"I Owe You an Update" Cardinal Dolan

This is an excerpt from Cardinal Dolan, written March 1.  Full letter here. I would go a step further; this isn't just about religious freedom either, it's about freedom from the government mandating how we live our lives. Statists have taken how we take care of our bodies away from us with ObamaCare, and they're using ObamaCare to oppress religious freedom. 

“This has not been a fight of our choosing.  We’d rather not be in it.  We’d prefer to concentrate on the noble tasks of healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor, all now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church.  And we were doing all of those noble works rather well, I dare say, without these radical new mandates from the government.  The Catholic Church in America has a long tradition of partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad.  We’d sure rather be partnering than punching.

Nor is this a “Catholic” fight alone.  As a nurse from Harrison emailed me, “Cardinal, I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.”  It was a Baptist minister, Governor Mike Huckabee, who observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.”

And it is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception.  Pure and simple, it’s about religious freedom, the sacred right, protected by our constitution, of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.

When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain — a shock to me, since he had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity, and that he considered the protection of conscience a sacred duty — not only you, but men and women of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest.  The worry that we bishops had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed.  Even newspaper editorials supported us!

On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, not the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach.  He considered this “concession” adequate.

The President invited us to “work out the wrinkles,” and we have been taking him seriously.  Unfortunately, this seems to be going nowhere: the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is simply scurrilous and insulting). The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets,” which doesn’t bode well for a truly acceptable “accommodation.”  And a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff ended with the President’s people informing us that the broader concerns of religious freedom — that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table.  Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent hardly-surprising but terribly unfortunate editorial in America.  The White House seems to think we bishops are hopelessly out of touch with our people, and with those whom the White House now has nominated as official Catholic teachers.

So, I don’t know if we’ll get anywhere with the executive branch.”

Yet More Attacks on Christianity by Our Secularist, Bigoted President & His Party

This President and his political party have made it abundantly clear they are Secularists, and specifically anti-Christian. Here’s a few items to make the point.

I had written earlier that I’m disgusted by the use of Our Savior Jesus Christ being used as a political pawn. The anti-Christian bigot Obama did just that when he attended a prayer breakfast and used the time meant for communing with God to make a Marxist campaign speech, saying Jesus' admonition to help the poor means the government must raise taxes, especially on the rich.

Obama: “When I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe that in a time when many folks are struggling and at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone.”  … “And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense.”

“But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’ teaching that, ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

He added this even more appalling observation:  “…mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others.” Since Christianity came first, and Islam imperfectly picked and chose what it wanted and needed to oppress people, I don’t think so.

http://youtu.be/jRA6l-VCttg

The quote, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” does not mean from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs. Obama sees everything through Marxist lenses. It’s his religion.

Part of that religion is to ignore the establishment clause of the Constitution (and the rest of the Constitution too, but I need to stay on point), “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” and the free exercise clause, "... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The latest kerfuffle is his forcing the Catholic Church to adhere to his secular religion, which advocates the killing of babies, i.e., abortion, over the life of babies. Add to that forcing, against the teaching/values/beliefs of the Church requiring them to provide contraception. This Administration ruling forcing the church to provide abortions, sterilizations, and contraceptives as part of their health care programs is a requirement from Health and Human Services Department, not even legislation. They can get away with it because, contrary to what was said to the public by Obama and the Democrats, mandating abortion is in ObamaCare. This doesn’t only apply to the Catholic Church, but to all religious organizations; if the Catholic Church and other organizations stick to their guns on this, many religious funded hospitals, health facilities and companies will be forced to shut down. The Obama administration isn’t entirely insensitive to this issue; all the affiliated organizations have a year before being forced to comply or shut down.

Archbishop Timothy Nolan has published a letter to the president in protest, and there are several with some variations from many Bishops in America. A copy of one is at the bottom of this article.

He's also forbidden Chaplin's in the military to comment on this abuse of power, this ignoring of the Constitution, this forcing of Religion, specifically Christianity, to ignore and reject the teachings of their respective churches. He is Commander in Chief and has the legal right to do so, but not the moral right. 

Recently struck down by the Supreme Court, and not reported or under reported by the re-elect Obama press, was a ruling requiring Churches to adhere to equal opportunity legislation. This requires the Catholic Church to allow female priests, and Jews female rabbis. You may color me wrong on this, but aren’t elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution? If I’m right, the Secularists in power that took that oath are definitely ignoring both the establishment clause and free exercise clause.

Off on a tangent here; the first female ex-Speaker of the House, a professed Catholic, stated about the issue: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.” Say what? She’s one of many Catholic politicians that are pro-abortion and contraception ignoring the teachings of the Church she professes to be a member of. For most of us practicing Christians, God comes first, and informs our beliefs and actions. If one is a politician, and speaks honestly about his\her Faith, they should let it be known and live by it. I think if a Catholic runs for office on a pro-abortion platform, or lives and legislates in opposition to the Church, they should renounce the Church. If not, and I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know how exactly this works, but if they stay in the Church and support the kinds of regulation written about here, they should be excommunicated. It shouldn’t bother these anti-Christian, anti-Catholic Catholics anyway since they apparently don’t believe or practice Church doctrine.  

There’s a whole section of the Bible discussing Spiritual Warfare, mostly in Ephesians 6: 10- 18. This is where it manifests itself in physical world. We have the leader of the free world leading an assault on Christianity (and supporting Islam). Good for the Catholic Church for standing up to these bigots and secularists.