Translate

Sunday, February 19, 2012

THANK YOU PRESIDENT OBAMA FOR WAKING THE SLEEPING GIANT OF CLERGY AND LAITY AND AUTHENTIC ECUMENISM WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's Appeal to Public Authorities

23. And now We wish to speak to rulers of nations. To you most of all is committed the responsibility of safeguarding the common good. You can contribute so much to the preservation of morals. We beg of you, never allow the morals of your peoples to be undermined. The family is the primary unit in the state; do not tolerate any legislation which would introduce into the family those practices which are opposed to the natural law of God. For there are other ways by which a government can and should solve the population problem—that is to say by enacting laws which will assist families and by educating the people wisely so that the moral law and the freedom of the citizens are both safeguarded.

MY COMMENT:In 1968, I think most Americans who read Humanae Vitae never would have thought that government intrusion into the Church's moral teachings and practice would be done by a sitting president of the United States of America! Certainly, Americans would have thought in 1968, that Pope Paul VI was referring to despots in other parts of the world, like the dictators of eastern Europe, South and Central America, Spain and the USSR not to mention Red China! Pope Paul VI was prophetic in so many ways. He needs to be considered for canonization for he realized by 1968 the havoc unbridled liberal progressiveness as an experiment in the post Vatican II Church was wreaking upon the Church and which it was also wreaking upon the secular world as it turned to godless religion to solve its problems.
Mandate has silver lining

By Craig Douglas Albert and Ph.D.
Letter to the Editor (Augusta Chronicle, February 18, 2012)

Before you chastise me for agreeing with President Obama’s health-care mandate that may cause religious people to go against major elements of their faith, let me state clearly: I do not agree with his choices, and I fear their negative consequences on America’s liberty.

Nevertheless, his decisions are actually helping the Catholic Church. Obama’s health-care policy will cause people to possibly go against their faith’s teaching on the right to life. Even his recent “compromise” carries with it the possibility that some religious insurance providers must go against their religious tenets or face the consequences of the federal government.

However, it has positive consequences. These consequences include reminding peoples of all faiths, but especially Catholics, why the church teaches that contraception is against God’s will, and opens the door to discuss why the right to life must be preserved at all costs.

Never before as a Catholic have I seen so many of my religious brothers and sisters discussing the right to life and the church’s stance on these decisions. I have also never been so encouraged at the church’s willingness to defend life as I have been in the past three weeks. Each day at Mass, our priests have been teaching and explaining why these policies are producing a culture of death. Afterward, I hear comments by parishioners stating that they never understood what was wrong with contraception and pro-choice stances because the church has done such a terrible job explaining it – possibly contributing to the terrifying much-cited statistic that 85 percent of Catholic women use contraception.

With Obama’s policies, the church has stepped up its pro-life explanations. It has started to bring not just Catholics together, but people of all faiths who defend the right to life. We are uniting against this portion of the president’s mandate. It is helping bring people into conformity with the teachings of religious institutions. Some good can come from terrible political decisions.

Craig Douglas Albert, Ph.D.

Augusta

(The writer is an instructor in Augusta State University’s political science department, and is associate director of the school’s Quality Enhancement Plan.)


MY COMMENT: Thank you President Obama, I and other clergy and laity have been forced to teach Humanae Vitae and ask my parishioners who have never read it to read it. It isn't long. But I've also had to ask my parishioners to be patriotic Americans and read the First Amendment to the Constitution which speaks about religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

The issue is government intrusion into the affairs of Church and by that intrusion clearly mandating a change of mission and identity of the Church. That's obscene by true American standards.

But this has been a teaching moment and actual grace is being poured upon the Church to help us to be what we are meant to be and to prune from the Church in the most visible way those branches that do not produce fruit and are good for nothing except to be burned.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great point he makes!
Many of us glad to see the clergy wake up and be firm with their preaching to the congregations and to see the Bishops rising up from sleep also.

Part of me wants to see this struggle go to the Supreme Court: a loud deefinitive win that can be a real turning point for the defencse of human life in this country.
If the struggle is too quickly won, then the impact of the win on our society may be too small.

Of course, another part of me doesn't want the Church or other employers of conscience to have to face penalties at all for sticking to the right choices.

Probably it won't make it to any court, or it will stop at the lowest court possible.
This HHS mandate won't hold water before congress or a judge.
Kathleen Sebelius is not as smart as she thinks she is, and she's no legal expert. Just a mean ol' woman who is using her position within the Obama administration to further her own personal agenda. She used Obama, and he agreed to it. now they both are on the hot seat. LOL


~SqueekerLamb

Templar said...

St Giovanni? Patron Saint of Razing.

Bill said...

Well.

What we need from our bishops is strong and determined leadership. This means not retiring from the field after firing one salvo. In my parish the (mild) letter from our Archbishop was read the weekend after it was issued, and has not been heard again, nor any mention of the issue. Yes, Virginia, this is a problem!

Obama is relentless in his drive to grow government and to assert totalitarian control — we must be, as well, in our insistence that all this must be rolled back.

We must also be determined that no pro-abortion candidate is fit to receive Catholic votes. That said, I must offer a caveat: if we should be so unlucky as to have a choice between Obama and Romney, and a possible independent, we shall be stuck in a very ugly position. Romney is clearly not pro-life, or at least not on the basis of any lasting principles. However, a vote for Obama is a vote to destroy the Republic, and to reduce the Church to an underling of the government, as has been done in China. And a vote for an independent, barring a landslide victory by that independent, will only put Obama in office for a second term. It would be a very large and unwise gamble.

So, despite my determination not to vote for a candidate who is pro-choice, if that is all we are offered other than the incumbent, I consider that there is no alternative.

Back to the issue at hand. Our bishops should ensure that we hear from them at Mass each week, or that each priest is at least obliged to remind us in his homily of the gravity of this and related issues. To do less is to fail the Church.

Supertradmum said...

Great post. I am trying to convince Europeans that Obama is a Marxist, but they can't see it. Have written much on this on my blog. Let us see what the awakened giant actually does.

Carol H. said...

I am happy that the sleeping giant has finally awoken from his hibernation, and like the Squeekerlamb and Bill Meyer, I hope our Bishops don't put the issue to rest too quickly. If they do, I fear we may discover later that some of the "bad branches" have been grafted back onto the tree.

Bill said...

Carol, it's not only the bishops who need awakening, but the priests (especially the liberal ones) and the laity. This isn't a "word to the wise" situation, but a need for persistent and strict teaching.

Carol H. said...

Bill, I heartily agree with you. The reason I only mentioned the Bishops is because it is their responsibility to keep the Priests awake and in line with Church teaching.

qwikness said...

Father
You might be interested in this statement from the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta
http://www.atlanta.goarch.org/media/Metropolitan_Message_Sanctity_of_Life_2012-02-02.pdf