Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America at war

After nearly nine years, the American war in Iraq is ending and  many of their troops have come home and been reunited with their families for the holidays. The cost to the American nation has been great.

Lots of those soldiers are also Christians of many different churches. They have fought against tyranny and disorder. Instead of finding peace at home they now find their country fighting another ‘religious war’ and that there is much disorder in their home-country.

The Democratic president above the (elephant) Repbublicans - Obama 's State of the Union 2012

In January there was a lot for the faith community in President Obama’s State of the Union speech on the 24th, a lot that spoke to their values.

For decades, economic security for the middle class has been unraveling. Jobs that were once the source of stable livelihoods were shipped overseas and now placed families in doubt. Despite unemployment and pre-existant illnesses the American should be able to get help on all fronts. The health care reform law, have helped connect them to affordable, quality health care coverage. All Americans should  learn that they are eligible for affordable health care coverage that will cover all of their medical needs. 2.5 million more young adults now have health insurance coverage thanks to health reform.   In September 2010, an Affordable Care Act policy went into effect allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans through age 26.

Last December, after a disappointing vote on the DREAM Act, President Obama stated, “I am persistent.  If I believe in something strongly, I stay on it.  And I believe strongly in this.” A year later, his commitment to the DREAM Act still stands.  For this reason, the American Administration continues to work with faith and community leaders, students, and advocacy groups to spread awareness on the importance of the DREAM Act and continue the conversation on fixing their broken immigration system.

One of the many groups working to advance immigration reform has been the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.  Through an initiative titled the DREAM Sabbath, interfaith groups held events all over the country, highlighting stories of DREAM students and facilitating conversations between communities on the importance of the DREAM Act.

In their DREAM Sabbath Scrapbook, a report highlighting all the DREAM Sabbath events, media clips, and pictures, the initiative is described as, “a time when faith and action came together…”

But there are a lot of Americans who do not like it when people of different churches come together and have a jolly good time together. Some Americans do find it inappropriate that people of different beliefs mix with each other.

Trying to mobilize people to build up their country President Obama supports organizations that assists young Americans to enact reforms and community programs on issues that matter most to them. In American society a way of life has been introduced the president does not like so much either, but he is aware that certain people make other choices to build up their lives than he ever would do or want his children to do. For him people do have to make their own choice, but sometimes they could find out they made the wrong choice or let the wrong thing happen, as well are there people who came in a bad situation not according to their will. Also ‘Accidents’ happen. And people get in despair sitting with a pregnancy they do not want. And they should be helped, no matter a religious believe would not agree with such help.

Several American Christians went up high on their legs because they find that “the President Barack Hussein Obama White House, like hitting a bald face hornets nest during the daytime when it ought to know better, “declared war” on not only the Roman Catholic bishops in the United States, but also the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America.“*

Meagermind - Newt Gingrich Caricature - DonkeyHotey

The Catholic Newt Gingrich of the Republican party, who joined the chorus of other anti-Obama zealots, claims that President Obama is waging a waging a war on religion. Joe Scarborough, Host of “Morning Joe” (@joeNBC), et al, is fanning the flames of an alleged religious war which now Mitt Romney is using to win , according  goodolewoody.

IMHO, President Obama supports all religions and their churches and temples, synagogues and mosques, etc.  However, it is not fair that when churches go into secular business ventures that benefit from federal dollars, that they should get special exemptions because of their religion. Business is business.  We all believe in “separation of church and state.”

At a campaign event in Florida on Monday Januari the 30, Gingrich seized on letters read at Catholic Churches across the U.S. that condemned the Obama administration for making birth control more available to women.

“Callista and I were at mass last night, and I believe at every Catholic Church, they are reading a letter about the Obama administration’s attack on Christianity,” Gingrich explained. “This is a fundamental assault on the freedom of religion. … If you help me win the nomination and then you help me win the election, on the very first day I’m inaugurated, I will sign an executive order repealing every Obama attack on religion across the entire government.”

“I think we need to have a government that respects our religions,” he added. “I’m a little bit tired of being lectured about respecting every other religion on the planet. I’d like him to respect our religion.”

It is strange that the man who is “fed up with politicians in either party dividing Americans against each other” is often bringing so much hate speech and bringing division himself. He with many republicans showed that he even does not show respect for political believers of his own republican camp and for sure does not show respect for certain religions in Christianity but also out the Christian faith. How can he ask anyone else to respect his religion when he refuses to accept certain other religions. Giving respect creates the situation where respect is returned. the other strange thing is that he himself does not keep all the time to his own religion neither. The news goes that he cheated on his wife when she had cancer, so at the moment when a person did need him most he bought treason to her.

Mitt Romney

Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Scott Lively, Tony Perkins and the others naturally would like to see an institution which is able to control the people and can get all the power next to the Washington power of the White House. they also would prefer that they make a bond and go hand in hand taking care of each other to have enough power and money.

Also Congressman Michael Grimm went after President Barack Obama today for his administration’s mandate that businesses like hospitals and schools, including religious ones, offer health insurance covering contraceptives to their employees. The Catholic Church, which opposes contraception, is strongly protesting the decision.

“As a Roman Catholic, I strongly believe in preserving the sanctity of human life, and this mandate completely violates that belief,” Mr. Grimm said in a statement. His Staten Island-based district contains a heavy percentage of Catholic voters.

The Politicker reached out to Mr. Grimm’s main Democratic opponent, Mark Murphy, who disagreed with the Congressman’s explanation of the controversy.

“The fundamental issue here is whether women who work in hospitals, schools and other similar institutions that have some affiliation with religious institutions should simply have access to all reasonable medical options. There is no requirement that individuals do anything with this coverage that contradicts their personal beliefs. I believe that option should be left to the individual, not her employer.”

Once more we can see that it is all about money and popularity. Those opposing Obama want to be recognised as crusaders for the real good faith by making it look like a war on Christianity. Gingrich wants to twist it around that Obama is going against the Constitution, which respects his religion and every other religion the same, just by separating it from government what the American President wants to safeguard. For some it is still difficult to accept that some spiritual minds realized that they could not possibly agree on a single religion, so they decided to choose no religion as America’s State Religion, but that this had consequences that everybody should be equally treated no matter of which religion.

The United States may not give in to one dominate religion, not making America the nation of God, but making it the nation of the Roman Papal Catholic Church. The conservative religious Americans should get to know that religious freedom is only possible if the government is free from religion, and that nobody has the right to impose his or her religion (unwillingly) to others. Faith has to be taken voluntary and can and may not be forced onto others.

They also may not forget that it is thanks to the  First Amendment, complete with the freedom clause and the establishment clause, that every American has so much freedom and can choose in a manifold of churches. The First Amendment provision that prohibits the federal and state governments from establishing an official religion, or from favouring or disfavouring one view of religion over another makes it that not one Church would go to dictate the rules of living or the laws. As soon as you get in decission-makers on that point you also shall come into the danger of loosing the true faith because guaranteed that power security rules shall (and did) creep in the Church. Human factors will take over and Biblical guidelines would be avoided dictating some doctrinal laws. (What happened in many churches over the centuries.)

Current Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, got also his share of the cake and was accused of also waging his own war on religion.

“Gov. Romney imposed on the Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, a position against their conscious,” he said, possibly referring to the misleading claim that Romney supported government-subsidized abortions. He could have also been referencing a decision the former Massachusetts governor made to provide the Plan B birth control pill under Medicaid.

“Gov. Romney cut off Kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were on Medicaid to save $5 a day,” Gingrich continued.

The New York Post reported last week that that Romney had used his veto in 2003 to reject $600,000 in funds that would have allowed poor Jewish nursing homes to get Kosher meals.
The  letters read around the country of milk and honey, to the Catholic parishioners, were written by church leadership railing against an Obama administration ruling that requires employers to provide health insurance plans that include contraceptive coverage.

Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the guidelines but Catholic hospitals, colleges, and social services fall under the umbrella of institutions covered by the decision.
One letter from the Archdiocese of Washington says, “Catholic moral teachings will be placed in the untenable position of having to choose between violating the law and violating their conscience.”

The Catholic Church calls for civil disobedience because they cannot — “we will not” — comply with this unjust law. “People of faith cannot be made second class citizens.”

On Jan. 19, Pope Benedict XVI told the American Roman Catholic Church they needed to understand “grave threats” posed by what he called radical secularism in politics and culture.The pontiff specifically mentioned the U.S. church struggling to be permitted conscientious objection to “intrinsically evil practices.”

President Barack Obama's signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010.

Responding to the Obama-mandated health insurance policies, Catholic leaders throughout America are outraged over what is being perceived by some as a serious assault on their religion. Under Obama’s health care plan, Catholic hospitals and universities will be required to offer free birth control to employees. While the law will not include entities with solely religious purposes, such as churches, it will extend to church-affiliated companies that do not exclusively support a religious-minded agenda.

The Obama Administration issued a statement re-iterating the “contraceptive mandate” requiring all insurance providers cover the full range of FDA-approved drugs and devices would remain intact. This mandate, originally proposed in August, includes drugs that work after conception to destroy life rather than prevent it. The statement included a postponement of one year for religious groups that do not already carry contraceptives and additionally would not be exempted under last year’s narrow definition of “religious employer.”

Even if the policy is aimed at only a section of the church, Catholic leaders say Obama’s insurance plan is an attempt to take down the church by infiltrating it with God-less ideals on their religion, and according to some, they won’t go down without a fight. While the law will not include entities with solely religious purposes, such as churches, it will extend to church-affiliated companies that do not exclusively support a religious-minded agenda.

“Every time you turn around secular government is closing in on and shrinking the rights of religious America,” said Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism in 2009. At a separate speaking engagement last month, he specifically called out the president for launching a “war on the Catholic Church.”

“It’s not about contraception. It’s about the right of conscience,” Archbishop Timothy Dolan tells reporters. “The government doesn’t have the right to butt into the internal governance and teachings of the church,” he insists.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” adds Dolan. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

The government does not ask any individual person to go out in the marketplace to buy a product that violates their conscience, but people in care should put the priorities of the one looking for care on the first place. Also when a group of people wants to get government money to run a hospital, care-centre or anything like that it should comply with the laws of the one who provides financial support. In other instance they can be a private unit, delivering services to others at own costs.

Churches who take on commercial actions should comply with the requirements of that business and should also pay the appropriate taxes.

Some churches want to have their say about and in everything and take care that they can have power in as much as they can. Some also want to have their financial advantage being in a certain business, but do not  like to keep to the general policies which are expected from such a business. In such instances they better keep their hands off.
But on the other hand we can see in certain actions of Churches their greed for many things.

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests around the world condemn greed. So theoretically, religious leaders should find common ground with the rallies denouncing the inequalities of capitalism. Obama demanding a fair share of the Roman Catholic Church in providing its administration and taxation duties should be welcomed by those who do find the poor should be protected and everybody should build up a fair community.

Some imams have joined the protests to speak about the advantages of Islamic finance, which bans interest and focuses on investing in the real economy. But the movement has not been a central issue for most large Muslim organizations.**

Katherine Clark, from the Interfaith Center of New York, said people from many faiths supported the Occupy movement but “the denominations most active with the interfaith service we have been organizing are progressive Protestants.”

An activist rabbi, who asked not to be named, said Jewish groups were mostly silent because the movement was undefined and had no detailed program. “It is too inchoate,” he said.

The diffuse nature of the protests, which have no central leadership or agreed list of demands, make them a difficult partner for established religion even if they seem to share some basic values.

The Church of England found that out the hard way when Occupy protesters camped in front of St Paul’s Cathedral when they could not pitch tents closer to the London Stock Exchange.

The cathedral, closely linked to the financial community, shut its doors and considered clearing out the protesters.

The debate led two leading clerics to quit and prompted several Anglican bishops and other Christian denominations to criticize the cathedral for not showing more support.

“Church denominations very rarely criticize another church at all, let alone publicly,” said Jonathan Bartley, co-director of the theological think tank Ekklesia in London.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, stepped in on the protesters’ side and said Vatican proposals for sweeping reforms to the world economic system offered possible options.

After that, a think tank linked to St Paul’s published a poll of London City workers showing most felt the gap between rich and poor was too wide in Britain and pay in the financial industry too high.

Despite this unusual support, Church leaders do not tend to be as anti-capitalist as the protesters, said Bartley. The majority think “capitalism is not just neutral but good because it generates wealth, but we need a nicer version of it,” he added.

One of the few other churches to side with the protests was the Episcopal Church, the main Anglican denomination in the United States. Its Executive Council said on Oct 23 that the protest movement “bears faithful witness in the tradition of Jesus to the sinful inequities in society.”**

The people living in the United States of America should be careful who they want to choose for president to give the country direction in these very difficult times. They should think hard if it would be appropriate to choose a person who is totally against freedom of religion ever to be President of their State where so many people did everything to not fall in the trap of the European continent with interwoven political-religious powers. The President of the United States must respect all people, all religions, all sexual orientation, women, children— everyone.  The problem for many Americans is that now they are confronted with a guy who does not mind to kick some legs to get respect and help for poor and lesser advantaged persons. Obama does take care that the rights of everybody, no matter which colour, culture, personal feelings or religion he or she may have. Not one of the Republican candidates falls into that description. Apparently Republicans, who even do not respect their own kind, seem to have the most likes for those who can show commercialism, remunerative management and those who are rich.

The Americans should try to have faith in every person who wants to be part of the community, even when he has an other religious faith, he can have the same faith in the country and be willing to get the best for the society.

Over the past year, faith-based and community organizations have been on the move ramping up their efforts to make their communities healthier through First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Faith and Communities challenges issued in November 2010.  Over the year they hosted an additional 1,100 summer food service sites, where they served meals to low-income kids who otherwise wouldn’t have received those meals once school let out.  Their communities collectively walked 2.85 million miles. They brought produce close to home, contributing to more than 8,500 gardens, farmers markets, and food pantries, where folks could access fresh fruits and vegetables. And they joined communities across the country in earning 1.7 million Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards (PALA) through the PALA Challenge.

To celebrate the year’s accomplishments and look ahead to 2012, the Office of the First Lady and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships hosted a group of faith and community leaders for a Let’s Move Faith and Communities consultation in December. They wanted to learn from each other’s experiences and brainstorm how they can work together in the coming year to build wellness into communities for the long term.

That is what a lot of Roman Catholics and certain Protestant churches should do as well. they also should learn to have respect for people who are of an other religious faith and should accept that those are allowed certain things they would not agree with.

Physical and spiritual health are tied together in a very dynamic way. In case a country can make it that everybody can live in good condition, is nurtured and can feel safe because those who do wrong to society get punished, a lot of damage to persons would be able to be avoided and lots of things, like ‘the day after pill’ and abortion would not be so much needed. Lots of problems would be solved because there would be a better society living according decent ethic rules.

Catholic health institutions want to avoid prescribing birth control. They frame it as an infringement of their faith. But this isn’t an issue of regulating religion, but rather of general health care. ***

+

* Unholy War (annem040359.wordpress.com)

** Reuters

*** “Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges” (“Political Science” series, New York Times front page, Jan. 30) highlights the controversy over Catholics and contraception laws.

A reaction in the New York Times:

Traditional Catholic teaching rests on a tripod, including the hierarchy, the theologians and the sensus fidelium, the experience-fed wisdom of the laity. These three sources of teaching are, as Cardinal Avery Dulles said, “complementary and mutually corrective.” An accurate look at Catholic teaching on contraception today shows strong support for the position that contraception is not only permissible but even mandatory in many cases.

The American bishops are at odds with other bishops in the Catholic world, with the vast majority of Catholic theologians and with 98 percent of the Catholic laity who have used contraceptives. They are even at odds with Pope Benedict XVI, who has approved the use of condoms “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.” That concession logically ended the taboo on condoms since it said health care concerns can require the use of condoms.

The bishops’ claim that their religious freedom is threatened is bogus. The threat is to the religious freedom of their employees and to the conscientious freedom of the diverse public they serve in their tax-supported institutions.

DANIEL C. MAGUIRE
Milwaukee, Jan. 30, 2012

The writer is a professor of theology at Marquette University.

+

To say the government will afford religious liberty only to the most insular of religious institutions but not to those that serve, or employ, people of other faiths is a troubling view of faith and what role it should play in America.

NATHAN J. DIAMENT
Washington, Jan. 30, 2012

The writer is executive director of public policy, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

+

• The Church and the Birth Control Ruling2 days ago … Readers on both sides respond to a front-page article and an editorial.February 6, 2012
• Romney Attacks Obama on Birth Control Rule1 day ago … Mitt Romney waded into the debate over the regulations backed by the Obama administration that require some religious groups that provide …February 6, 2012 – The Caucus
• Birth Control and Reproductive RightsThe administration’s commitment to affordable birth control is welcome at a moment when women’s access to reproductive health care is under …January 30, 2012
• Religious Groups Get Delay in Birth Control Insurance Requirement …The Obama administration said it would give religious organizations one additional year to comply with a new policy requiring employers to …January 20, 2012 – The Caucus
• More Protestants Oppose Birth Control
• Fifty years ago, large families were unusual in evangelical Protestantism, but there has been a shift.January 21, 2012 – By MARK OPPENHEIMER
• Battling Over Birth ControlThe White House should not wobble on requiring free contraceptive coverage in health insurance plans.November 25, 2011 – Opinion
• Democrats Urge Obama to Defend Birth Control RulesRoman Catholic bishops, charities, schools and universities are seeking a broad exemption for employers who object to covering free birth …November 20, 2011 – By ROBERT PEAR – U.S. / Politics
• The Birth Control Solution
  Family planning is crucial to solving poverty, climate change and other issues. And don’t worry: contraceptives don’t cause sex.November 3, 2011 – By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF – Opinion

++

Articles to Read: (Updated 2012 February 11)

1. Separation of Church and State, Plain and Simple (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
2. There Is No “War on Religion!” (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
3. Did Catholic League President threaten violence in the streets (examiner.com)
4. Gingrich to Obama: ‘Respect our religion,’ not ‘every other religion’ (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
   The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

+++

Related articles

• “Should Catholic Employers Be Exempted From Paying For Health Insurance Covering Contraception?” My Debate with Mary C. Young, Part 1 (freethoughtblogs.com)
  when the Catholic Church employs or serves non-Catholics and performs non-religious functions, it needs to offer all the same rights and protections that non-religious institutions are required to provide. Some Catholics, including some left-leaning ones, are up in arms alleging that this is tantamount to a violation of their rights to free exercise of religion.
  +
  There is nothing inherently religious about teaching or practicing medicine or arranging adoptions.These are strictly speaking religiously neutral activities except in the case of specifically theological teaching—and even that is only religious in character when approached a certain way. The Catholic Church fully understands this in practice otherwise they would not regularly hire non-Catholics to perform these functions. If they are religious functions, they would require Catholics to perform them—just as catechism classes and funerals and masses need to be presided over by Catholics.
  +
  Also Churches want to claim a secular function that legitimizes government subsidies for their charity work. If there is no separation in principle from a church’s secular and religious functions then the government is funding religion by giving grants or other advantages to putatively public (not religious) services done by churches.
• U.S. Catholics urged to write Congress on birth control rule(theprovince.com)
  

  American Catholic clergy called on the faithful to write Congress to protest new birth control rules from President Barack Obama's administration, stepping up a campaign that began a week ago with denunciations from the pulpit at Masses across the country.

  Asked if the contraceptives issue would rebound on Obama in the election, Gingrich said, “I think there are millions of people who are very disturbed by it.”

  Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week that the contraception ruling could cost Obama the November election because the Catholic vote is concentrated in battleground states.

  The White House defended the policy, saying that only institutions such as hospitals that service a large non-Catholic community would have to offer free birth control. The administration also said the availability of birth control would reduce the number of abortions.

• Bishop David Zubik: ‘To Hell With You’(thedaleygator.wordpress.com)A million things are wrong with this: equating pregnancy with disease; mandating that every employer pay for contraception procedures, including alleged contraceptives that are actually abortion-inducing drugs; forcing American citizens to choose between violating their consciences or providing health care services; mandating such coverage on every individual woman without allowing her to even choose not to have it; and forcing every person to pay for that coverage no matter the dictates of their conscience.
  +
  For our church this mandate would apply in virtually every instance where the Catholic Church serves as an employer. The mandate would require the Catholic Church as an employer to violate its fundamental beliefs concerning human life and human dignity by forcing Catholic entities to provide contraceptive, sterilization coverage and even pharmaceuticals that result in abortion.
• Obama Picks Fight With Catholic Church in an Election Year: Game On (w/videos) (nicedeb.wordpress.com)
  Why is the Obama administration picking a fight with the Catholic church during an election year? It doesn’t make any sense. He’s got the bishops all riled up, and those guys are hard to rile up.He’s ticked off the Catholic church like no other President has ever done before. If Obama and Co think their assault on our religious liberties can be compared to the war in Iraq because the Catholic church opposed that, too, they’ve got another thing coming.
  +
  This discussion between Glenn Beck & Bill Donohue on the  Obama Admin’s attack on the  Catholic Church is worth watching in full.
  +Cliff Kincaid, New Zeal: Catholic Church Rejects Surrender Terms from Obama:

  My Catholic priest, Father Larry Swink, delivered a homily on Sunday that I told him would make headlines. In the toughest sermon I have ever heard from a pulpit, he attacked the Obama Administration as evil, even demonic, and warned of religious persecution ahead. What was also newsworthy about the sermon was that he cited The Washington Post in agreement—not on the subject of the Obama Administration being evil, but on the matter of its abridgment of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

  What is happening is extraordinary and unprecedented. The Catholic Church is in open revolt against the Obama Administration, with Fr. Swink noting from the pulpit that priests across the archdiocese were joining the call on Sunday to rally Catholics to resistance against the U.S. Government. He said we are entering a time of religious persecution and that Catholics and others will have to make a final decision about which side they are on.

  The issue is what the Catholic Bishops have called a “literally unconscionable” edict by the Obama Administration demanding that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans.

• Catholic Church ready to declare war on Obama (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)
  Bill Donohue of the Catholic League says the move is a milestone in terms of taking on the Church, and tells CBS News that it is “unprecedented in American history …for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church.”“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” adds Donohue.
• Catholic Church ready to declare war on Obama (rt.com)
  Other Catholics are coming out to go after Obama, and the impact could be detrimental to his re-election bid. While Obama won the majority of the votes from American Catholics in 2008, his stance on offering contraception has already attracted mini critics from the church. A grassroots campaign waged against the policy started last year by Archbishop Dolan yielded 57,000 complaints over the plan.
• The Catholic Church (theobamacrat.com)
  We crucify people for abusing and molesting children, and we lynch those who know of this abuse and molestation and do nothing, but we turn our heads when it involves the catholic priest & the catholic church. This disgrace has gone on for long enough. Now, we have this same religious organization trying to write government policy on birth control and abortion, stepping out from it’s religious facade into becoming a political power.
  +
  Recently, the catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some catholic institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the catholic church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between catholic teaching and catholic reality.Back to the billions of dollars the catholic church’s financial records hide from the United States government….
• The Catholic Church Really Doesn’t Want to Pay for Your Magdalene Pills [Pill Baby Pill] (jezebel.com)
  The Catholic Church responded Friday to the White House’s defense of new rules that will force many religious employers to provide contraception to their workers in government-mandated health plans with the grace and dignity you’d expect from an organization that used to sell raffle tickets for Heaven, that is, with very little grace and dignity.
  +
  The new regulations announced last month by the Department of Health and Human Services require employers to provide women with “preventive” health care services such as cervical cancer screenings and — whisper it — contraception by August. The regulations have sparked outrage among evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, but no group has been more vociferous than the Catholic Church, which employs far more people than either of the other two groups.
  +
  Perhaps the best solution would be for the Church to disabuse itself of the notion that women’s health services exist solely to destroy precious, potentially-Catholic life. The progestin-only pill, for instance, is prescribed to women to help treat a whole host of non-whore related ailments.
  

  The Catholic Church Really Doesn’t Want to Pay for Your Magdalene Pills

• Catholic Colleges Refuse to Pay for Whore Pills (jezebel.com)
  A group of hopping mad bishops is filing suit against the administration to prevent the provision from going into effect, and some colleges compelled by state law to provide slut lozenges to their befouled female students are just ignoring the law entirely.
  +
  What is actually best for the public— women who use birth control are healthier and less likely to have an unsafe unplanned pregnancy— and what religious leaders think is best for the public— chastity, or married production of dozens of tiny impoverished future members of the religion— have never been in line, but looming battle over free birth control illustrates just how starkly religious restrictions on health care and actual scientific ideas of health care diverge. No one is forcing anyone to take birth control; the Obama administration is just requiring an organization to provide it as an option. Women who attend Catholic college who believe birth control is morally wrong will still be free to believe that birth control is morally wrong but abstain from using it themselves.
• Relax, Everyone: President Obama’s Not Going to Cave on Birth Control Requirement (jezebel.com)
  people seem to like the idea of accessible birth control for all women who are interested in taking it, and about 98% of women will use birth control at some point in their lives. According to a recent USA Today poll, 58% of Catholics support requiring employers to cover the cost of birth control for their employees. A full 61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans think covering birth control should be required, and 62% of women agree.
• Pope calls for ‘profound renewal’ of Roman Catholic Church(telegraph.co.uk)

  Benedict XVI said he hoped the conference would “promote throughout the Church a vigorous culture of effective safeguarding and victim support”.

  He said: “Healing for victims must be of paramount concern in the Christian community and it must go hand in hand with a profound renewal of the Church at every level.”

  A Vatican statement said that Benedict “supports and encourages every effort to respond with evangelical charity to the challenge of providing children and vulnerable adults with an ecclesiastical environment conducive to their human and spiritual growth.”

• Separation of Church and State, Plain and Simple (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
  President Obama is NOT infringing on anyone’s religion. Catholics are free to worship freely “as their parents and grandparents did.”   Worship is worship and business is business is business.
• When a phony president produces phony numbers, you get phony results. GIGO (conservativetickler.wordpress.com)
  The Roman Catholic Church can either ignore Obama’s rules about contraceptives and abortion or they can shut down their institutions. Obama would have them shut down their institutions.  This is a direct attack on religious freedom and we cannot allow it to stand.  We have to  fight this guy and take back our country.
• A War Against Us All (thecampofthesaints.org)
  if The Administration is allowed to get away with this move, then none of our rights are safe.  With the simple publishing of a regulation, the right to bear arms, the right to freedom of the press, the right to be safe and secure in one’s home, can be abolished [first, they came for The Roman Catholic Church].
  +
  (Marcus’s note: I do not see why Obama “and his minions” are accused to be “determined to destroy some of the best and most advanced hospitals and clinics in America, ones which provide much-needed services to the poor and downtrodden. “)
• Religious Freedom Under Attack – AOI Observer (palamas.info)
  Three cheers to Fr. Peter Michael-Preble and Chris Banescu, the first Orthodox Christians to criticize Pres. Obama’s arbitrary ruling forcing all Americans to comply with the anti-life agenda of the cultural left. The Catholics have been front and center on this threat to religious freedom. Orthodox leaders have been silent except for Fr. Preble and Banescu who recognize the dangers inherent in the policy change.
• CNBNEWS Op-Ed: To Hell With You’(gloucestercitynews.net)”It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, “To Hell with you!” There is no other way to put it.” says Bishop David A. Zubik of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
• Bishops don’t speak for most Catholics on contraception (cnn.com)
  Recently, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty argued that the Obama administration’s requirement that most health insurance plans cover contraception goes against “the mandate of Jesus Christ.”But Jesus said nothing about contraception coverage, of course, or most any other issues related to sexuality. So, what is the issue?The current mandate would require that Catholic institutions like universities and hospitals include coverage for contraception and sterilization, although it exempts Catholic parishes. Official Catholic teaching is against contraception and sterilization. But this issue goes beyond internal Catholic Church concerns and moves into the public arena. The U.S. Catholic bishops and other conservative Christian groups have argued that the Obama administration’s requirement wars with religious liberty and the role of conscience.
  +
  The Catholic Church argues that human life must be protected from the moment of conception. Therefore, contraception that works after conception to prevent implantation (around six to 10 days after conception), such as with the IUD, would be considered as a category of abortion.So, while the Obama legislation does not require abortion coverage, that “abortion language” has also been a part of the Catholic argument. This seems fair enough to those who would argue that a pre-implanted fertilized egg should be protected from the time of conception. But would the majority of Catholics oppose contraceptive coverage that works before conception? And shouldn’t women be allowed to make that decision? Would most Catholics and Christians deny health care coverage for women because of this?
  

  The 2009 installation of Archbishop Timothy Dolan. He says requiring that employers cover contraception is "un-American." - CNN

• Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches move towards unity (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• Bp. Zubik (D. Pittsburgh) on Obama to Catholic Church: “To Hell with You.” (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• Archbishop Dolan defines human dignity as ‘primary doctrine’ of church (mumbailaity.wordpress.com)
• Hitchens’ “god is not Great”: An Assessment: IV: Religion and Health (choiceindying.com)
  There are two articles in the National Post that I think I should be discussing before going on with the Hitchens assessment, but this chapter is so important, I have decided to forego the pleasure and simply dive into Hitchens’ wonderfully restrained dismemberment of religion. (The two articles, just to mention them, before continuing, are: “My right to live trumps your right to die,” and “Euthanasia’s foes, out of arguments, settle for fear-mongering.” You will not doubt where I stand. Derek Medeima is, you will not be surprised to hear, a research hack at the Roman Catholic “Institute for Marriage and the Family.” Of course, as usual, the “institute” does not wear its heart on its sleeve, and pretends to be a “secular” organisation, thus exemplifying the typical bad faith of the religions.)
• Obama’s Assault on Religious Liberty – AOI Observer (palamas.info)
  Archbishop Dolan and the Catholic Church understand the seriousness and severity of this latest attack on all faith-based organizations. Obama’s mandate sets a dangerous precedent for our democracy and undermines our Constitution. It is a wholesale assault on the specific protections of religious liberties afforded to all Americans by the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” If this obamination is allowed to stand, then the religious liberties of all Americans will be endangered, not just Christians and Catholics. Such an unconstitutional and tyrannical policy must be opposed and defeated if liberty is to survive in the “land of the free and home of the brave.” Silence is not an option, now more than ever.
• An Early Holiday Hangover – New York Times (nytimes.com)
• Abortion Not (Just) A Religious Issue – It’s Terry O’Neill Who Is “Poppycock” (neosecularist.com)
• Op-Ed Columnist: Separation of Newt and State (nytimes.com)
• LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report 12/2/11(deaconforlife.blogspot.com)Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is pro-life on the issue of abortion and frequently voted pro-life during his days in Congress. However, in a new interview, the former Speaker shows he needs to be educated on the scientific understanding that life begins at conception.In a new interview with Jake Tapper of ABC News, Gingrich said human life begins at implantation rather than conception, which science has established as the starting point for human life.
• Obamacare: An End to Religious Freedom in Health Care? (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
  When President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010, his health care reform included a religious exemption. To read the exemption is enough to realize it hardly qualifies as a serious attempt to respect the conscience rights of those who morally object to abortion, artificial contraception and sterilization. According to the law, the only exemption on religious grounds would be for those who serve only members of their faith community, exclude those of other faiths from their employment, and focus on teaching their religious beliefs.In reality, this narrowly defined religious exemption clause would apply only to a Catholic institution hiring only Catholics and providing health care services only to Catholics. Thus, no Catholic hospital would ever qualify for this exemption! As Richard Doerflinger has astutely noted, “Jesus himself, who helped and healed people of various faiths, would not be ‘religious enough’ to qualify for this bizarrely narrow exception” (Richard Doerflinger, Sept. 16, 2011).
• Supreme Court Upholds Religious Exemption To Employment Discrimination Laws (outsidethebeltway.com)
  the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time recognized a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference.
  +
  it may well have been the Government’s insistence on a hardline no-exemptions position that pushed the Court to not only decide this case unanimously but to come to the position that it did. The logical extension of the government’s position, for example, would have been that a woman would have theoretically had a cause of action under applicable to civil rights laws to sue the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to ordain her has a Priest, and it would have actually lent undue merit to the fears of some opponents of same-sex marriage who claim that legalizing the institution would be a threat to religious liberty.
• LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report 12/2/11 (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• Political Science | Women and Faith: Law Fuels Contraception Controversy on Catholic Campuses (nytimes.com)
  As a result, students have had to go to Planned Parenthood or private doctors to get prescriptions . Some, unable to afford the doctor visits, gave up birth control pills entirely.
• Newt a shrine unto himself (mysanantonio.com)
• What Do You Actually Like About The GOP Candidates? (minx.cc)
• LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report 2/6/12 #5329 (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report 2/6/12 #5329 (deaconforlife.blogspot.com)
• Pelosi Declares She’ll Join Her Fellow Catholics In Their Near-Unanimous Support of Obama’s Insurance Mandate (minx.cc)
• Childrens Crusade and Food Truck Catering Service (tbogg.firedoglake.com)
• There Is No “War on Religion!” (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
  Newt Gingrich appeared on “Meet the Press,” yesterday and was not his bombastic self.  He still gave statistics and statements without attribution, though, which is typical. This time he did not insult the host, David Gregory, with his arrogance.
• It’s been only a matter of time…Birth control and Obamacare (onemorecup.wordpress.com)
  Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath care reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.
• Obama, Contraceptives, And The Catholic Vote (outsidethebeltway.com)
• The President, the Pill, and Religious Liberty in Peril (liveeternally.wordpress.com)
• Top Obama adviser defends divisive birth control rule (ctv.ca)
• Obamacare Awakens Sleeping Giant (gloucestercitynews.net)
• Religious Privilege and Grievance-Based Catholic Identity Politics on Full Display (freethoughtblogs.com)
• Grimm And Murphy Spar Over Obama Contraception Plan (timesunion.com)
• Abortion, Birth Control Grab Political Spotlight (washington.cbslocal.com)
• In Ohio, Gingrich hits Romney on contraception (sfgate.com)
• Gingrich Campaigns in Ohio (myfoxny.com)
• Gingrich Campaigns in Ohio (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Gingrich to Obama: ‘Respect our religion,’ not ‘every other religion’ (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Catholics Want to Force Non-Catholics to Do as They Do –  (friendfeed.com)
  the Rude Pundit could understand why Catholics and other religious groups (and opportunistic politicians) would be upset about the Obama administration’s HHS decision, which require that all employers who provide health insurance ensure that the policy covers women’s contraception, if, say, it required all women working at a Catholic Church-affiliated business or institution to take birth control pills.
• Contraception, Spilling One’s “Seed” and the Obama Health Care Ruling (woodgatesview.com)
  Ahh Catholicism.  What fond memories I have about my first Communion, Confirmation, serving my first Mass as an alter boy and best of all, my awareness of sin.  Without sin in our lives there is chaos.
  +

  We learned all about sin in our weekly catechism classes under the tutelage of Father Vogel.  You might not make it into heaven if you die with mere venial sins on your soul.  There’s a place called Purgatory reserved for such tainted people.  But if your sins were “mortal” in nature as you lay dying then hell was your only destiny, unless there was a priest handy who could administer the last rites of atonement and the eucharist.

  We were expected not to eat anything before receiving communion and confessional with the parish priest was requisite beforehand in order that your soul was pure enough to accept the body and blood of Jesus.
  +

  I understand the need for restraints and consequences for socially destructive behavior but there has to be a point where attempts to dominate every aspect of our lives has to have more adverse effects than positive outcomes for our personal sanity.  Keep in mind that most of the Church’s rulings on many things they govern their flock by were evaluated by people who isolated themselves centuries ago in monasteries and convents; avoiding the realities of the human experience in this world in the hope that they would be drawn closer to God

  
  +
  Was God mad about the spilled semen or was he mad that Onan refused to obey his father and follow a custom that was part of “an ancient Eastern brotherhood law called the law of the Levirate” described in Deuteronomy 25:5?  Orthodox Catholics lean towards the “spilled semen” scenario where an outsider might view it as an incomprehensible response from a vengeful God.

• Barack Obama Giving some respect to the ROMAN Catholic church (current.com)
  Obama did claim to have done some missionary work for the roman catholic church in Chicago, thus making him a better christian
• Unholy War (annem040359.wordpress.com)
  This UNHOLY WAR against the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America has been joined by the leadership of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, a number of Protestant Churches leaders, Orthodox Jewish organizations have weighted in as well in protest. Even both American Muslims and GOP/Republican USA Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he is very much opposed to this ruling by both President Obama and Health and Human Services head Catherine Sibelius.
• Birth Control Battle Has Gotten Even Hotter,Even Capital Hill Has Weighed In (annem040359.wordpress.com)
  Now even members of both political parties up on United States of America‘s Washington D.C.‘s Capital hill had gone out of their way to weigh-in on the very heated birth control mandatory plan of President Barack Hussein Obama‘s healthcare bill.
• Roman Catholic Church battle over birth control coverage was well planned (mercurynews.com)
  The speed and passion behind the bishops’ response reflects their sense of siege, and their belief that the space the Catholic Church once occupied in American society and the deference it was given are being curtailed by an increasingly secular culture.
• Hugh Hewitt: E.J. Dionne and Senator Pat Toomey on President Obama’s Attack on the Roman Catholic Church (hughhewitt.com)
  Santorum and Toomey do agree, however, on the absolute nature of the constitutional violation inherent in the president’s attack on the Roman Catholic Church.  In fact, I haven’t found one Republican yet who agrees this is other than an astonishing, offensive and unacceptable assault on religious freedom.
• An Interesting Compromise (annem040359.wordpress.com)
  After a couple of weeks facing an angry backlash coming from the American Roman Catholic faith community, as well as from Americans of other faith, and even those Americans who do not have a faith background, President Barack Hussein Obama decided to back down and to offer a “compromise” on the mandatory birth control aspect of President Obama health care policy or “Obamacare.”
  +
  “The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all religions, or none at all, worried about the erosion of religious freedom and government intrusion into issues of faith and morals,” said Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”