When considering the Presidents attack on the 1st Amendment, and the resistance of the bishops, we have to remember another point.
The bishops supported Obamacare in principle. They thought they wanted to support an Obamacare without things that the Church objects to. They thought they wanted a top down healthcare much as what Vatican City State and Roman Curia employees get.
The problem with buying into top down health care is that, once you permit it to take over, you won’t be able to stop whatever its adminstrators want to impose.
I have been listening to White House shills and surrogates hammer away that “preventive health” is a “right”. Remember the adage: make the lie big, keep the lie simple, and repeat the lie until everyone believes it.
Today I also heard a story about a women who wanted to be a man, and who went through some transgendering surgical mutlilation to simulate that aspiration. Apparently “he” just gave birth… as a “man”. That’s going to be a “right”, mark my words.
Think about what is down the pike, folks. Even if the bishops win this battle over “exemptions”, Catholic institutions will be forced to acquies to any “right” the government begins to tout as a right.
Think about how complicated things will get when the administrators of top-down health care start determining matters of brain death and when organs can be transplanted.
Think about how end of life issues will be determined and who will be involved.
The US Bishops put their foot wrong on the first rung of the ladder into the tarpit.
We are probably going to have to get out of hospitals or lose our identity.
None of this means that we should stop fighting the Obama Administration’s attack on the 1st Amendment. We must not comply with what they want to do to us as Americans and as Catholics. But let’s not be naive about how we got here in the first place.
[wp_youtube]0sICVWwI3LE[/wp_youtube]
UPDATE:
Since I wrote this, I found THIS.
Loading ...
Ironically, the healthcare mandates require contraception and abortifacients, but NOT maternal coverage. In fact, these “preventative” services have to be covered with NO CO-PAY. This article points out that a woman might have to make a co-pay for life-saving heart care, but not for contraception under the new law. Anything for “Women’s Health”, I guess.
Eventually, they’ll probably require coverage maternal coverage, but only for “men” who have gone through a transgendering operation (which naturally, will also be covered).
Here is a good example of the truth of what you say, relative to the church in England and the British National Health Service: recently a friend of mine on Facebook asked me what was the difference between what was being proposed in the United States and the situation between the English Catholic church and the NHS. I replied that for one thing, the English church may pay employer tax to the Government, but that the Government was the one who re-distributed the money to the NHS, so the church was not in fact paying directly for abortion and abortafacients. However, more germanely, I reminded him that when the NHS was created, abortion was a crime, it was illegal, and no one could conceive that it would ever be legalized. Evidence the creeping and inexorable, and innately murderous disposition of International Socialism.
The fact that our Bishops were willing to acquiesce to and accommodate Socialism in any of its manifestations should tell us where they were and are as a body politic, and thus to where we as a church have been led – like Isaac to a deserted place? We are all of us in grave danger of inheriting a future of genocide practiced upon us, and our church has been holding hands with Socialism – more than hand-holding in most places – for fifty years, even while Socialism has been murdering left and right in a fashion which has long out-stripped the cumulative dead of the world’s historical wars combined. What is to be done about this? The day the Socialists in Italy expel the papacy from the Vatican, will they expect our sympathy? Will there be a special collection for Peter’s Road-Pence?
Obama’s aides today said “no more compromise, it is a done deal”. Hopefully the Catholic Church in the USA will be like the “sleeping giant”, that the Japanese made the mistake of awakening. I hope and pray that in addition to a united CATHOLIC front our brothers and sisters of all religious pursuasions continue to vigorously oppose what the Marxist is doing. I pray as well that he falls on this sword come November (if not before)
How’s this for re-writing history on the fly:
“We never anticipated that this announcement would win the endorsement of an organization that opposed health reform from the very beginning”, said an administration official.
So now, the bishops conference, which had supported Nationalized Health Care for years, and only drew back when Obama put abortion in it, are now “an organization that opposed health reform from the very beginning.”
The mendacity of Obama and his cronies is truly staggering.
Exactly father, here on England we are forced to pay for abortion, IVF, genital mutilation, breast implants as treatment for ‘depression’, and all sorts of other evils, plus any other immoral medical procedures the government chooses to approve in our name, all because we have ceded them the rights to our bodies. And when the government decided your too old or fat etc to be worth treating? And if you don’t live the government approved lifestyle? (how many times we have heard the argument that smokers shouldn’t get NHS treatment?).
What I fear the well meaning ‘social teaching’ seamless garment Catholics do not understand is that care for the needy does not equal government care for the needy. Once you cede to the government caring for the needy you cede the right to decide who the needy are (gay couple wanting a baby) and what they do about it. (example, poor girl gets unexpectedly pregnant, Christian response: give her and the baby practical assistance, material goods, friendship and support. Govt response: kill the baby).
You nailed it, Father.
How often must one repeat that there is no “the bishops say”? There is no “episcopal” organization with episcopal authority.
What is being cited are statements composed by the bureaucrats in the USCCB. I point to the bishops at the time of the Arian controversy: they were mostly ARIAN.
There was recently on a Catholic website this reference to Vichy Catholics [and their bishops]:
“Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Nonsense. The tale is finished but we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.”
The context of the situation is a lot bigger than that.
What we’re seeing here is the failure of democracy and the secular state for the very reasons why the Church and even ancient ideologues said it would fail.
In a land where everyone is guaranteed ‘religious freedom’, any nutcase can then make a case to allow for something reprehensible according to their group or even individualistic beliefs. At this point the secular state then will end up overriding the religious beliefs of others in order to accommodate another’s, and back and forth this will go. In other words the very thing that the American 1st Amendment was set to protect was always eventually doomed to fail primarily because it has to cover the fractured and Protestant-like divisions amongst every one in society. The more society moves towards more fractured and individualistic opinions, the harder it is to take seriously or enforce the 1st Amendment or any religious freedom.
Democracies are always doomed to fail. Modernist secularism was always doomed to fail. Tolerance for all and religious neutrality/relativism were always philosophically contradictory and nonsensical and doomed to fail. Anything that claims all contradictory ‘truths’ are equal and the same where objective truth does not exist is simply a lie and illogical and downright crazy! This is why Pope Pius X referred to modernism and all these errors as ‘THE INSANITY.’
It may be hard for Americans to hear, but the American state and democratic ideal was always flawed and going to fail someday. The experiment is over. Instead America (And Canada and Europe) are morphing into essentially religious states, and that religion is ‘secular humanism’, a ‘religion of man’, a ‘religion of self-worship’, a religion of ‘pride’, and its origins are ‘Satanism.’ It is going to be imposed onto the people. It will deny religious freedom for an established set of religious values that the state will decide. Freedom of speech and religion in the public sphere will be censored and controlled. Those who do not share the state’s ideology will be threatened. There was never any separation of Church/State or religion/state, the very thing is impossible to divorce from each other.
In other words, America is basically going to become a religious state, no different than the Islamic states, except that it worships man and the doctrine of the insanity. This is how the world will always lean towards. The peaceful armistice of secularism will only last as long as it lasts until the varying worldviews of individuals become so contrary that the whole thing blows up in its face.
What Catholics should be working towards is not democracy, is not secular states, is not ‘religious freedom,’ but the establishment of a Catholic State! America was always founded to suit the fractured identity of Protestantism of which this descent into total rejection of God was always the inevitable outcome!
The liberal secularists and Muslims are always out on their jihads… but Catholics on the other hand are the only fools sitting idly by doing nothing. When God established Israel, He did not establish a democracy or secular society. He established a Jewish State under a king! When God established the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Church, He established a world order of one religion, under a monarchy of Christ the King!
Catholics need to wake up and realize that spreading democracy and the American way is not going to bring peace nor salvation to the world. Exporting American ideals will also export its weaknesses and its errors and subsequently its descent into insanity and subsequently its collapse. We must spread only the Gospel, only the Kingdom of Heaven, and only the Catholic faith to the exclusion of all others! Wake up and realize the game your enemies are playing while laughing at you! They don’t play by their own foolish rules! So why are you playing by their rules???
All this should expose the utter failure of democracy and secularism, and so called ‘separation of Church/State’ as rightly condemned by the Church! Stop being ‘neutral.’ Start pushing to bring about the Catholic State enshrined in Catholic morality with the means at your disposal! Your first step is in recognizing this yourselves! And then placing your allegiance where it matters most! In God and the Church first, before any temporal state. Even America. The bishops first step in the wrong direction was in thinking they could rely on secular controlled documents, amendments and constitutions. Their inevitable betrayal as the hands of these man-made ideals was long written and prophesied before the concept of America even existed.
If America will continue to exist it will only be once it has abandoned fractured contradictory secularism to become a state under one religion and moral law. And not simply any religion and moral law, but the right one. And that is a pure Catholicism that will never compromise itself and play the harlot with every other false faith!
You’re absolutely right, Father. Watched all the morning news/talk/panels this morning and none of them hit the nail on the head. This is not about health or contraception, it is about population control. The money saved from reduced maternity care will be used by insurance companies to pay for the contraceptives, etc. No one drew any points as to the relationship between breast cancer and hormonals. I pray that Catholics and Bishops remain militant. St. Michael defend us in our battle.
THIS ‘CONCESSION’ IS NOTHING LESS THAN BEING FORCED TO HIRE A HIT MAN. And not just to be forced to be the one to make the contract, but then forced to pay the designated hit man’s fee—over and over and over. So wrong on so many levels.
I am too mad to retype – so am posting comment to be placed at a great article on American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/whom_the_gods_would_destroy_comments.html#disqus_thread.
“Now, I don’t mean that the Archangel Gabriel will appear out of the East to scourge the administration with a blazing sword, though I would pay to see that.”
Well fire up the barbie and get out your popcorn, it is going to be a really good show. He may wish, in the end, it was AG, because it is going to be a “cadre of hundreds of thousands of highly [pissed off] … and dedicated … [women] that make Obama look like a kindergartner” – IN HIS TIME OUT CHAIR! Lying-about-his own-mom BO is going to be put on a long time out – and his time out chair is in sweet home Chicago. And his time out commences January 2013, and he will be banned from ever going back to the playground where his transgression occurred until starts acting his age (or converts!)
“With this move, Obama has thrown down the gauntlet. … Three-quarters of American priests condemned the policy…. Obama has accomplished something there — the pope himself couldn’t get that many priests to agree on anything. But it will probably be more subtle than that.”
Not ah – If Momma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy, and the next 9 months will not be subtle, despite any deal the Church Heirarchy makes with the devil. Women will not take that chance again – we, once content (okay, and amused) with letting the men busy themselves with these matters, will be campaigning until election day in numbers the likes of which this country has not seen in generations. Parrhesia unleashed. And the Bishops and Priests that openly endorsed O in ’08 may find many of their parish pews devoid of women (and their children, and their children’s children) should they continue to openly support him. We will occupy a different Parish that (at least publicly) aligns with the Truth.
“… In short order, it will move on to the other Christian confessions and to practicing Jews.” NOT. NINETY THOUSAND Jewish women wrote HHS IN SUPPORT of keeping the mandate. And we thought they were our friends! NOT! Well we hope we put Herman Cain’s “999” on steroids and reach 999,999.99! Yeah – how about a “Million Mad Mom’s March” – now that would be something!
“… it is the violation itself that brings about destruction, not any outside response. The gods don’t need to step in.” No they don’t need to step in, we just need one precious Jewish Catholic Woman, Our Lady, with her entire army of regular, every-day, ladies behind her.
Wow – I feel better! Thanks for letting me rant! And the overriding reason I am against this mandate is the very fact that it is a mandate and a further desecration of our Constitution; it ultimately exploits women (too complex to explain here); and it just plain pisses me off that the Chief Misogynist thought he could get away with this by BS’ing all the “poor” ignorant women. Lucky me that the Church’s Truth aligns with my deeply-held convictions, as I do not hear a female secular voice in the media for views that align with true freedom (ultimately the Church) and pro-people views. You rock Fr. Z!
Of course there’s no coverage for maternity; this is the ONE facet of “healthcare” that they are seeking to eradicate! The time will come when anyone wishing to procreate will be told when that window of opportunity will be opened to them; just like in time, churches will be told by the government on which Sundays they will be allowed to hold services.
I’m thinking once a year will suffice.
The new world order is upon us, folks, and everything you and I hold dear is out the window!
Of course, we can stop all this madness by electing people who will represent us and not themselves; who won’t be multi-millionaires with business / political agendas.
And who know what the Constitution stands for.
An unused ‘bit’ from Stan Laurel’s notebooks. (He wrote almost all their great bits), The scene is a schoolroom and ‘the boys’ are sch0olboys:
Oliver: (Squirming & waving arm frantically to the teacher) Please, may I be excused?
Teacher: No, Oliver, you may not….. Yes, Stanley, what is it?
Stan: PLEASE LET HIM GO!
For all the ‘social justice gospel’ and sermons on ‘redistribution’ that we have endured inside and outside the church for fifty years…here is the essence of Christian brotherhood in a throwaway comedy bit.
The bishops most certainly did put their foot wrong at the very start…heck, I remember hearing some of those idiotic Prayer of the Faithful texts that were actually praying for the healthcare bill. A number of them, even on other issues, are constantly praying that “those in government” or the “governments of the world” will give us one thing or another or guarantee such and such a right, with most of the latter referring not to a human right but to some social welfare or manipulation program.
Sadly, for the last 40 years the soft-left Church has actually trained people to see the government as the source of all good things and the ultimate power to which we must appeal.
Great comments about our so called Catholic politicians by Bishop Jenky of Peoria, IL. Reminds them that they will stand before God one day in judgment.
http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/US.php?id=4863
I don’t think that it’s the ‘type’ of healthcare that is the problem, it is the people who are part of it, call me a simple Goddam (French nickname for us Brits) but don’t private hospitals murder children, sell condoms and develop contraceptives as well?
I’m fortunate enough that my new employers will pay for Private Healthcare (a rarity here in the UK) but before the inception of the NHS people died in Britain simply because they or their families couldn’t afford the drugs they needed to live, I am also informed (perhaps erroneously) that a substantial number of bankruptcies in the US are due to healthcare costs.
May I ask if American Catholics are ok with access to healthcare being dependent upon the depth of a person’s wallet? Are you so enslaved to Mammon that you forget that Christ your Lord who healed the leper in today’s Gospel? (OF)
If you are so afraid of ‘socialised medicine’ (Regan was in idiot when he said that people would appeal to sentiment to advance socialised medicine – it’s not socialism it’s doing the bloody decent thing) yet have a shred of Christian compassion in your bones what do you intend to replace the current system with?
This “top down” approach has been the method and failure of state insurance regulation for the past 60+ (whatever) years. The state regulators keep adding diseases, cures, etc., that should be covered. I come from a telecom regulation background in which we state (& fed) regulators sought to expand the # of firms in the market, unlike state insurance regulators who limited entry. While utility regulation does have ideas of what minimum quality of service ought to be, it’s not the kitchen sink approach that insurance regulators have taken. There is room, especially in telecom and energy for variety of packaging, features, & pricing options. Insurance regulators could never see that. Part of the reason we have nationalized medical insurance–besides the desires of progressives–is the failure of state regulation.
Let us stand up…until all of Obamacare is overturned…not just the mandate.
The way out of this ‘another fine mess’ (good timing for a laugh, but so pathetic) is fasting and prayer and seeking action from the US Cong. Three branches of government; the executive branch gone; two left to us for now. Careful voting in Nov. is imperative.
@JordanH
Thanks for linking to my post over at CV.
I am curious as to why more people are not highlighting the obvious inconsistency by the Obama administration declaring that contraception MUST be covered for all with NO co-pay, but pre-natal care, pregnancy, etc., well insurance doesn’t even have to cover it. And if they do cover it, they can charge extra!
Women’s Health does not include having babies.
Dr. Obama does not want you reproducing. He is anti-choice. And he talks funny. And he’s ugly. And he’s a jerk and likes to hurt small animals and…okay, I’ll stop.
If – IF – the Church is to successfully resist and roll back this obnoxious intrusion by the state into the lives of believers, it will only be through a sustained effort. We are at war, and we can only hope that the bishops have really woken up and truly realize the gravity of this situation. Please don’t think I’m a cockeyed optimist if I say that broad and unwavering pressure by the Church and Her allies *will* produce a real victory in this particular instance (the HHS mandate); it is an election year and ‘The Immaculated One’ cannot risk this becoming an impediment to his re-election. My real concern is what happens after that. We *can* overcome this, and after we do so our level of vigilance and readiness *must* remain high; the secular left is not going to simply slouch away with their tails between their legs. They’re used to having it their way, with the media and the popular culture on their side, and their efforts are likely to continue indefinitely, albeit even more stealthily. We need to oppose them openly, we are going to be vilified anyway and we may as well earn our ‘stripes’
That is why Obama and his form of Care have to go in the next election.
ObamaCare = no care for the basic dignity f the human person.
This show exactly why the bishops should stay out of matters that are not a strict matter of consience. The nature of politics is such that a plan can always morph into something you do want to object to, and vehemently so. If you then, for less compelling reasons, agreed to an earlier version or the principle that is used as a vehicle, you have a lot of explaining to do.
Earth or our dear bishops: you’re horrible at explaining things.
So 10 to 1 the explanation doesn’t get through, and the bishops are seen as weak, capricacious, flip-flopping. They would have been a lot more effective if they kept their powder dry, not pronouncing on matters where catholics of good faith can disagree (and you can certainly also disagree about the desirability of a universal healthcare mandate) so that there’s nothing that muddies the water when the state arrives at a point where catholics have to disagree.
Moreover, the desire to speak for social justice – as understood by the bishops – may not match at all what is understood by that concept and its practical implementation by the catholic public. It would be a good thing if bishops stopped alienating and annoying catholics on the right side of the political spectrum – those are allies you may need. Again, save your ammo for things that are truely fighting matters, not stuff that is mere political preference. In those matters, let the bishops stay silent. Then their voice will be all the clearer when they do speak.
“The bishops supported Obamacare in principle.” But I don’t recall them supporting it in practice, at least in the legislative form that Obamacare took, and that’s a crucial distinction.
Please, beating up on the Bishops will not help us now. We need to support them – they have nothing but us and a severely weakened moral authority to fight this battle with, and they MUST fight it.
Beating up on the Bishops is misdirected energy. It is true that many of the sheeple were ahead of the shepherds on this issue, but rather than natter at the Bishops for what they did or did not do we should continue to kick episcopal posteriors to hold the line and make no compromise, or adjustment. It is urgent that those members of the congregations, who have only the vaguest of clues about the teachings of the church they espouse, be educated. The Bishops must see that such education comes from every pulpit in their respective dioceses.
As Peggy Noonan pointed out in her most recent op-ed “Know your people. Mr. Obama carried secular Catholics overwhelmingly in 2008. But churchgoing Catholics were evenly split, 51% to 49% for John McCain. These are the voters the president could lose by huge margins over the ruling. And he will, if they fully understand it. Such a loss could determine the 2012 outcome. He knows it, you know it. Have faith in the people in the pews. Give it to them straight, week after week, and they’ll back the church overwhelmingly. The White House is watching. Pound away.”
Above all, we must pray–a lot.
What rolled me over was the fact that while we were busy getting people to sign post cards against FOCA being made law by this administration, the Bishops seemed not to be very concerned that this same abortion hungry administration would not use a top down structure of health care as a way to implement FOCA without even having to sign a law. Yes, the mandate needs to be defeated, but, as well, the socialized take over of health care by the Federal government has to end as well.
We have yet to hear from five Catholics who may take exception to the Constitutionality of the entire law: Messrs. Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Thomas and Scalia… The oral arguments for the case will be heard in March I believe. Let’s rest things in God’s Hands. Prayer would seem to be the best answer.
D.v.
A snake is still a snake…
Mess with ’em and you’re likely to get bit.
We must fight this tooth and nail. We all must do our bit and not let up until Obamacare is history. But, if we fail, and we might, it is the justice of God against an ungodly nation which has killed 52 million plus babies since 1973. We have been losing our Catholic identity for years, and some Catholics have cooperated in that loss. If God allows us to be punished, we shall feel His Justice. I think of the abortion counter on Caritas in Veritate blog, and how many babies have died since I started to write this note.
Pingback: MONDAY MORNING EDITION | ThePulp.it
Pingback: Interesting Links and Recommendations | Quicksilver to Gold
So I’m watching Archbishop Dolan on Father Groeschel’s program last night and after hearing his Eminence embrace the wondrous Church stae efforts on “charity” said to my wife “we are in big trouble”. The Archbishop made sure to stae that he’s not a Tea Party member and then proceeded to gush about Roosevelt et al.
Here’s my concerns. First, his comments show a stunning ignorance about the difference between government “charity” which is designed to purchase constituencies by creating dependency, and the charity meant to purchase salvation—-the salvation of the donor. Second, his comments at best either demonstrated an ignorance os the dangers of the health care reform act and it’s other violations and potential violations of Church teaching, or at worse a complicity with it. Third, there was no need for the back hand remark about the tea party and the warm sentimental embrace of a party whose platform include the right to abortion on demand.
I don’t expect any bishop to proclaim a tea party or any partisan affiliation. I do expect them to understand the scope of the current struggle, and to be informed how this was allowed to happen.
Thomas G. says:
“The bishops supported Obamacare in principle.” But I don’t recall them supporting it in practice, at least in the legislative form that Obamacare took, and that’s a crucial distinction.
It’s a crucial distinction in an intellectual setting but not in politics. All it takes is a sound bite, which the bishops and ND gift wrapped for Obamaco.
An email to an archbishop on ObamaCare, and his response.
Healthcare is not a right. Rights are bestowed upon men by God. Rights are also timeless, and transcend culture and technology. There is no such thing as a right that is not God-given. … Healthcare is not a right. Healthcare is a service commodity that is either sold or donated from one person (a doctor) to another person (a patient). The patient does not have the RIGHT to the doctor’s time, skill, knowledge or expertise. To say that a patient has a RIGHT to those things is to dehumanize and subjugate the doctor to the patient by force of law. Christ does not call us to forcefully subjugate one another. …. He calls us to subjugate ourselves – which is an entirely different matter, and is ultimately an exercise of our God-given right to free choice. …
Isn’t abortion the forced subjugation of one person (the baby) to another person or persons (the mother, father, etc.) in the name of false “rights”, namely the “right” to not be inconvenienced?
———-
Archbishop’s response — “I think your complicated way of putting this really obscures the basic requirement of Christian charity that God requires from all of us.”
———-
See “On Greece, Donatism, Rights and Other Stuff (2)” Posted by Ann Barnhardt – Feb 12
http://barnhardt.biz/
tcreek, Wow! I didn’t find anything complex in your presentation. Perhaps the real problem is that it leaves no wiggle room. ;)
What the bishop failed to address is that God requires Christian charity, but does not compel it. That compulsion (force) is only ever provided by government, and reduces to enslavement of the provider. Such “solutions” have unintended consequences. Canada, having had 40 years of government paid healthcare, finds itself with a shortage of physicians. Part of their “solution” to that, last I heard, was to require of international students in Canadian medical schools that they provide 5 years of service in Canada prior to returning to their home countries. Yet another enslavement.
And as to quality of care, I have suffered that fine care in Canada, and a couple of times it was altogether terrifying.
I think Fr. Z is exactly correct. In fact, I claim that the USCCB’s position is contradictory:
The reality is that if the federal bureaucracy (through taxpayers) is paying the doctor bills, their also deciding what counts as a legit doctor bill.
s/their/they are/
duh
Be of good cheer, Fr. Z. Come January, 2013, our aborter-in-chief will find that he has a lot of time on his hands to improve his golf game. Then we can repeal AbomonationCare completely and totally and start over.
My boots will be on the ground tirelessly working for that day, and supporting congressmen of good character who will help in the fight.
“I’ll see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade”.
My husband and I were discussing this very issue last night with the darker undertones…
Who’s to say that pregnant women will be forced to undergo all prenatal tests to “see” if there are abnormalities (which we all know come back lots of times with false positives), and then if a positive result occurs, the pregnant woman will be forced to undergo an abortion, so the insurance companies don’t have to pay for the care of a “supposed defective” child? If women refuse, will they be denied further pregnancy coverage and/ or care for the new baby?
The implications of all this is chilling.