OBAMA'S ANTI-CATHOLICISM IS PROVOKING TALK OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE BY SOME BISHOPS--THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BE A PRACTICING, BELIEVING AND OBEDIENT CATHOLIC!

A call to action by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI to all Catholics in the USA: Pope Benedict XVI has taken note of what is going on on this side of the Atlantic. Last week he told the US bishops on visit to Rome: “it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats [by the Obama administration] to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be appreciated at every level of ecclesial life.”

My comment first: In the late 1980's Bishop Lessard of the Diocese of Savannah asked me to coordinate a public outdoor Mass for Pax Christi outside the Navel Base at Kingsbay, St. Mary, Georgia where nuclear weapons were brought by train to nuclear subs. Bishop Lessard was joined by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and the now retired bishop of Richmond, Virginia (whose name escapes me now). There were about 300 protesters from around the country at the Mass outside the fence of this military establishment. After the Mass, the Mass goers staged an act of civil disobedience concerning the nuclear bombs there by lying down in front of the gate and being arrested. Of course I watched from the side-lines. But at that time (and still today)acts of civil disobedience are permissible in Church law if the acts are to encourage the government to change policies that harm people or institutions. Of course there was not unanimous support for this type of civil disobedience at a military base by a broad base of Catholics.

What the Obama administration is trying to do to the Catholic Church is unbelievable in America. Even if I were an atheist I would join in civil disobedience against Obama not because I believe in God, but because I believe in America and the religious freedom this land was built upon and the freedom of conscience.

This is from the Turtle Bay Blog and Beyond. It describes its blog this way: Turtle Bay and Beyond is a blog covering international law, policy and institutions. Our experts - at the UN, European Institutions, and elsewhere - explore an authentic understanding of international law, sovereignty, and the dignity of the human person. We expose those who would seek to impose a radical social vision that is contrary to these principles.

Obama Administration at War With Catholics

Posted on | January 27, 2012 by Stefano Gennarini, J.D. |

The Obama administration is at war with the Catholic Church. It has opened yet another front against the Catholic Church on health insurance coverage by religious employers.

Since last August a guideline in Obama’s health care reform has been in place that will force religious employers to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. The law goes into effect in August this year. Only churches are exempt from this requirement. This means that schools, hospitals, and other nonprofits are not exempt.

Catholics are the single largest group that will be affected by this order because the Catholic Church holds that contraception, abortion and sterilization are grave moral offenses.

Last week Kathleen Sibelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, told other religious employers that they will have one year to comply with the guidelines, even as the Catholic Church hoped the guideline would be altered.

This latest attack follows last December’s decision by the Obama administration to deny funding to Catholic Charities because they do not provide abortion and contraceptive services to victims of human trafficking.

The administration is carrying out this campaign even in the face of indications from the Supreme Court that it is not constitutional. Just this month the Court decided Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in which it upheld by a unanimous vote that religious employers are not subject to the same requirements as all other employers.

Benedict XVI has taken note of what is going on on this side of the Atlantic. Last week he told the US bishops on visit to Rome: “it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be appreciated at every level of ecclesial life.”

In line with these directives the USCCB has set up a website to decry the Obama Administration’s anti-Catholicism and invite the faithful to action.

Some bishops are already mentioning civil disobedience. Just yesterday Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark issued a letter to his flock urging all the the Catholics in his care to not comply with the health insurance requirement in so far as contraception, sterilization and abortion inducing drugs are concerned.

In the letter Archbishop Myers writes:

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

Catholics constitute close to one quarter of the US population and are by far the single largest Christian Church in the US. Catholic schools and hospitals have millions of employees. They are a very important part of the electorate. Obama may be only putting himself in a corner by reneging on his promises of strong conscience protections to the Catholics that elected him.