Good Read: Obamacare vs. the Catholics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lost_Sheep
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
NewEnglandPries said:
Definitely an interesting read. I agree with the author that the HHS mandate is a shocking breach of trust with Catholics who had either supported Obama or his health care initiative. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

However, I would disagree that Obama is looking to “dismantle” Catholic institutions. That’s a bit of a conspiracy theory that seems to violate Occam’s razor, imho.
Click to expand...
But he must expect that Catholic institutions will either be dismantled or cease to be Catholic. Why else would he consider such a breach with even Catholics who had supported him?

I think he wants the Catholic Church out of the way of his agenda, whether by ceasing to be Catholic or by becoming small and insular.
 
JimG said:
But he must expect that Catholic institutions will either be dismantled or cease to be Catholic.
Click to expand...
Like I said, I don’t think he gives that much thought. There’s probably no reason in his mind that paying for health care that supports contraception would cause a university to cease to be Catholic.
Why else would he consider such a breach with even Catholics who had supported him?
Click to expand...
Because, for whatever reason, he might be rallying his base.
I think he wants the Catholic Church out of the way of his agenda, whether by ceasing to be Catholic or by becoming small and insular.
Click to expand...
I don’t think he considers the Church to be in the way of his agenda any more than any other group.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
Like I said, I don’t think he gives that much thought. There’s probably no reason in his mind that paying for health care that supports contraception would cause a university to cease to be Catholic.

Because, for whatever reason, he might be rallying his base.

I don’t think he considers the Church to be in the way of his agenda any more than any other group.
Click to expand...
And it seems that attacking the Church and Catholic institutions really is a way of rallying his base.

Attach the Church to rally his base; or attack the Church to get it out of public life entirely. Either way makes him happy.
 
JimG said:
And it seems that attacking the Church and Catholic institutions really is a way of rallying his base.

Attach the Church to rally his base; or attack the Church to get it out of public life entirely. Either way makes him happy.
Click to expand...
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
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.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Evangelicals are a broad topic. Surely you are aware of the Hosanna-Tabor case where the Obama administration attempted to punish a LCMS congregation for firing a teacher at their parochial school for behavior obstinately in contradiction to church teachings. They attempted to punish this congregation for hiring based on religious principle! If you aren’t aware of this, you should be. The SC shot Obama down in that case, but it still illustrate intent.

Less organized evangelicals aren’t a threat to Obama because of their lack of participation in socially mediating institutions. They don’t operate hospitals, social service agencies, etc. The Saddleback variety of evangelical has no uniformity in doctrinal teaching and no central organization to create one, so they aren’t a threat.

I think you vastly underestimate Obama’s intelligence and capabilities when you say these things have never occurred to him. He does have staff for looking at all aspects of these things. I find it hardly credible to assert that it never occurred to anybody in the administration that this would cause a major fracas. If so, they are amazingly incompetent instead of outright evil.
 
manualman said:
Interesting. Evangelicals are a broad topic. Surely you are aware of the Hosanna-Tabor case where the Obama administration attempted to punish a LCMS congregation for firing a teacher at their parochial school for behavior obstinately in contradiction to church teachings. They attempted to punish this congregation for hiring based on religious principle! If you aren’t aware of this, you should be. The SC shot Obama down in that case, but it still illustrate intent.

Less organized evangelicals aren’t a threat to Obama because of their lack of participation in socially mediating institutions. They don’t operate hospitals, social service agencies, etc. The Saddleback variety of evangelical has no uniformity in doctrinal teaching and no central organization to create one, so they aren’t a threat.

I think you vastly underestimate Obama’s intelligence and capabilities when you say these things have never occurred to him. He does have staff for looking at all aspects of these things. I find it hardly credible to assert that it never occurred to anybody in the administration that this would cause a major fracas. If so, they are amazingly incompetent instead of outright evil.
Click to expand...
Considering the number (in the thousands) of negative comments and objections received by HHS before the final rule, somebody in the bureaucracy must have been aware of the storm of protest that this would generate. They ignoried the comments and went ahead with the final rule anyway. They knew what they were doing. And the president even made a sort of pre-emptive phone call to Archbishop Dolan to advise him that the rule would not be modified. He knew. He just wasn’t much worried about Catholics, figuring that the Church was weak and Catholics were lax. I hope he figured wrong.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
I think he assumes that since the majority of Catholic laity use ABC that they won’t care about the issue.
Click to expand...
I saw a clip on NBC News last evening of Katherine Kennedy Townsend saying “98% of Catholic women already use birth control” as if to imply “what’s the big deal?” (And where she got that 98% figure I have no idea.)

This clearly shows that Obama and his minions are missing the point. This issue here is not about birth control; it is about summarily ignoring the First Amendment’s guarantee to practice one’s religious faith according to the dictates of their conscience with non-interference from the government.

Opposition to ABC and abortion has been a fundamental part of Catholic doctrine for centuries. Does the administration really think that is going to change because of some government mandate? OK, so some Catholics practice ABC which is against Church doctrine. Well, Catholics commit all kinds of sins (surprise, surprise); they have been known to lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery and even murder. Does anyone really think that the Bishops are going to say “Well, there are some Catholics who commit murder, so we might as well remove our objection to it.”

Last month, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in favor of Religious freedom. I am confident that the Supreme Court will overturn this as well. 😃
 
The problem is that many of these same Catholics don’t see this as a “hill to die on”. Really? Will it be a hill to die on when the Church and its institiutions are forced to pay for abortion in their healthcare insurance? Or does that not matter either because they are pro-choice politically (and pro-life personally)? Unfortunately, I don’t think this will affect their vote at all.

This whole issue and the average American Catholic’s response to it makes me so angry. Sometimes I wonder whether we got what we deserved. I’m so glad I can come to this forum for a breath of fresh air.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
I saw a clip on NBC News last evening of Katherine Kennedy Townsend saying “98% of Catholic women already use birth control” as if to imply “what’s the big deal?” (And where she got that 98% figure I have no idea.)
Click to expand...
The FAQ on the USCCB website responds to that figure and points out how it is false and misleading.

What I find insulting about this line (even if this statistic were true, which it is not) is the implication in such an assertion that it is acceptable to trample on the constitutional rights of the 2% in favor of the 98%. Isn’t that the entire reason we have a Bill of Rights? So that the whim of the majority doesn’t oppress the rights of the minority? Our country was built by people who were escaping those types of oppression. To use that as an argument is an affront to their memory.
 
Obama blinked?
Sorry, I don’t think this is a solution.

Insurance companies make their premiums to a company based on the experiences they
“see” for the future. If a company, for example, has 20 women, and 10 men, they then
go to the tables and project the claims based on that. Under Obama’s concession, they
are still going to have the same data (and they will take into account the “free” services
they are going to provide.) Who pays the premium? The company!!!

This is one example.

The basic problem is that Obamacare is unconstitutional, period. Obama has no right to
order these mandates on anyone.:eek:
 
TexCatholic4JMJ said:
Obama blinked?
Sorry, I don’t think this is a solution.

Insurance companies make their premiums to a company based on the experiences they
“see” for the future. If a company, for example, has 20 women, and 10 men, they then
go to the tables and project the claims based on that. Under Obama’s concession, they
are still going to have the same data (and they will take into account the “free” services
they are going to provide.) Who pays the premium? The company!!!

This is one example.

The basic problem is that Obamacare is unconstitutional, period. Obama has no right to
order these mandates on anyone.:eek:
Click to expand...
I said he blinked. I didn’t say the war was over.
 
Voting4Life said:
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.
Click to expand...
The liberal Catholics who voted for him applaud his latest “accommodation decision”. He knows the the true traditionalist Catholic would never vote for him but he needed to get the liberal ones back in his fold
 
manualman said:
Surely you are aware of the Hosanna-Tabor case where the Obama administration attempted to punish a LCMS congregation for firing a teacher at their parochial school for behavior obstinately in contradiction to church teachings. They attempted to punish this congregation for hiring based on religious principle! If you aren’t aware of this, you should be. The SC shot Obama down in that case, but it still illustrate intent.
Click to expand...
Lost_Sheep said:
Last month, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in favor of Religious freedom. I am confident that the Supreme Court will overturn this as well. 😃
Click to expand...
In that case the Lutheran Church was spared because the individual in question was officially instituted as a minister. That is simply not the case for nurses and professors.

It would be interesting to see how the SC would rule since states have similar laws that have not been struck down.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
In that case the Lutheran Church was spared because the individual in question was officially instituted as a minister. That is simply not the case for nurses and professors.
Click to expand...
You’re missing my point. The loss of catholic adoption agencies, the effective banning of faithful catholics from the pharmacy profession, the Hosanna Tabor case, the rejection of CRS partnerships fighting human trafficking solely based on the ‘failure’ of CRS to endorse abortion, and now this constitute a pattern in which the Obama Administration has ended the historic American approach to plurality in conscience and the ability to cooperate on specific goals in which secular and religious goals align and he has replaced it with a comprehensive approach in which any entity which is not with HIS people on all matters is treated as the enemy on all matters, even those on which agreement should be easy.

This isn’t just my logic, this is essentially the observation made by Cardinal George in a letter put in every Chicagoland bulletin recently.

Face it, Obama has effectively declared war on us.
 
manualman said:
This isn’t just my logic, this is essentially the observation made by Cardinal George in a letter put in every Chicagoland bulletin recently.

Face it, Obama has effectively declared war on us.
Click to expand...
Cardinal George is entitled to his opinion, as is everyone else…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top