Obama won on the Catholic vote. I can’t believe he did something this stupid before the elections. He must be certain that he is going to loose, or he would have waited to after the election to put the screws to us.
An excellent read. It’s surprisingly well-balanced in the perspectives and ramifications. Arguably the most accurate summary of the whole matter in the entire journalistic sphere.
Oh but wait! He’s giving us a whole year to comply! Within that legnth of time surely Catholics will have softened up!
I hope you are right. However, I am fearful that many Catholics will still vote for him. So many of our Catholic brothers and sisters do not place Catholic beliefs and values as top priority in the poll booth.I believe we will all stand before God and answer for everything someday…including who we vote for. A friend of mine recently referred to himself as a Catholic Democrat (an oxymoron in my opinion.) We cannot entrust our Christian values to either party affiliation. Instead we are responsible to know each candidate’s stand on the issues before voting for them.
I think Obama’s political calculus was that the catholic church lacks the internal cohesion to stand up to external pressure on the matter of contraception and chemical abortion. He thinks we lack the will to fight and will simply do what we are told in the matter. In the end, is there a difference between “dismantling” a catholic institution and stripping it of its catholicism? Do you think he’s right or wrong?
The article speculates that this “concession” is politically motivated as it pushes the enforcement date after the election (thereby removing the possibility of a Supreme Court case before the election).
I think he assumes that since the majority of Catholic laity use ABC that they won’t care about the issue. I think he assumes the US Bishops will rail against it to no avail.
I don’t think those issues even enter his mind.
You know, before this, I just kind of rolled my eyes when Obama’s detractors accused him of being a closet socialist / Marxist / whatever-terrifying-term-you-can-come-up-with. I certainly disagree with Obama’s policies on almost everything, but I thought such descriptions were a bit over-the-top – the conspiracy-laden rhetoric of people who spent too much time listening to conservative talking heads who are caricatures of themselves.
Government regulation does not equal socialism.
Seriously? You don’t think he’s even noticed that one group of his most consistent political critics are faithful catholics? You don’t think he recognized the way in which this policy would beat that group on the head like a billy club? You don’t think he recognized the potential for this policy to push a wedge further between faithful catholics and dissenter catholics (the kind he has packed his adminsitration with)?
Government control of economic resources does equal socialism.
But it gets closer.
The Regulatory State treads close to the line of the Tyrannical State because it more and more vests power in the Executive branch which controls the bureaucracy. The way in which regulations are designed, modified, implemented, allow for public (name removed by moderator)ut and also for complete disregard of public (name removed by moderator)ut, as was the case here. The HHS received literally thousands of negative comments before implementing this rule, then disregarded them all and pushed forward anyway because it met their ideological agenda.
Evangelicals are in that group too, he doesn’t go out of his way to go after them. Secondly, some of his supporters were left leaning Catholics and this is a kick even to them, Sr. Keehan has even turned on the President. It appears the President has an extremely narrow understanding of how to apply the 1st Amendment that has nothing to do with Catholicism.
I think its a fantasy that the Administration is targeting Catholics. As if we’re important enough to them be hated and plotted against.
No, but I’ve lived in NJ and that ain’t no clean politics state and New England contains Rhode Island which has been described by the national press as the most corrupt state in the country, not to mention Massachusetts which had as its Senate President the brother of Boston’s most notorious gangster.You ain’t from Chicago, that’s fo’ sure.