McInerny (1929-2010), the co-founder of Crisis Magazine.
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This July at a conference at Mundelein Seminary I heard Cardinal George state that the Church is in a more perilous position in this country then it has ever been. In February he said the Church is being despoiled of her institutions and that the new HHS mandate is nothing short of a demand for the Catholic Church in the United States to “give up her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations.” He predicted that if the HHS regulations are not rescinded a Catholic institution has the choice to secularize itself, pay exorbitant fines forcing it out of business, sell the institution, or close down. He pointed out that freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union, however, “the church could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship—no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long Cold War to defeat that vision of society.”…
crisismagazine.com/2012/barack-obama-wladyslaw-gomulka-and-the-attack-on-the-catholic-church
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This is an important article. I regret that Crisis Magazine is no longer published in print form, but I’m glad it is still available online.

It’s ironic that after winning a Cold War against the Soviet Union, which mightily repressed religion, the U.S. is traveling down that same road of repression of religion. The Catholic Church is now in danger of being entirely marginalized. The government, most recently through the HHS mandate, wants to restrict the free exercise of religion to mean nothing more than freedom of worship.

Catholic institutions are all at risk–hospitals, schools, charities, food kitchens, social services, all of them. They have the option of rejecting their Catholicism, or paying a fine for remaining Catholic, as they would in countries living under Islamic law.
 
I was a long time subscriber to CRISIS magazine. It was my favorite. Then it stopped coming so I thought it went out of print.
 
JimG said:
This is an important article. I regret that Crisis Magazine is no longer published in print form, but I’m glad it is still available online.

It’s ironic that after winning a Cold War against the Soviet Union, which mightily repressed religion, the U.S. is traveling down that same road of repression of religion. The Catholic Church is now in danger of being entirely marginalized. The government, most recently through the HHS mandate, wants to restrict the free exercise of religion to mean nothing more than freedom of worship.

Catholic institutions are all at risk–hospitals, schools, charities, food kitchens, social services, all of them. They have the option of rejecting their Catholicism, or paying a fine for remaining Catholic, as they would in countries living under Islamic law.
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This is great news. Freedom of religion should just be freedom to worship.
 
Good article. Thanks for sharing.
We fought a long Cold War to defeat that vision of society…
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I guess Netanyahu is right: most people’s sense of history goes back to breakfast time. 😦
 
JimG said:
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the free exercise of religion, not merely the freedom to worship.

For some additional explication on free exercise of religion, I recommend this exchange between Rep. Gowdy and Kathleen Sebelius:
youtube.com/watch?v=jLC5NfASAAU
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At what point do you draw the line for “exercise of religion?” What if my religion says I should kill a certain minority? What if greedy business men just made up some religion that they belonged to that didn’t believe in any health care. Would that be protected? At what point do you close the loopholes?
 
From the article: “He [Cardinal George] predicted that if the HHS regulations are not rescinded a Catholic institution has the choice to secularize itself, pay exorbitant fines forcing it out of business, sell the institution, or close down.”

One must conclude that the administration would rather see Catholic hospitals, schools, food pantries, social services providing a great amount of humanitarian aid–shut down than allow them to be Catholic. It would shut down Catholic institutions rather than allow them freedom of religion. It’s only a beginning.
 
interestedman said:
At what point do you draw the line for “exercise of religion?” What if my religion says I should kill a certain minority? What if greedy business men just made up some religion that they belonged to that didn’t believe in any health care. Would that be protected? At what point do you close the loopholes?
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Well, look at the religious freedom cases referenced by Rep. Gowdy that made it to the supreme court. The religious institution won in every case.
 
wondrousgnat said:
I was a long time subscriber to CRISIS magazine. It was my favorite. Then it stopped coming so I thought it went out of print.
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Yes, it went out of print in 2007 and is still not being published. I think print journalism is a tough market these days.

After ceasing publication, the crew at Crisis Magazine launched a website called InsideCatholic.com. Why it wasn’t called Crisis, I don’t know. I suppose there was some kind of legal issue at stake.

Early in 2011, Deal Hudson, the long-time editor of Crisis Magazine (and InsideCatholic.com) announced he was leaving. In May of 2011, the name InsideCatholic.com was changed to Crisis Magazine.com. Then, earlier this year, came an announcement that Crisis Magazine had been acquired by Sophia Institute of Bedford, New Hampshire. Sophia Institute is the publishing division of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (New Hampshire) and Holy Spirit College (Atlanta). Sophia may have been acting as a white knight which would ensure the survival of Crisis Magazine. However, I doubt there are plans to return to print publication, and the website isn’t generating enough ad revenue to cover its expenses.
 
interestedman said:
This is great news. Freedom of religion should just be freedom to worship.
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Yes, only politicians should be the ones that control every aspect of human communal society. :rolleyes: Take a history class, will ya?

The moment they are done castrating and muzzling the churches, the journalists will be next. 1984, here we come.
 
JimG said:
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the free exercise of religion, not merely the freedom to worship.
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This comment (also from the article) from Cardinal Wojtyla in 1967 about Poland should show the parallels of the US today:*“We are the witnesses of an attack on faith … the position that faith and religion are unworthy of a human being; that faith and religion are contrary to a person’s reason, and above all, to his social mundane involvement. We are witnesses at every step, of the so-called process of secularization, which in large part is calculated, and forced upon people of faith. They are still being given the right to profess their faith, but in a way that forces them to keep their religious convictions in the depths of their souls, within the four walls of their houses, or in church. But anywhere else—no. Public life will be overtaken by the process of secularization; and so: not in schools, not in hospitals, not in summer camps [youth programs].” *
It is not merely the atheists billboards put up in Charlotte just before the convention that made the point about religion being contrary to reason; that is a common attack. We have all seen Catholic institutions forced out of the adoption business because they won’t assign children to homosexual couples. We are seeing with the HHS regulations the very real possibility that the Church will be forced out of “schools and hospitals.”

How many of us have read letters to the editor complaining that it is an infringement of the separation of Church and State to take a political position based on a teaching of the Church or a passage from the Bible? This, intended or not, is a force that is pushing religious conviction to “the depths of their souls, within the four walls of their houses, or in church. But anywhere else—no.”

Ender
 
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