As I mentioned before, our parochial vicar, Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, a Polish native and citizen seeing what President Obama has tried to do in forcing a Lutheran Church to hire people who do not profess what the Lutheran Church believes about sexual morality and doing so by supporting a court case against that Church but lost his bid at government intrusion into the hiring practices of the Church through a unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the Church and now with what President Obama is doing by forcing government intrusion to require the Church not to follow its moral teachings which is clearly against religious liberty and freedom of conscience and thus against the Constitution of the USA, Fr. Dawid said, President Obama is like the communist dictators that Poland had during communism. Their aim was for the government to intrude in on the affairs of the Catholic Church and neutralize its moral influence in society and to force it to take up the communist party line.
Our other parochial vicar, Fr. Godfred Boachie-Yiadom, a native and citizen of Ghana declared too that western liberal, secularizing political forces are trying to dictate to African countries sexual policies in terms of artificial birth control, same sex marriage, abortion and "you name it godless secularism" and are doing so by shoving it down their throats in a dictatorial way. There is great resentment in Africa about this.
Pope Benedict would label all of this rabid political secularism "the dictatorship of secularism." He is right!
In a sense you can see the rabid hatred of Muslims of western immorality and the dictatorship of those who espouse this immorality and wish to shove it down the throats of the rest of the religious world. In this regard the Muslim righteous indignation is spot-on and they are clearly justified in their indignation at the rampant immorality of the west which we are exporting to them. Where they go wrong is through violence and hatred toward those who threaten their way of life. This is seen in radical, fundamentalistic Islam that burns Churches, kills Christians and launches terrorist attacks against the west. There has to be a better way to wage a protest without this extreme and satanic violence.
I think one of our commenters, Marc, on this blog has it right when he wrote:
"I'm glad Obama is an expert in Catholic moral theology now. What a relief! This guy is so brazen - dictating to us what violates our religious principles. This is really just dumbfounding.
Before we engage in civil disobedience, we need to ramp up the prayer and fasting and offer mortification for our bishops/priests/political leaders."
We need our bishops, priests and deacons to use the bully pulpit to make clear what is happening in our treasured land of the United States of America. The policies of President Obama not only affect Catholics but is government intrusion into the lives of most institutions in this country which value the freedom that our forefathers and a current generation of armed forces has fought to protect even unto death.
What we need, besides using the bully pulpit is prayer, fasting and acts of mortification to turn President Obama around and to help him by the grace of God to see his dictatorial ways as it concerns the HHS mandate on health insurance and religious institutions being forced to pay for that which is clearly against natural law and thus divine law.
We need peaceful protests by sending letters to our elected representatives.
If that fails, we need civil disobedience on the scale that those who are in the "Occupy Wall Street" movement only dream of, of course, ours being civil and peaceful and yes we will take showers!
We need to wake the sleeping giant that is the Catholic Church; we need to challenge and castigate in no uncertain terms our members who oppose orthodox Catholic teaching in the areas of natural law and thus divine law and call the rest of Catholics out of their passive slumber and to take action. Vatican II called the laity to be a leaven in society and in politics bringing to bear the Church's mission in the world--this is the number one and greatest ministry of the laity and the area that the laity have not understood or implemented. Implement Vatican II now in this regard!
If our actions don't motivate President Obama to change his unlawful, immoral and unconstitutional actions, then we need to call on Catholics to vote him and others like him out of office. That's the American way!
19 comments:
RE: "Prayer, fasting, and mortification." That is certainly good and necessary..then, there is this: "From that day on, half worked on construction and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail, and the leaders stood behind all the House of Judah. Those who carried burdens were laden in such a way that each with one hand labored on the work and with the other held his weapon. And each of the builders had his sword girded at his side while he built..." (Nehemiah 4:16-18)
Well, since we've turned our backs on God for low these past 40 years, maybe he will send us a new Gideon to rescue us from the Midianites.
I am impatient.
I _hope_ that the Church turns out to be a sleeping giant, but that cuts both ways. If this is the moment that really forces the issue, the bishops might find large numbers of so-called Catholics from their own dioceses protesting against _them_. After all, haven't these bishops been teaching for 40 years--by silence, by complicity, and sometimes even by active instruction--that birth control is fine for Catholics? When (and if) they make a violent course change now on a matter that many so-Called Catholics happily take for granted, against whom is civil disobedience likely to be directed? At the very least, if the bishops push this (which I do think they should and must, don't get me wrong), the least that will happen is that large numbers of these folks will leave the Church, taking their collection plate money with them, which the bishops won't like one bit.
Reaping the whirlwind, indeed.
From the "American Papist":
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=25591
135 Bishops thusfar have responded out of the +/- 450 active+retired American Bishops...
They need to understand that most American Catholic Joes-in-the-pew are such tepid sheep that almost any betrayal can be perpetrated and blindly accepted. So when a few Bishops DO speak forcefully, these Joes say "...ehh, whassit, I gotta a lot to do today.."
It's going to take, I think, continual UNITED hammering and catechesis from Bishops, Priests & Deacons, and even then a lay response won't happen overnight, unfortunately. Secondly, worse than tepidity, is the great hidden scandal of the Church-- the practice of forbidden forms of birth control by the average Catholic marriage. Read the statistics...
Let us hope that the "sleeping giant" is not too weakened by apostates who should in common decency have left the Church, but instead have stayed to fight her from within, many of them bellying up to the trough as clerics and functionaries.
Jenny, I think the important thing is for the dioceses all to be represented. I pointed out to Thomas Peters that he had counted Card. Mahony (Emeritus) as well as Abp. Gomez. he has corrected that.
However, one thing that is obvious is that our good bishops need some coaching on how to use the Internet. Looking at the links, there are many ways these letters are accessed. Looking at some web sites, I see no way to access the letter.
In my own view, the best would be for each diocese to post the letter in PDF format on their own web site. It would be ideal of parishioners downloaded it and passed it around, or e-mailed links to their friends. We are not all active in the blog world, after all.
I will pray that the large numbers of so-called Catholics leave in a huff. I prefer a straight up fight to having to shadow box with guerillas waging war on Holy Mother Church from within.
And the collection plate be damned. We're not supposed to be worried about such stuff...give till it hurts and God will provide. That works just as well for the Shepherds as it does for the sheep. Besides, if we can drive the Catholics in Name Only from the Church I think you'd be surprised just how little net difference there would be in the collections.
Most likely, it will be the Davids in the Church awakened against the Goliaths both within and without. If so, the slingshot must be strong and blessed by God and the rock one huge well-catechized boulder!
This is a difficult fight because the modern Goliath has three heads instead of one. Their names are Obama, Mammom, and Apostasy.
He takes no prisoners.
I certainly believe prayer, fasting, mortification will help. But think about this: they will only regroup and get ready for another assault. We must have a weapon they fear to face. They have no fear of God, nor of our vote. They would love a chance to label us terrorists and civil rights violators. But money talks to these people. There are a lot of Democrats who are mortified already at this. If they were to give all of this year's political contributions to the Church, heck, ANY Church, that would be a very easy to quantify impact. the Church could list those contributions by dollar value and fund programs for expectant mother health services. Just to rub salt you could compare the relative number of dollars that go toward the health care versus the tax revenues that make it from the 1040 to health care. Just thought.
rcg
Hey, RCG, how you gonna' mortify yourself...you gonna' give up the espresso machine or cut out ninety dollar scotch? LOL!!!
Whenever you think about a campaign you have to think about what your weaknesses are and how the campaign will change you.
First, energising the base will be difficult. I think it will be far more difficult than the Bishops think. For starters the people are confused. The Bishops have either endorsed the policies or the politicians that got us to this point. This is European style health care, what everyone wants, and they have abortion on demand over there and they get along just fine.
Secondly, organisations behave remarkably like individuals. If an individual trains himself to be non-responsive he cannot expect himself to spring into action when his house catches fire. That is a toll of pacifism. In times past neighbours would run to help put out a fire in a home. Now you might get more than one call to 911, but then they stand around and watch.
This is what the Government is hoping for. They are over playing their hand to attack, for example, the Komen Foundation for withholding funds from Planned Parenthood. That is typical of the second and third layer of followers; they amplify the salient traits of the leadership. All the Government has to do is ride out this initial surge of indignation and it will lose energy in time for the election.
Likewise, the people in the Catholic Church have seen the passivity of our leaders and done them one better. This sudden burst of outrage against the leaders we supported is confusing and will get about the same support as any of the seasonal celebrations and for about as long.
So the Bishops need to determine if this is a crossroad for themselves as much as anything else. If they persist, and especially if they are successful, they will risk total alienation of the flock through cynicism if they simply return to supporting these same politicians and policies in the same cafeteria manner as the flock supports the Church. On the other hand, if they see this as an opportunity to change direction toward a more God centered ethic that not only values the individual in the womb but as a bringer of gifs as an adult, then they could strengthen the Church for a hundred years.
rcg
Some, including apparently the Church, have resorted to lies to in their efforts to oppose the health care law. Contrary to wild-eyed cries to the contrary, IT DOES NOT FORCE ANYONE TO ACT CONTRARY TO THEIR BELIEFS.
Questions about the government requiring or prohibiting something that conflicts with someone’s faith are entirely real, but not new. The courts have occasionally confronted such issues and have generally ruled that the government cannot enact laws specifically aimed at a particular religion (which would be regarded a constraint on religious liberty contrary to the First Amendment), but can enact laws generally applicable to everyone or at least broad classes of people (e.g., laws concerning pollution, contracts, fraud, negligence, crimes, discrimination, employment, etc.) and can require everyone, including those who may object on religious grounds, to abide by them. Were it otherwise and people could opt out of this or that law with the excuse that their religion requires or allows it, the government and the rule of law could hardly operate. When moral binds for individuals can be anticipated, provisions may be added to laws affording some relief to conscientious objectors.
Here, it may be questioned whether there is real need for such an exemption, since no one is being "forced," as some commentators rage, to act contrary to his or her belief. In keeping with the law, those with conscientious objections to providing their employees with qualifying health plans may decline to provide their employees with any health plans and pay an assessment instead or, alternatively, provide their employees with health plans that do not qualify (e.g., ones without provisions they deem objectionable) and pay lower assessments.
But the assessments are really penalties and go for the very services that the Catholic employers object. In effect it becomes a tax penalty to pay for artificial contraception, sterilization, abortifiants and abortion. And because of the government providing a universal health insurance it will force Catholic hospitals to provide all of the mentioned and of course that will mean that Catholic hospitals will close.
Doug it is not the use of the contraception is the trouble in this instance. It is that people are being forced to directly fund under the penalties you describe. That is a clear violation of conscience and religious liberty. Under the single payer system this removes the fungible nature of Government funding for abortion with tax payer money and actually identifies the payer and links the user.
rcg
The larger issue, and the one which no one wants to seriously examine, is whether health care is a "right" under the Constitution. There has been a wholesale assumption of this by the government and the media, which has played into the hands of this aggressively interventionist and collectivist administration.
Pin: Even if "healthcare is a right" and access to it should be free, I categorically reject the notion that it should be Government funded and run.
If the Church espouse Health Care as a right, then Catholic Hospitals should provide the services they approve of free of charge, and funded by donations. THAT'S charity. The Government stealing from it's citizens to to fund the services they want is Socialism.
Healthcare = yeah!!
Socialism = Nay!!
In the end, the law requires only that employers who do not provide qualifying health plans pay assessments to the government. Unless one supposes that the employers' religion forbids payments of money to the government (all of us should enjoy such a religion), then the law's requirement to pay assessments DOES NOT compel those employers to act contrary to their beliefs.
The employers may not like paying the assessments or what the government will do with the money it receives. But that is not a moral dilemma of the sort supposed by some commentators and claimed by the US Bishops Conference, but rather a garden-variety gripe common to most taxpayers--who don't much like paying taxes and who object to this or that action of the government. That is hardly call for a special "exemption" from the law. Should each of us feel free to deduct from our taxes the portion that we figure would be spent on those actions (e.g., wars, health care, whatever) each of us opposes? If someone has religious or moral objections to the teaching of evolution or to teaching black and white students in the same classroom, should we allow that person not to pay taxes used to support public schools?
Doug, where do you think those payments are going? TO pay for healthcare with abortion benefits. There is no difference. No offense, but are dissembling.
rcg
You perhaps overlooked that my earlier comment noted that the employers might not like what the government does with the money. That is hardly grounds for a special exemption though. ALL TAXPAYERS can make that sort of claim.
The law affords employers options that do not require them to take actions contrary to their beliefs. It need not, though, give them a free ride. Conscientious objectors, recall, do not skip away free, but rather may be required to serve in noncombatant roles or, at least, civilian work to support the nation's war effort.
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