TO ARMS WDTPRSers! USCCB Bulletin Insert

The USCCB has issued a bulletin insert for use in parishes.

USCCB NATIONWIDE BULLETIN INSERT

Tell Congress: Remove Abortion Funding & Mandates from Needed Health Care Reform

Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation on the House and Senate floors.

I warmly encourage pastors to look at this.  Click HERE for a PDF which can be saved and then printed.  It is pre-formatted.  All you need to do is save and reproduce it.  If you can’t download it from the USCCB site, get it from the WDTPRS server HERE.

It is only one page.  I bet you could find a strong pro-life parishioner or a group of parishioners who would foot the bill for distribution.

Remember:

  1. This is the American bishops stepping up in an focused way, using tools of social communication.  That in itself needs support.
  2. We should be sick and tired of Catholics being kicked out of the public square.  DO SOMETHING.
  3. This affects everyone everywhere, also beyond the borders of the USA.

NB: It is legitimate to debate the extent to which health care access must be provided to illegal aliens.  I am sure there are differing approaches to that necessary question and people can debate what to do.  But what cannot be denied is that it is entirely unacceptable that a dollar of tax money fund abortions or that health care workers should be compelled from fear of loss of their jobs or prosecution to do something morally repugnant and contrary to the teachings of the Church.

"But Father! But Father!", you might be asking.  "You are asking us to distribute this but… what does it say?"

Here is the text:

USCCB NATIONWIDE BULLETIN INSERT

Tell Congress: Remove Abortion Funding & Mandates from Needed Health Care Reform

Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation on the House and Senate floors.

Genuine health care reform should protect the life and dignity of all people from the moment of
conception until natural death. The U.S. bishops’ conference has concluded that all committee approved bills are seriously deficient on the issues of abortion and conscience, and do not provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor. The bills will have to change or the bishops have pledged to oppose them.

Our nation is at a crossroads. Policies adopted in health care reform will have an impact for good or ill for years to come. None of the bills retains longstanding current policies against abortion funding or abortion coverage mandates, and none fully protects conscience rights in health care.

As the U.S. bishops’ letter of October 8 states:

“No one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion. It is essential that the legislation clearly apply to this new program longstanding and widely supported federal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates, and protections for rights of conscience. No current bill meets this test…. If acceptable language in these areas cannot be found, we will have to oppose the health care bill vigorously.”

For the full text of this letter and more information on proposed legislation and the bishops’ advocacy for authentic health care reform, visit: www.usccb.org/healthcare.

Congressional leaders are attempting to put together final bills for floor consideration. Please contact your Representative and Senators today and urge them to fix these bills with the pro-life amendments noted below. Otherwise much needed health care reform will have to be opposed. Health care reform should be about saving lives, not destroying them.

ACTION: Contact Members through e-mail, phone calls or FAX letters.

  • To send a pre-written, instant e-mail to Congress go to www.usccb.org/action.
  • Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: 202-224-3121, or call your Members’ local offices.
  • Full contact info can be found on Members’ web sites at www.house.gov & www.senate.gov.

MESSAGE to SENATE:

“During floor debate on the health care reform bill, please support an amendment to
incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights.
If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed.”

MESSAGE to HOUSE:

“Please support the Stupak Amendment that addresses essential pro-life concerns on abortion
funding and conscience rights in the health care reform bill. Help ensure that the Rule for the
bill allows a vote on this amendment. If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill
should be opposed.”

WHEN: Both House and Senate are preparing for floor votes now. [NOW!]

Act today! Thank you!

Folks… consider this my WDTPRS parish bulletin insert.  You have it now.  You can act on it yourselves without waiting for an insert in your parish bulletin.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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15 Comments

  1. William of the Old says:

    Papist posted this yesterday morning; we e-mailed the link to our parish priest (Sheboygan, Wisc.). He reviewed and “OK’d” it. It will be stuffed in this Sunday’s bulletin.
    Not too late for action.

  2. mrsmontoya says:

    I forwarded to th distributor of our parish eBulletin, and to our pastor.

  3. I was already printing it out from the American Papist blog when our bishop sent it out. BTW, hint for publishing it, the full-color “Saving Lives” flyer (available at the USCCB website) looks good on the back of the bulletin insert if you have a decent color printer.

  4. Subvet says:

    Okey dokey, so now the bishops have spoken up and there will be a loud voicing of Catholic displeasure. I honestly believe this will happen, not being sarcastic.

    But then what?

    The Church has been marginalized to the point that the politicos will brush off our concerns by citing the need to serve not just Catholics, but all members of our nation. That includes CINO politicians like Pelosi & Biden.

    So what will be the next move? If the USCCB doesn’t act decisively, just tucks in their tail and stays quiet you can bet the Church will be deemed even more insignificant than it already is.

    If some sort of very public act of civil disobedience is encouraged (not filing to pay taxes comes to mind)it’s a safe bet the heat will be turned up against the Church in America. THAT might really seperate the chaff from the grain.

    Any bets on what’ll happen?

  5. markomalley says:

    That’s great that they are coming out with this…but…

    The distinct impression that I have after reading this parish insert is that the USCCB would be perfectly happy with any of these Health Care Destruction bills, if only they’d exclude abortion coverage

    Several of our bishops have pointed out that the scheme, in of itself, is gravely flawed, with or without an abortion exclusion. It fundamentally violates the principle of subsidiarity — this has been pointed out by those bishops. If you peel the bill back a little bit, it becomes apparent this bill does not support true solidarity either(if an employer must pay an average of 11-14% of payroll for healthcare, but can dump employees off of an employer-provided plan for a mere 8% of payroll penalty, then how can we say that it supports solidarity?) Looking at the bill as a whole and its financial impacts to average people, how can we say that it even advances the cause of the common good?

    As Pope Pius XI once said, Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them. (Quadragesimo Anno, 79) These measures to centralize control over health care seek to accomplish just that.

    While I am glad the bishops are, at least, doing what they are doing, I sure wish they would consider the totality of the Magesterium, particularly authentic social teaching (as opposed to the collectivism and watered down liberation theology taught by the “social justice crowd”), when asking lay Catholics to take a stand on a political issue.

  6. sacerdosinaeternum says:

    Already done! And put a petition in the Prayers of the Faithful and put up the posters to boot. Difficult to believe that this is being done by the USCCB. But it is overdue!

  7. Nerinab says:

    Markomalley,

    Hear, hear! I’m glad the Bishop’s have a “minimum standard” that they are rightly calling attention too, but abortion and conscience clauses aren’t the only concerns in this legislation. But if abortion and conscience clauses are the way to get people to think about the legislation in it’s entirety, then I’ll take it…for now.

  8. DisturbedMary says:

    While I’m sincerely grateful for the bishops’ voice on this, I’ll go a step further. I believe that efforts to legislate universal healthcare is the Culture of Death’s Trojan horse and that the bishops should not be advocating for ANY government provided universal healthcare at all right now even if the desired abortion and conscience language is included. Can we trust that those protections will not be undone in the future by Executive Order or Congress or by interpretation of Health and Human Services or court challenges or, well, you name it. The CofD will never permit abortion to be excluded permently from national healthcare. Abortion is healthcare to them. It’s in their DNA! Abortion and conscience protection are only two elements of a 2,000 page assault on life, family, morality and ultimately, God.

  9. Tominellay says:

    It’s reported that Rep. Patrick Kennedy has agreed to meet Bp. Tobin; I wonder if they’ll meet before or after the vote, I wonder if Kennedy can be swayed by this clear statement…

  10. TKS says:

    Done and sent to the bulletin person. Even though I agree that the statement is flawed, in this diocese nothing is ever said about anything, so this might get people at least thinking if not talking. I’m pretty sure the word ‘abortion’ has not ever even been said by most people here.

  11. Massachusetts Catholic says:

    I wonder what impact this initiative will have in the Boston area, where I live. We have so many high profile “Catholic” pols and dissident priests and nuns that I’m willing to bet many pastors decide to opt out regardless of the directive. I’m also betting some people will go to Mass just to walk out if this is mentioned. There may even be pickets at churches. An interesting weekend ahead.

  12. MargaretMN says:

    I am with subvet. I sure hope this isn’t the final word. They must know that if this bill passes even with the abortion exclusion “a catholic hospital” will be a think of the past. There will only be public hospitals with government mandates of all kinds, with catholic names on them.

  13. The bulletin insert is the subject of my (pre-recorded) segment this Monday on the Son Rise Morning Show, which airs nationally via EWTN Radio from 7-8 am EST.

    (My segment is at 7:35.)

    You can tune in live here:

    http://sacredheartradio.com/

  14. Midwest St. Michael says:

    I called a couple of friends to see how we could get this into the parish bulletins of our county (1 priest – 4 parishes).

    After jumping through a couple of hoops – one friend contacted our priest and he said that he was already on top of it and had printed the USCCB statement to put in all of the bulletins (God love him!).

    Then he said to my friend, “What are *you* going to do about it?”

    Translation: Spread the word about this bill.

  15. Geremia says:

    From this LSN article:

    However, [American Life League’s Judie] Brown said the USCCB should also point out the other troubling aspects of the bill, such as “its potential to fund Planned Parenthood, to use our tax dollars to indoctrinate children with sex education in schools, to fund euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, human embryonic stem cell research, contraception and health care rationing.”
    “All of these things are present in all of the current versions of the health care bill. None of these are acceptable according to Catholic teaching,” she said.

    That’s a good point. We should oppose the bill for more reasons than just its permitting of funding abortion.

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