My mantra, the soft tyranny of big government turned hard.
Military Chaplains are being forbidden from reading the letter from the bishops protesting the HHS mandate. If they do, they are considered seditious. ht Gateway.
The emerging conflict between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration may have a new front: in the U.S. military itself.
The Catholic Church is fighting mad about an HHS ruling that would have them buy insurance for things they consider sinful–contraception, sterilization and abortion.
All the bishops in the country sent out a letter to be read in their parishes promising that the Church “cannot-and will not-comply with this unjust law.”
Even Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who is in charge of Catholic military chaplains sent out the same letter.
But after he did, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains sent out another communication forbidding Catholic priests to read the letter, in part because it seemed to encourage civil disobedience, and could be read as seditious against the Commander-in-Chief.
More than one Catholic chaplain who spoke to us off the record confirmed that many chaplains disobeyed this instruction and read the letter anyway. Others sought further instructions from their Archbishop.
February 4, 2012 at 8:47 pm
95(98)% of Catholics use contraceptives? Who invented that lie? Do mean to tell me that the number of Catholics below the age of puberty, past the age of meopause and those who are celibate by vocation added up equals only 2-5% of the whole? Take your dishonesty someplace else!
February 4, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Mary,
My point is that Obama is like Henry VIII. Remember that Henry VIII didn't intent to make a seperate church. He just simply declared himself head if the church in England.
February 4, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Anonymous, you prove the point that this mandate is wrong. People are still using contraception, even within the Church, without this mandate. But while not paying does not force people to not use it, we should also not be forced to pay for it. Why should "free" (and note the quotes, because it's not free) contraception be a basic right?
February 5, 2012 at 1:03 am
To the Anon above who made a false dichotomy between loyalty to God (through His Church) and loyalty to the United States: there is no conflict between being a Catholic and upholding the Constitution of the U.S. Rather one complements and supports the other. It is easy for a committed Catholic to be a patriot. On the other hand, atheism and its (dis)values do not conform to the Constitution. Freedom of religion and conscience is the lynchpin of the Constitution. Compulsory purchase of insurance for what can rationally be found to be evil acts (which are the opposite of "healthcare") and which have always been held to be evil except by a very recent dissenting ideology – is unconstitutional. The deliberate killing of unborn babies, at any time from the beginning of their lives, is also unconstitutional. To uphold the SC rulings that in flagrant error, purported to permitted such killing, is to breach the Constitution.
February 5, 2012 at 1:46 am
@ANONYMOUS 2:21 Those who eat and drink the SACRED SPECIES unworthily eat and drink to their own damnation.
February 5, 2012 at 1:53 am
@Anonymous 2:45
"…we must all rally together to insure that those who work for us in government understand that WE, THEIR EMPLOYERS, will not allow this atrocity to go unchallenged"
May God have mercy on us!
from the church bulletin of Saint Mary's Star of the Sea by Father Stanislao
http://www.heavenwards.org
Tax dollars remain the possession of the taxpayer. Government constitued by its citizens can own nothing. WE, the people of the United States of America fund priests and chaplains for our men in uniform because our men in uniform serve us and require priests and chaplains. Atheists can choose to not attend, but then again, atheists have a right to choose to change their minds being mortal and in mortal danger.
February 5, 2012 at 1:58 am
@Anonymous 2:45 "WE, THEIR EMPLOYERS…" my emphasis. I reject my constituency in Obama, Pelosi and every "lying useless political hack" from: The American Catholic.
February 5, 2012 at 2:21 am
@mysterious 3:55 but Henry VIII was not a priest, could not say the Mass for his Catholic citizens and Queen Elizabeth II is a woman pope, head of the Church of England. OK Did they have to kill all the priests? The male seed takes some days to mature, two weeks is better than two days. Having intercourse everyday defeated Henry VIII's excuse for divorcing his wife Catherine, that Catherine gave him no male heir.
February 5, 2012 at 2:31 am
@Pablo the Mexican Hymens are nice for female virgins. The virginity of the soul is when the soul keeps the Word of God perfectly. About convoluted Catholic thought and heresy, "the laws of nature and nature's God" (from the Declaration of Independence) are written in every man's heart, male and female. Virgins love God.
February 5, 2012 at 2:42 am
@mysterious again: Obama is not a priest either. Obama cannot say the Catholic Mass, but Satanists say a BLACK MASS, which is a repudiation of the Word of God and the LOVE of God for humankind. Satanists defy the LOVE of God and Divine Providence. "relying on Divine Providence" from the Declaration of Independence. Obama tried to negate by omission "our Creator" and "that all men are created equal" from our founding principles, no less than three times on video. No, Obama is not a priest, Obama sets himself up as a god, with feet of clay. Does any god need our tax money? So, why does Obama take our money?
February 5, 2012 at 2:59 am
Prayer of Mary De Voe: Dear Lord and God give us statesmen.
February 5, 2012 at 3:08 am
@Anonymous 2:45 About liars:
When I lie I become a liar. When I lie under oath in a court of law I become a perjurer. When I lie under oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America I become a traitor. If I am President of the United States and I lie under oath to protect and defend the Constitution for the United States of America, I become a liar, a perjurer and a traitor. Treason by any other name is treason.
February 5, 2012 at 3:34 am
Oh…. frick….
February 5, 2012 at 3:56 pm
The Culture of Death has redefined man as having no soul, no immortal soul, no personhood, no unalienable rights, no informed consent, no will of the people, no right to petition Divine Providence for mercy and care, no constitutional posterity, no right to own property, no right to speak to God and to other persons, no right to pursue our destiny, no FREEDOM. The Culture of Death has imprisoned humankind and maintains a boot on the neck of the citizen to accept and fund through taxation its concept of totalitarianism. “cannot-and will not-comply with this unjust law.” ought to read: "will willingly and joyfully support the human being composed of body and immortal soul replete with conscience and the human freedom of conscience." "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created EQUAL" Every human being's conscience is EQUAL to Obamacare's conscience.
February 5, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Mary, you're missing the point,
Henry VIII had to pass his "act of supremacy" in which the king was made head of the church, and the church was therafter obliged to do his will, whether it was acceptable to the church or not. In his latest action, Obama has done just that. He has ordered institutions of the Catholic Church to follow his own moral guidelines instead of its own. This is not the first time he did that, just perhaps the most widely condemned.
In taking over the moral direction of the church, Henry found a goodly number of people who readily accepted it. The "English Martyrs" were a distinct minority. Why did they accept it? They accepted it because it largely fit what a great number of people wanted anyway (e.g., to loot the monasteries, to take Church lands, to remove the burdens of monastic poor relief, to divorce and remarry) and because the threat of state action kept other mouths shut. (Not all wanted to suffer More's fate, or Fisher's) Of course, not many got to loot the Church; only the privileged few.
Without being so overt about it, Obama is declaring himself (and has been doing so for some time) the "head of the (dissenting) Church in America). He makes a sickening pretense of "cooperating" with the Church as a "partner", but only on his terms. His overriding message at Notre Dame was "abortion is off the table. Now what part of my policies can we work together on?") Unfortunately, many American Catholic bought into it, and undoubtedly many still will. Obama is a "promiser" of things that don't happen, just like Henry, but people don't realize it just yet. Like Henry, he curries the greed and favor only of the great. But Obama has greatly capitalized on the terrible legacy of a generation of Catholics whose catechesis consisted solely in a watered-down version of Liberation Theology; a "theology" whose central tenet is a statism that supposedly benefits "the poor", but only serves itself. Obama is already, in some measure, the "pope" of this particular brand of Catholicism. And, he has the power of the state behind him and a hefty "stick" as well as an anemic "carrot".
February 5, 2012 at 5:07 pm
anon:(insert number here)% of catholics use contraception so blah blah blah…. 100% of catholics sin and we're not about to reform the chruch to make sin OK. The Church isn't a democracy, I think you got us confused with Luther's church.
February 5, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Next thing you know priests all over the country will need to ask the govt. first before every homily.
February 5, 2012 at 11:05 pm
95% of Roman Catholics (of age) practice or practiced birth control proving that the RCC's position on birth control is outdated, impractical and useless, and a position that only old men who will never know the love of a child, the risk of having a child, the risk of losing a child or the responsibility to care for a child.
And you are free not to be Catholic.
Birth control has destroyed sexual morality, marriage and the family. The Catholic Church's position is the one that would best serve all humanity. End of story.
February 5, 2012 at 11:48 pm
Found the stat they're going off of!
It's a CDC study:
Ever Used contraceptive methods:
Percentage of women who have ever used the specified contraceptive method, among women 15-44 who have ever had intercourse, 2002:
Any method of contraception: 98.2%
Male condom: 89.7%
Pill: 82.3%
Withdrawal: 56.1%
Female sterilization: 20.7%
Injectable contraception: 17.7%
1-month injectable (LunelleTm): 0.9%
3-month injectable (Depo-ProveraTm): 16.8%
Rhythm method: 16.2%
Male sterilization: 13.0%
While over 80% of the female population surveyed by the CDC having their hormones screwed with at one point or another is pretty freaky, it's not how it was spun in the Huff'n'Puff, who got it via the Guttmacher Institute. (They're about equally neutral, for those not familiar with one…)
Here's the abstract for the study– sorry for the huge wall'o'text.
Abstract
Objective—This report presents national estimates of contraceptive use and method choice based on the 1982, 1995, and 2002 National Surveys of Family Growth (NSFG). It also presents data on where women obtained family planning and medical services, and some of the services that they received.
Methods—Data were collected through in-person interviews with 12,571 men and women 15–44 years of age in the civilian noninstitutional population of the United States in 2002. This report is based on the sample of 7,643 women interviewed in 2002. The response rate for women in the study was about 80 percent.
Results—The leading method of contraception in the United States in 2002 was the oral contraceptive pill, used by 11.6 million women; the second leading method was female sterilization, used by 10.3 million women. The condom was the third-leading method, used by about 9 million women and their partners. The condom is the leading method at first intercourse; the pill is the leading method among women under 30; and female sterilization is the leading method among women 35 and older.
More than 98 percent of women 15–44 years of age who have ever had sexual intercourse with a male (referred to as ‘‘sexually experienced women’’) have used at least one contraceptive method. Over the 20 years from 1982 to 2002, the percent who had ever had a partner who used the male condom increased from 52 to 90 percent. The proportion who had ever had a partner who used withdrawal increased from 25 percent in 1982 to 56 percent in 2002. Another important measure of contraceptive use is use at the first premarital intercourse: before 1980, only 43 percent of women (or their partner) used a method of birth control at their first premarital intercourse. By 1999–2002, the proportion using a method at first premarital intercourse had risen to 79 percent.
A ctl-f in the write up for the CDC study found no mention of religion at all, which makes me suspect– given that they only mention it was from data from this study– that someone cooked the books and wanted to appeal to authority.
February 5, 2012 at 11:54 pm
(Incidentally, the CDC calls me up and asks about my sex life? Very unkind words to follow. I don't care if they DID include NFP in the "ever used a contraceptive method" list.)