Tag Archives: Catholic Bishops

Catholic universities offer support to Boston College on condom giveaway stance

Boston College is getting support from prominent Catholic universities in its efforts to stop a student group from giving away condoms on campus.

According to the Boston Globe, officials at Catholic colleges and universities – including Notre Dame, Georgetown and Catholic University – say their policies are similar to that of Boston College, which threatened disciplinary action against students distributing condoms on school grounds.

“One of the teachings of our faith is that contraception is morally unacceptable,” Victor Nakas, a spokesman for Catholic University, told the paper. “Since condoms are a form of contraception, we do not permit their distribution on campus.”

A letter sent by Boston College telling on-campus groups they could face disciplinary action for a condom giveaway provoked angry reactions from students, and the American Civil Liberties Union said it might pursue legal action.

BC is saying that they’re a private university, so we can do what we want,” said Sarah Wunsch, staff lawyer at the ­ACLU of Massachusetts. “But that’s actually not true.”

According to the Globe, Wunsch cited the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act of 1979, which prohibits interference with civil rights by private as well as public entities. She cited a court case lost by Boston University in the 1980s after the insti­tution attempted to force students to remove an antiapartheid poster from their dorm windows. In that case, the judge ruled that the state Civil Rights Act protected the free speech rights of the students, even though they attended a private school.

Most Catholic universities agree when it comes to distributing contraception on campus, said Michael Galligan-Stierle, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Galligan-Stierle said Catholic educational institutions follow John Paul II’s “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” a document he issued on church principles in 1990. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a US-specific interpretation of John Paul‘s document in 2001.

“There are certain ways of living that we, Catholics, believe lead to a healthier and holier life,” Galligan-Stierle said, according to the Globe. “This falls into one of many of those ways.”

Click for the full story from the Boston Globe

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Leftist Prayers For A Red Pope Dashed

By Cliff Kincaid

Pope Francis SC Leftist Prayers for a Red Pope Dashed

Tuesday night’s NBC News story, “America’s Hopes for a New Pope,” was typical of how the liberal media tried to force the Roman Catholic Church further to the left. The tone of the coverage was that the Catholic Church, in picking a new pope, had to make peace with “diversity”—liberals, feminists, and homosexuals demanding state recognition of “gay marriage” in the United States.

With the selection of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, the liberals have lost out. He opposes abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality. A Catholic insider tells me, “Looks like we might have ourselves a relatively conservative new pope. He appears to be opposed to liberation theology and doesn’t approach ‘social justice’ from the political end.” The latter means that while he is an advocate of helping the poor, he doesn’t believe this should be done through state socialist schemes.

Liberal and “progressive” websites are already attacking the first Latin American pope as someone who may have a “dark past” and be linked to the Argentine military during the “dirty war” against the communists. The accusations, which have now been picked up by the Associated Press, show the bitterness of the left, as their hopes were dashed of a “Red Pope.”

Mark Engler, a leftist writer, had promoted another candidate, Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, as having “significant progressive bona fides” and noted that he was “a personal friend of former Brazilian president and Worker’s Party leader Lula da Silva.” The Worker’s Party is a Marxist political organization in Brazil, and Lula was a personal friend of Fidel Castro as well. Critics say that Hummes “supported communist strikes” and allowed Lula “to make political speeches during his Masses.” In 1990, after the demise of the old Soviet Union, Lula facilitated the holding of a conference in São Paolo, Brazil, bringing together the communist and leftist parties and guerilla movements of the continent, which came to be known as the São Paulo Forum. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, the current Brazilian President, is a former communist guerrilla leader.

“Hummes would open the door for the revival of social justice ministry in the Catholic Church,” Engler had written. Of course, “social justice” is already a theme of many of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, who have funded liberal projects with parishioners’ money through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) for decades, enraging conservative Catholics in the process. It was a CCHD project that helped train Barack Obama as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago. These schemes are ways to attain political power, and they have paid off well for Obama and his associates but not for the poor people they were supposedly intended to help.

In a 2005 story, “Champion of Workers and the Poor,” The Washington Post noted that Hummes had emerged as “a critic of the U.S.-backed free-market policies that were adopted in much of Latin America.” In other words, he helped pave the way for leaders such as Marxist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who clutched a crucifix …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Latin America sees change under region's 1st pope

The famous words uttered to announce that a leader of the Catholic Church has been chosen now have special resonance for Latin America, which had felt neglected by the Vatican and has finally produced the New World‘s first pope.

“”Habemus Papam.’ ‘WE have a pope,'” said Tom Quigley, former policy adviser on Latin American and Caribbean affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “This will instill a sense of pride and happiness and will have a very positive effect.”

The selection of former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as pope is already energizing the world’s most Catholic continent, which has been rapidly losing its faithful.

Many hope Pope Francis will bring a familiar cultural warmth, while pushing the church to address a divisive gap between rich and poor in the region. He is also seen as someone who could bridge Latin America‘s left-right political split as a conservative devoted to fighting poverty and not afraid to speak out against the hierarchy.

But first, the papacy of Francis is being seen as an overdue acknowledgement of the home of 40 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics that felt distant from former Pope Benedict XVI.

“It’s a recognition of the millions of Spanish-speaking faithful who belong to the church,” said Salvadoran President Mario Funes.

Almost everything about Pope Francis suggests a shift from Benedict, his reserved academic predecessor, who put his focus on saving Europe and was criticized for waiting seven years before visiting Spanish-speaking Latin America on a trip last year to Mexico and Cuba.

The new pope picked a name that has never been used, an apparent reference to a humble friar who dedicated his life to helping the poor. He comes from an order, the Jesuits, that had never produced a pope. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

“For me it’s a sign from God, who is inviting us to commit ourselves to a continental mission,” said Bishop Eugenio Lira, secretary-general of the Mexican Conference of Bishops. “He will imprint his Latin American personality … He knows the joys, the pains, the problems and the opportunities of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean and that will create a very close relationship.”

Latin America, with roughly 600 million people, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

NY Cardinal Dolan a 'happy warrior' for church

Challenging a White House mandate for birth control coverage in health insurance, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan sounded like a general rallying the troops.

“The only thing we’re certainly not prepared to do is give in,” Dolan said at a national bishops’ meeting last November. “We’re not violating our consciences.”

Weeks earlier, he had appeared in a far less formal setting, at New York’s Fordham University with comedian Stephen Colbert. From the 3,000 cheering audience members, one student considering the priesthood asked whether he should date. Dolan said it could help decide the right path, then quipped, “By the way, let me give you the phone numbers of my nieces.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: As the Roman Catholic Church prepares to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, The Associated Press is profiling key cardinals seen as “papabili” — contenders to the throne. In the secretive world of the Vatican, there is no way to know who is in the running, and history has yielded plenty of surprises. But these are the names that have come up time and again in speculation. Today: Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

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Catholic News Service calls him a happy warrior for evangelization. Kean University historian Christopher Bellitto calls him the bear-hug bishop. Dolan, 63, is an upbeat, affable defender of Catholic orthodoxy, and a well-known religious figure in the United States.

He holds a job Pope John Paul II once called “archbishop of the capital of the world.” His colleagues broke with protocol in 2010 and made him president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, instead of elevating the sitting vice president as expected. And during the 2012 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats competed over which national political convention the cardinal would bless. He did both.

But scholars question whether his charisma and experience are enough for a real shot at succeeding Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. The thinking ahead of the conclave is Dolan’s chances are slim.

“It’s not a personal attack on his qualities as a cardinal or individual,” said Monsignor Michael Fahey, a scholar at Fairfield University in Conn. “Cardinal Dolan has a knack for getting people to feel relaxed and to laugh and to expect the unexpected, but that is not what the church needs right now.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

God For Obamacare … Dr. Ben Carson’s Heresy

By Paul G. Kengor

Ben Carson 2 SC God for Obamacare … Dr. Ben Carsons Heresy

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.

Liberals are apoplectic over remarks by Dr. Ben Carson at the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson, a prominent pediatric surgeon from Johns Hopkins University, dared to weigh in on healthcare—something he knows something about. In the liberal mind, Carson committed a grave transgression; he disagreed with President Obama on healthcare at a faith venue, and in Obama’s presence.

In discussing Carson’s moral effrontery, Candy Crowley, host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” asked panelists if they were offended by Carson’s comments. “He [Carson] was talking about the idea of, you know, weaving the Bible into some objections he appears to have with the president’s approach,”said Crowley. Count Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky among the offended. She told Crowley: “I think it’s … not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech and to invoke God as his [Carson’s] support for that kind of point of view.”

In truth, what the likes of Crowley and Schakowsky object to is the mere fact that Carson publicly disagreed with Obama on healthcare, especially in the context of faith. For liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans should never use their faith to disagree; only liberal Democrats enjoy such freedoms. I could give a thousand examples illustrating the point; I’ve written entire books doing so. For now, however, here are some particularly salient examples involving Obama, liberals, and healthcare reform:

From the first year of Obama’s presidency, the religious left (Obama included) incessantly claimed God’s support for their vision of healthcare reform.

In August 2009, Obama addressed a “virtual gathering” of 140,000 religious left individuals—a huge conference call to liberal Christians, Jews, and other people of faith. Obama told them he was “going to need your help” in passing healthcare. Obama penitently invoked a period of “40 days,” a trial of deliverance from conservative evildoers. He lifted up the brethren, assuring them “We are God’s partner in matters of life and death.”

Like a great commissioning, in the 40 days that followed, the religious left was filled with the spirit. A group called the Religious Institute—led by Rev. Debra Hafner and representing 4,800 clergy—went wild stumping for Obamacare. Other religious left faithful joined the crusade.

A group of 59 leftist nuns sent Congress a letter urging passage of Obamacare. This was in direct defiance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which insisted the bill “must be opposed” because of its refusal to explicitly ban abortion funding. The liberal media cheered on the nuns, gleefully exaggerating their influence. In a breathtaking display, the Los Angeles Times beamed: “Nuns’ support for health-care bill shows [Catholic] Church split.” Amazingly, the Times reported that the nuns’ letter represented not 59 nuns—but 59,000! Like Jesus with the loaves, the Times (normally militantly secular) had demonstrated miraculous powers of multiplication.

The nuns’ brazenness was matched by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Roman Catholic, who, in March 2010, invoked the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph on behalf of Obamacare. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Pope’s Possible Successor Promotes Marxist For Sainthood

By Cliff Kincaid

DolanObama Pope’s Possible Successor Promotes Marxist for Sainthood

American Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, reported to be in the running to replace Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is usually described as a “conservative” because he has strongly criticized President Obama’s attacks on religious liberty and federal intrusions into church affairs. But Dolan is also the leader of the campaign to promote Marxist Dorothy Day for Sainthood.

One report asks, “Could Timothy Dolan Become The First American Pope?” Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB,) is considered the voice of U.S. Catholicism.

But Carol Byrne, author of The Catholic Worker Movement (1933-1980): A Critical Analysis, says Dolan manipulated a vote by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops last November to move forward with the canonization of Dorothy Day, even though The New York Times itself noted that some of the Bishops said “she had an abortion as a young woman and at one point flirted with joining the Communist Party.”

The Times story was headlined: “In Hero of the Catholic Left, a Conservative Cardinal Sees a Saint.” Day, a major figure in the “Catholic Worker” movement, died in 1980.

In a letter obtained by this journalist, Virginia State Senator Richard H. “Dick” Black was so disgusted by the push for sainthood for Dorothy Day that he told the Pope on January 7, 2013, that he was “appalled” that “a woman of such loathsome character” would be considered for sainthood.

Black, a retired Marine Corps colonel, noted that “Vatican archives are filled with reports of Christians martyred under the regimes that Dorothy Day supported. I am revolted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ support for the canonization of a woman whose views supported the violent extermination of Christians throughout the world. I ask that these matters be carefully weighed so that the Holy See will not be inadvertently misled when considering the canonization of Dorothy Day.”

As a Marine pilot, Black fought the communists. He flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam and was wounded during fierce ground fighting with the 1st Marine Regiment.

“I am particularly concerned about her support for Ho Chi Minh,” Black said in his letter. He said that he had recently hosted a group of 12 Vietnamese men, each of whom served as senior officials in the Free Republic of Vietnam during the time when the North Vietnamese Communists overwhelmed Saigon in 1975. “Six of them were imprisoned in concentration camps no less severe than those of the Nazis in Germany,” he explained.

Regarding Dorothy Day’s “flirtation” with the Communist Party, as the Times put it, Carol Byrne told this journalist, “…I have provided proof, drawn from archival evidence and other authentic sources, that even after her conversion to Catholicism, Day became a member of several socialist organizations and was actively involved in political groups (including trade unions) whose founders and leaders were predominantly Communist Party members. She also supported the causes of individual Communists who were in the pay of the Soviet Union.”

Byrne went on, “This must be considered …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Catholic Bishops on New Contraception Deal: Still No

By Matt Cantor With Catholic bishops opposed to an ObamaCare mandate on contraception, the White House recently moved to change the rule —but the new package hasn’t satisfied the religious leaders, the New York Times reports. The deal would allow women employed by a religiously-affiliated employer, such as a Catholic hospital, to get… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Health

Bishops press for broader birth control exemption

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops say the Obama administration’s compromise plan for religious employers and birth control coverage doesn’t go far enough.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Thursday it wants a bigger buffer between religious charities and any third party arranging contraceptive coverage. The bishops also want a clearer statement that faith-affiliated hospitals and other nonprofits are religious ministries.

Church leaders made the comments a week after the Health and Human Services Department announced its latest revised plan for contraceptive coverage, part of President Barack Obama‘s health care overhaul. Religious groups have been pressing for a year for a wider exemption.

The rule is the target of dozens of lawsuits by religious groups and owners of for-profit businesses who say the rule violates their religious beliefs.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Louisiana bishops seek to stop Ash Wednesday execution

The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops is asking Gov. Bobby Jindal to halt a state execution planned for the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday.

Christopher Sepulvado is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Feb. 13 for the beating and scalding death of his 6-year-old stepson two decades ago.

The bishops group, which represents the seven Catholic dioceses of Louisiana, says the execution at the start of the somber Christian season of Lent “would be inconsistent with the Lenten call for reconciliation and redemption and an unnecessary tragic irony.”

Jindal’s office didn’t immediately respond Tuesday about whether the governor, who is Catholic, will consider the bishops’ request.

Sepulvado’s lawyers have asked a judge to stop the execution, claiming lack of information about what drug combination the state will use.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Andrew Cuomo’s Abortion Push Could Close Catholic Hospitals

By Breaking News

Abortion is murder Andrew Cuomo’s Abortion Push Could Close Catholic Hospitals

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is flexing his political muscle to give abortion advocates their biggest state victory in 40 years since Roe v. Wade: a sweeping expansion of abortion law that, if enforced, could put Catholic hospitals and many state-funded ministries out of business.

Cuomo’s approval ratings have topped 70% for six straight months, and, with just two years in office, he has already pushed through controversial same-sex “marriage” legislation and the most restrictive gun-control law in the nation.

Cuomo, who is Catholic, now is setting his sights on succeeding where governors for the past six years have failed: passing the proposed Reproductive Health Care Act.

But Cuomo has included the act as part of his 10-point “women’s equality” agenda, which includes a raise in the minimum wage, tougher anti-housing discrimination laws and measures against domestic violence and sex-trafficking.

Catholic bishops in New York’s Catholic Conference and pro-life groups are raising the alarm that Cuomo’s proposals are both “radical” and “dangerous” to unborn children, women and religious freedom.
“Gov. Cuomo’s bill elevates abortion to a fundamental right and says New York state can’t discriminate on abortion in benefits or services or anything else it provides,” said Kathleen Gallagher, the conference’s director of pro-life activities.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism