Catholic Resistance Must be the Response to the Unjust HHS Edict to Violate Conscience Comments
The Catholics Bishops of the United States have asked the faithful to pray, fast and engage in Catholic Action. This is in response to the unjust edict demanding that Catholic hospitals and institutions dispense contraceptives (some of which are abortifacients) and offer sterilization under the so called "Affordable Care Act". Continue Reading
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How can we expect God to bless this great country when we continue to defy him at the voting booth. We are reaping what we have sown. And to Everett Mann, why are you even on a Catholic web sight? God's law is written in every man's heart including yours.
this country has forgotten the lessons of Nuremberg. Obama's "enabling act" disregards human life of the most innocent and poor which will bleed over into all aspects of health care. He is not capable of makiing a subjective objective assessment of any health care plan when he knows not the subject.It truly is beyond his pay grade. He spits on the cross that I wear in my profession in the field of medicine. He will try and force us to do the same. I will never tell someone where they can go to do an intrinsically evil act. The president has no right to force people to do this.It is unAmerican. I will not sign on to this hypocrital oath of loyalty.
As a Notre Dame parent, I was dismayed when, at the beginning of Obama's first term, the University of Notre Dame not only invited him to speak at a commencement exercise, but honored him with a degree. Along with hundreds of thousands of others I petitioned President Jenkins to reconsider his invitation and rescind it. It seemed to many of us that by allowing the invitation to stand, the University of Notre Dame gave the Obama administration and its abortion policies legitimacy. Many of us had no problem with President Obama coming to the university to speak. After all, a university should be a place where opposing views are discussed. We just had a problem with the setting and the honoring of a degree. History will forever record that Jenkins ignored our petition. Now this.
I would suggest that in this important election year and with the HHS ruling just issued, that we are once again presented with an opportunity to make a right decision. We are all heartened by President Jenkins objection to the Obama adminstration's recent ruling. But it doesn't go far enough. Because the University is considered by many Catholics to be so influential and thus listened to in matters of daily life, isn't it time for President Jenkins to show some real leadership and first apologize for the school's invitation and second, to urge all Catholics to follow their bishop's lead in prayer and fasting in order to overturn this gross action by the HHS? Finally, I would suggest that Jenkins urge all Catholics to perform their civic duty by voting this administration out of office in November, 2012. The issue of a just government for all is that important.
Hi Gerold, good post, and I completely agree with you on all points you mentioned. I saw this and thought you and all concerned, should be aware that Kathleen Sebelius has been ex-communicated. "Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Fred Naumann asked that Sebelius no longer receive Holy Communion because of her position on abortion. Naumann criticized Sebelius for vetoing HS SB 389 Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act."
Once again the Federals have overstepped their boundaries. It seems every day the news features one event after another... going beyond their jurisdiction. Just as the US doesn't have authority to govern or prosecute foreign business interests, they do not have authority to proclaim the doctrine of any church, much less the Catholic church. The Pope's comments regarding how the US is "on the brink of anarchy" is a point he has understated. The US has crossed the line in it's world-wide domination, whether the intent is for the peoples wellness and freedom, or for it's own claim as a planetary police department. In those prayers, we need to ask that this country return to it's original principals, as well as the laws of the land.
The fact is that this policy goes way past the issue of freedom of religion. It cuts squarely across basic property rights and the meaning and implementation of insurance, in this case health insurance.
1) Insurance is a method of pooling and sharing RISK. When taken as a large enough group, we can mathematically determine that some percentage of individuals will be affected by certain adverse circumstances, e.g. cancer. So that the few individuals who are unlucky enough to suffer one of these happenstances does not get stuck with a high cost, the entire group contributes certain smaller amounts (the premiums) so that the affected individuals recover their cost (the benefit) from these pooled resources. Statisitical analysis of past results allow with great accuracy the calculation of the premiums necessary to make sure all the predicted adverse results are covered.
2) The adverse results are mostly random events, although some individual behavior, e.g. smoking, can increase the risk of certain individuals for contracting such a result, and in many cases of insurance, individual premiums are often adjusted to reflect the increased risk such behaviours occur.
HOWEVER, conception/pregnancy is NOT a randomly occurring event, nor is it a "disease" or a fundamentally adverse result since many people are actually happy with such an outcome. It is caused SPECIFICALLY by certain behavior of which there is full knowledge by virtually everyone. As such, it is NOT an issue for which insurance is appropriate, because everone can easily avoid the result by avoiding the behavior.
Therefore: EVERYONE who decides to engage in the behaviour of sexual activity must bear upon themselves the cost of preventing the well known outcome if that is their desire. It is not a "risk" that needs to be pooled. As such, the payment for contraceptives or abortions can never properly be born by any kind of true insurance pool, since this is not a random risk that a certain premium can cover over a large group, but rather is simply a cost associated with a behavior. This cost needs to be born by those who choose to engage in the behaviour, no matter what their religion. To force an insurer to cover this cost is simply another method of weatlh (property) redistribution from those who choose to avoid the behaviour to those who don't. Forced wealth redistribution (theft by majority vote) should not exist in any case, and certainly not as part of anything called insurance.
Wonder why my parish didn't even mention this? Not in the bulletin nor from the ambo?
Today a radio host interviewed Mr. Donohue of the Catholic League, and the host said that a letter from the Bishops was read at "every Mass" in the country yesterday. Guess our new Bishop didn't get the message. The silence was deafening. Had high hopes for the new guy, but it looks like just more of the same here in NH. Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, said the announcement was a "missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection." Well, Sister, I believe that the President and his minions were quite clear on the "appropriate protection". the appropriate protection is NONE! "The challenge that these regulations posed for many groups remains unresolved," said the Nun. "This indicates the need for an effective national conversation on the appropriate conscience protections in our pluralistic country, which has always respected the role of religions." Challenge, Sister, CHALLENGE??!! Tell the dead child, tell the woman who was forcibly sterilized that we are doing our best to meet the "challenge" to our consciences. The solution, of course, another "national conversation." So they can talk our ears off until it's our turn to be denied medical care because our "quality of life years" have run out. Tell me, is it OK to murder an unborn child if your conscience says it is? Is it NOT OK only if it troubles your conscience? Shame, shame, shame for being concerned only with the conscience of the murderer, and not for the victim.
Would a brave Bishop please excommunicate Kathleen Sebelius and refuse her the sacraments! She is a disgrace. She along with other Catholics serving in the public square need to stop calling themselves Catholic if they remain defiant.
I second the call to have all Catholic Institutions simply refuse to follow this unconstitutional mandate until somebody gets arrested. Then sue HHS government. That would be a good use of resources.
To Ibs- the deacon is doing discernment of Obama and his policies. He not only has a right to do it, he has an obligation to do it. Discernment is to see true things clearly and then say them. Judgement is to determine the outcome of a persons soul, no where does the deacon do that. That is the judgement that God does. We are all to discern the truth and reality and then with courage say it clearly. The deacon does a wonderful job of this. You are failing to face facts and if you keep that up you run the risk of losing your mind and possibly your soul. Take off your blinders, the rest of us have.