Early Thursday, the US Catholics Conference on Bishops circulated a memo (see below) and “supporting” documents to all bishops urging them to use this Sunday’s mass as a lobbying event designed to defeat health care reform if the bishops don’t get what they want on abortion. What do they want? They want to scuttle the well crafted compromise moderate pro-lifers and all prochoice groups have reluctantly supported and insist that health care reform efforts be used to cut off all sources of funding for abortions for all women—whether they are on Medicaid or currently have coverage for abortion in their private insurance plans.
Just about everyone rational has accepted the Capps Amendment which baldly states that federal funds will not be used for abortions. But the bishops want to reinterpret what constitutes federal funds and claim that a private insurance plan that covers abortion (though it might have some subscribers who do get a federal subsidy) would constitute using federal funds. The only way, they say, to insure that no federal funds are used is to exclude from the overall exchange any insurance plan that covers abortion. Their solution? Offer women special riders to insurance that cost additional funds if they want private coverage.
The insult to women, the idea of a scarlet “A” abortion rider to single them out is bad enough, but turning Sunday Mass into a political rally is absolutely too much.
One can only hope that every pro-life supporter of health care reform who has said that health care reform is too important to use as a way to advance either pro-choice or prolife objectives—from Jim Wallis to Catholics United and everyone in between—speaks out immediately in opposition to this kind of immoral use of religious services. And every pro-choice Catholic needs to walk out of church when the lobby sermon begins.
USCCB Nationwide Bulletin Insert
Pulpit Announcements & Prayer Petition
Instructions: As introduced by a cover letter to all bishops from the President of the Conference and the Chairmen of the 3 major USCCB committees engaged in health care reform, the US bishops have asked that the USCCB Nationwide Bulletin Insert on health care reform be printed or hand-stuffed in every parish bulletin and/or distributed in pews or at church entrances as soon as possible. Congressional votes may take place as soon as early November. Please encourage parishioners to pray for this effort as well. More information can be found at www.usccb.org/healthcare.
To be announced at all Masses on the weekend when the Bulletin Insert is distributed:
Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation. The Catholic bishops of the United States strongly support genuine health care reform that protects the life and dignity of all, from the moment of conception until natural death. However, all current bills are seriously deficient on abortion and conscience rights, and do not yet provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor.
In your pews/bulletins today, you’ll find a special flier/bulletin insert from the US Bishops Conference asking you to please contact your Representative and Senators immediately and urge them to fix these bills with pro-life amendments. The flier/bulletin insert includes a web address that allows you to send an email message to Congress with a click of a button. The bishops have asked for our swift action and the commitment of our prayers for this critical effort. Thank you for your help. We can help make sure that health care reform will be about saving lives, not destroying them.
To be announced at all Masses on the weekend following the Bulletin Insert distribution:
Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation. The Catholic bishops of the United States strongly support genuine health care reform that protects the life and dignity of all, from the moment of conception until natural death. However, all current bills are seriously deficient on abortion and conscience rights, and do not yet provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor.
Last weekend you received a special flier/bulletin insert from the US Bishops Conference asking you to please contact your Representative and Senators immediately and urge them to fix these bills with pro-life amendments. The flier/bulletin insert included a web address that allows you to send an email message to Congress with a click of a button. Additional fliers/bulletin inserts can be found at___________ (back of church, etc.). The bishops have asked for our swift action and the commitment of our prayers for this critical effort. Thank you for your help. We can help make sure that health care reform will be about saving lives, not destroying them.
Suggested Prayer of the Faithful:
That Congress will act to ensure that needed health care reform will truly protect the life, dignity and health care of all and that we will raise our voices to protect the unborn and the most vulnerable and to preserve our freedom of conscience. We pray to the Lord.
Tags: catholic bishops, catholics, health care, healthcare, jim wallis, mass, pro-choice, pro-life
The Catholic bishops have no credibility on this or any other issue related to women, reproductive rights, intimate relationships, homosexuality, gender and power, much less the image of Jesus walking the streets of the Nazareths of our day.
Margaret
You beat me in stateing the obvious. Awful old men, just awful excuses for Christians.
Unfortunately, there are millions of Catholics who will hear and obey the words of the "Great and Powerful Oz." They have been carefully trained that the church will tell them what to think, and threatened with eternal damnation if they leave the "one, holy, and apostolic church." They will listen, they will do as they are asked, and the rest of us will suffer.
Once the Evangelical Christians win against liberals, it will be time to turn against Catholics, and things will get really interesting. I hope this happens long after I'm dead.
What a bunch of idiots those bishops are! They are shooting themselves in the foot. Bad enough they have no credibility as is... If you found yourself in the hole, quit digging, as saying has it. With the dirty reputation RCC has as is...
Let me tell you, as an Israeli - there is no bigger ungodliness then catholics and easter orthodox "mafia bosses" ;) demonstrate in the Holy Land. They openly, perpetually fight, right there in the holiest sites of Christianity! Police is called at least a few times a year to the Church of Holy Sepulche, etc... When the brotherly love rears its head and brethren brawl about who is the boss..
Despicable dirtbags.
Let's be honest: The Catholic bishops have sold their souls to the Religious Right, hoping to ride their coattails back into political power. The bishops here in CT have been political activists for a couple of years now ... e.g. campaigning against gay marriage, which was approved here c. a year ago.
The decision of CT's bishops to engage in political activism is, very likely, a kind of pushback over the pedophilia scandals, which have manifested here in the form of the Fr Stephen Foley scandal (a priest they ousted from service and shuffled off to Baltimore so as to avoid him having to make a deposition in civil court) and the scandal over documents the diocese of Bridgeport continues to hide even though every court they've appealed to has ruled against them.
I suspect that similar reasoning is going on with all of the US bishops. They all want to get back some of the influence they lost as a result of the pedophilia scandal. Of course, a better -- and much more Christ-like -- way to do that would not be by placing themselves under the whips of the (largely Protestant and anti-Catholic) Religious Right in an effort to seize more political power, but instead, by showing just a tiny bit of genuine contrition and offering more transparency.
But we can't allow that, now, can we?
So the US bishops have sold themselves out to their own ecclesiastical foes, the Protestants of the Religious Right, and are now taking marching orders from them. How nice.
If the bishops have now sold their souls to the Religious Right, what were the terms of the contract? When the Religious Right sold their souls to the party of the rich it was a promises for votes deal. That worked out extremely will because both sides got what they wanted. The Republicans got lots of votes, and the Religious Right still has their promises. Plus as it turns out, they didn't really even need their souls.
Yes, that is what i was wondering myself...
What are they doing all those things for? What is their ultimate goal and purpose in all this? What are they getting in return for kissing the behinds of right wing Protestants? I am sure there is money or it's equivalent involved in the deal.
What the bishops will get, is a place at the table of power. Plus, if they can make it appear they were instrumental in making something happen and getting noticed in the process, they make themselves look better than the sniveling, cowardly apologists for pedophiles that they appear to be, right now.
As I said, that's an appearance they could correct, immediately, had they the moral courage to do so. But they have none, and very likely they don't see any additional upside for themselves. By doing the work of the Religious Right they hope to get some political power that they don't currently have.
Several years ago priests in all parishes in the U.S. were to announce on the pulpit that anyone who assisted and/or cared for a person with AIDS would not be a welcome member of any Catholic Church. My family has Hemophilia in its genetics and all males in my family had, by then, died or were stricken with AIDS and dying. In fact, not only did these children suffer with Hemophilia, they lived in terror that they would get AIDS. At the time, blood transfusions were not yet tested for the HIV virus.
When the Bishops'Directives on AIDS were announced in my local parish, I walked out and went (that same Sunday) to another parish; the priest there issued the same warning as the first. I walked out. That afternoon, I attended a third parish Mass. This priest, too, repeated the same directive as did the other two priests.
I was so angry at the arrogance of these Bishops, I contacted the Archdiocese to protest this unreasonable and inhumane edict by the Bishops in the U.S. Needless to say, I never got an answer. I did notice, however, the topic of not aiding AID's patients was later struck down, and parishioners were encouraged to assist anyone who was ill, even those with AIDS. I am very sure that there must have been hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics in the U.S. who protested this directive by the Bishops. As in any "Edict by Those in Authority," civil disobedience may be necessary.
The reason for the proposed changes was to bring the English vernacular translation of the Mass into conformity with the original Latin (as the document "Liturgiam authenticam" required to be done). They are good changes, because they correct a flawed English translation (not to mention a rather dull one). The changes restore a certain dignity in liturgical language and also make the English vernacular reflect more faithfully the original Latin text. One bishop commented that the changes were good because they will teach the faithful to "speak Bible". The original Latin text is filled with literal Biblical references which were simply and poorly "translated out" by the English translation (for example, the prayer of the centurion will now finally be restored: "Lord, I am not worthy that You enter under my roof..." instead of the actual "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you
Absolute Acai Berry
What?
Uh....Did I miss something?
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