Many
lay Catholics in the USA are saying
enough is enough with regards to the
hierarchy's coddling of Catholic dissidents.
We
face a similar situation in the Philippines,
where priests (including bishops) and
nuns supported the pro-RH Aquino for
the Presidency. We also have our Catholic
politicians who are pro-RH and who lead
in trying to pass legislation that would
promote RH and contraception.
Recently,
Secretary of Health Enrique Ona said
that "the whole Department of Health
under the Universal Health Care Agenda
of the Aquino government is under marching
orders to provide universal access to
reproductive health to meet the Millennium
Development Goals." Health Care
ni Aquino at health care ni Obama. "Universal
access to RH" means universal access
to abortion. So abortion ni Obama and
later abortion ni Aquino? By the way,
who is issuing the marching orders?
It is the US government. Unfortunately,
Aquino will probably do as they want,
because he himself is pro-RH. The enemy
has issued its call to arms.
Let
Filipinos not be lulled into a sense
of security because abortion is illegal
in the Philippines. That is how it was
with other countries as well. It starts
with contraception as part of RH, but
that inevitably leads to abortion. That
is one thing that is a certainly.
So
priests and nuns, open your eyes to
reality, as the minions of Satan are
already on the march. Otherwise you
will be complicit in the savage assault
on life that is being mounted against
our nation.
The Catholic Tea Kettle Continues
to Boil
By
Deal W. Hudson
September
24. 2010 (InsideCatholic.com)
- Over the past two weeks, I've had
extensive discussions with a wide group
of Catholic leaders about the state
of the Church in the United States.
The frustration and impatience among
Catholics, which I discussed last February
in "Is
It Time for a Catholic Tea Party?,"
continue to grow.
The
occasions for this discussion were the
Catholic Leadership Conference held
in Philadelphia earlier this month,
immediately followed by the Faith &
Freedom Coalition Conference and the
15th Annual Partnership Dinner benefiting
InsideCatholic, both held in Washington,
D.C.
The
broad background for this discontent
is well known: Lay
Catholics cannot understand why, over
the past 30 years, more bishops haven't
taken a stronger public stand on Catholic
politicians who openly dissent on life
and marriage issues.
This
level of discontent remained at a simmer
until the 2008 presidential campaign
and the election of Barack Obama as
president -- at which point it reached
a boil. From parishes around the nation
came reports of priests
and lay staff making clear their preference
for Obama, in some cases arguing
openly that their support for Obama
was offset by "proportionate reasons,"
such as Sen. John McCain's support for
the Iraq War.
When
the concerned faithful began to hunt
down this "proportionate reasons"
argument, they found it in the bishops'
own 2007 document, "Forming
Consciences for Faithful Citizenship:
A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility."
Stunned Catholics wondered aloud how
the bishops themselves could have provided
Obama's
Catholic supporters the
very argument they needed to rebut any
concern about his advocacy for infanticide
as a state senator.
In
response to the outcry, a record number
of bishops issued statements during
the presidential campaign either seeking
to clarify "Faithful Citizenship"
or to correct misinterpretations of
the Catholic faith set forth by Rep.
Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Joe Biden. Yet
none of them targeted the grassroots
and parish-based campaign efforts of
pro-Obama groups, like Catholics in
Alliance, using the "proportionate
reasons" argument to distract Catholic
voters from Obama's abortion record.
The
one bishop to confront this interpretation
of "Faithful Citizenship"
head-on was Bishop Joseph Martino in
Scranton, Pennsylvania, who famously
interrupted the speakers
to say, "No USCCB document is relevant
in this diocese. The USCCB doesn't speak
for me. The only relevant document…
is my letter. There is one teacher in
this diocese, and these points are not
debatable."
Obama
was elected with the help of the self-identified
Catholic vote,
though weekly Mass-attending Catholics
slightly preferred McCain. Some Obama
sympathizers publicly applauded his
election given the history of racism
in our nation, and although they never
explicitly called this a "proportionate
reason," it was certainly treated
as such.
President
Obama's record has, unsurprisingly,
tracked closely to his record as an
Illinois state senator. Immediately
discarding the Mexico City Policy upon
his election, he has undone, or sought
to undo, every aspect of the "abortion
reduction" policy put in place
by the Bush administration.
Most
importantly, he found a way around the
Hyde Amendment by inserting a massive
abortion mandate in his health-care
legislation. With the passage of Obamacare
and the inability of USCCB lobbying
efforts to either defeat it or strip
out its abortion funding loopholes,
many lay Catholics have come to assume
a Tea Party posture of "enough
is enough."
Many
of them wonder why Sr. Carol Keehan,
president of the Catholic Health Association,
is still in the good graces of the USCCB.
It was Sister Keehan, after all, who
neutralized the bishops' opposition
to the health-care bill and denied the
presence of its abortion funding.
Sister
Keehan has become a virtual symbol of
what is wrong with the Church: There
is no accountability, and no consequences
for open dissent on the preeminent moral
issues. Thus, when it came to light
that the Catholic Campaign for Human
Development of the USCCB has been funding
organizations that openly
support abortion and gay marriage, the
reaction of the laity was a cynical
"more of the same."
Some
of the leadership I spoke with cited
examples of overall improvement in episcopal
leadership, both in individual dioceses
and at the USCCB, and warned of becoming
too negative.
Attention
to tone is always important, but the
simple fact is this: Of
the 97 Democrat Catholic members of
the House, only 9 voted against a health-care
bill containing abortion funding,
in spite of the fact that the USCCB
and cardinals like Justin Rigali and
Francis George spoke out clearly against
it. (All 38 GOP House members voted
against the bill.)
Something
has gone wrong when those who publicly
profess the Catholic faith feel no compunction
about openly defying its teachings at
the urging of their bishops. On top
of that, a group called "Catholics
United" announces
it will spend $500,000 to reelect those
same politicians, all Democrats -- and
not a single bishop makes any comment.
The
Catholic tea kettle continues to boil,
as the patience of many of the lay faithful
is running out.
This
article was originally published on
InsideCatholic.com
and is republished with permission.
"For
to me to live is Christ, and to die
is gain." (Phil 1:21)