The Catholic vote...

will it make a difference in the election?

The average Catholic is so poorly catechized, and so steeped in Marxist "social justice" garbage, that voting for a man who is completely in favor of abortion does not even make their outrage meter wiggle. 

The bishops have taken a stand against the contraception mandate.  All well and good, except they then schizophrenically turn around and lambast Paul Ryan's budget because they think it "hurts poor people", or some darn thing. 

With the exception of those who pay attention to what is going on, which is few to none, we wonder why Catholics are confused?  On the other hand, few to none of the the general population pay any attention to what's going on either.  You see, just because we are involved in the political process (over involved to the detriment of our mental health?), the majority of Americans wander around pecking at their little screens and walking unawares into traffic.

While I generally agree with most everything Michael Voris says, and indeed, 90% of what he says in this video is correct, it sort of runs off the rails when he says the bishops need to quit fighting the HHS contraceptive battle on the grounds of religious liberty, but instead use the concept of natural law as a means of winning the argument.  Well (IMO), that bird has a broken wing.

First of all, the average person has no concept of what natural law even is, and secondly, you're having a battle with committed Marxists who don't recognize natural law - at least in the Catholic sense of natural law.  Natural law over the entire span of man, has garnered so many different definitions that it would soon devolve into an argument over what natural law even is.

Here's what I think is really going on.  Remember, this is just my opinion.  I think the bishops are counting on Obamacare being struck down by the Supremes as unconstitutional, either in part or whole, at which time the mandates become meaningless.  Voila, they look like heroes for standing up for religious freedom. 

The real question is, why is the federal government mandating to a private business what they shall pay for or provide?  Of course, the insurance company is not paying for it as I've actually heard some lefties say.  The customer, that would be you and me, will be paying for it in the form of higher premiums.  And next will be the mandate for free abortions under the guise of "women's health."   You can absolutely count on it.


  

 More:

 Hot Air:  Gallup: Catholic vote a tossup, 46/46
Renew America:  The roots of the culture war: The debate over universal law

Hey - I heard a rumor that 10's of thousands of people all over the country rallied against the HHS mandate yesterday...

surely it can't be true because NONE of the major media outlets said anything about it. 

Instead they were busy telling everyone what race-baiter extraordinaire Jesse Jackson and his race-baiting partner Obama had to say about the murder of a black man in Florida that happened four weeks ago.


Breitbart said it the loudest - the media is the enemy.  


American Thinker:   Nationwide anti-Obama rallies ignored by the media (again)

Randy's Roundtable:   The Race War


Pat Archbold:   My Son Doesn't Look Anything Like Trayvon


Ann Barnhardt's speech at the Denver rally:

Good afternoon. My name is Ann Barnhardt and I am the person who says the things that everyone else is too terrified, and too attached to earthly riches and power, to say.

Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto the Lord that which is the Lord’s.

There seems to be some confusion as to what Caesar, in the form today of Caesar Tyrannus Obama, is owed, so please permit me to clear up any confusion on the matter once and for all.

Caesar Tyrannus Obama is NOT OWED the broken bodies, decapitated heads and spilled blood of our pre-born children, even though he now demands that he be worshiped with such slaughter, and that we pay for it in a tribute attached to our now-mandatory health insurance policies and enforced by his tax collectors, or lose our earthly liberty.

Caesar Tyrannus Obama is NOT OWED our fertility and ability to transmit and propagate human life itself, even though he demands that WE PAY for foolish young women to offer up their bodies to him, both in the forms of temporary chemical sterilization OR permanent surgical sterilization.

Caesar Tyrannus Obama is NOT OWED our humanity, as he demands that we allow ourselves to be reduced to nothing more than economic units, upon which cost-benefit analyses will be calculated so that Caesar Tyrannus Obama may decide who lives and who dies, that he may rape the still-productive living and intoxicate himself on the blood of the unfit and economically burdensome dead.

Caesar Tyrannus Obama is NOT OWED our souls, as he demands that we publically renounce our Crucified Savior and enter into mortal sin by cooperating with his satanic regime. Caesar Tyrannus Obama demands that either we join him, with his master, in hell for all eternity, or we will lose our earthly possessions, our liberty, and eventually perhaps even our lives.

With all of the Christian Charity I can muster, I say this to Caesar Tyrannus Obama:

Go to hell.

Antichrists like you are owed nothing but the scathing contempt of decent human beings.

I will never comply.

I will never submit.

I will never renounce Christ.

I will never betray my Savior.

Confiscate my estate. Throw me in prison. Hang me at noon on the town square. I am not afraid, and frankly, I’d consider it an honor.

I cannot be intimidated and I cannot be coerced to violate my conscience, because I fight under the Banner of Christ.

And because I fight under the Banner of Jesus Christ, I FEAR NO MAN.

I will render unto God that which is God’s, which is everything I have and everything I am.

I can think of no greater honor than to climb up on the Cross and be crucified with Jesus at the hands of Caesar.

For what little my wretched life is worth, may the Lord accept my sacrifice at Caesar’s hands, for the praise and glory of His Name and the good of all His Church.

HAIL Christ the King!

Viva Cristo Rey!

It's not about church vs state...

it's about forcing any company to provide anything for "free."

If contraception should be "free" based on it being "preventative medicine", why am I paying for toothpaste? 


Don't let the left frame the argument as some sort of "Catholic" issue.  It's not and never really has been.  The bishops are fighting the battle on the grounds of religious freedom when they should be arguing against statism and unconstitutional mandates.

Anyone who believes Santorum is some sort of nutcase who wants to ban birth control is not paying attention.  He, like most Catholics, understands the dangers inherent in birth control, and is not afraid to express this when directly asked.  Anyone who wants to find out what those dangers are can, in this wonderful age of the internet, do their own research rather than parrot someone else's ill informed talking points.

The direct questions are going to continue, and the loony left will continue to hammer him on this issue until they have every woman in this country thinking he hates them and wants them barefoot and pregnant.  And it's working quite well.  Even so-called conservative women are picking up on this meme without doing the most rudimentary of research into what he has said and not said.

Here's the deal ladies and gents.  Want to use birth control?  Go right ahead, but don't expect Santorum, or anyone else who has studied the subject, to say something that isn't true about the glories of birth control.  And don't expect it to be "free." 

Peter Schiff nails it again. The economics and insanity of "free" birth control.



More:

Nice Deb:   Video: That’s It – No More Public Funding for Planned Parenthood! 
This is shocking and disgusting

Camp of the Saints:   Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

and earns the coveted Quote of the Day

We, the defenders of Western Civilization, do ourselves no good by letting ourselves get bogged down in just a ‘facet’ of the war we are waging. The Left wants us to concentrate on only one front in a world-wide war, to develop tunnel vision, so that we will concentrate all of our forces in one area while they run rampant in all the others.

Also: the Left wants nothing more than to make this ‘a Catholic thing’ because it will discourage many to take up the fight who feel that this battle does not concern them and because it will discourage those who fear Papism from realizing they have a stake in this battle.

First, they came for The Catholics…

Keep your eyes on the Leftist Prize: they want us to be beholden to them for all of our rights, to stop believing that we are endowed by The Creator with certain inalienable rights.  read the entire post.  It's excellent.

Want something for "free?"  Here ya go...

Are we living in the garden of beasts?...

 I believe we are.

A few days ago I finished Erik Larson's astoundingly wonderful book, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. 

What I found most chilling was the way life for most of the people in Berlin during the early years of Hitler (1933/1934) appeared normal.  There was an unawareness of the machinations of the political elite.  The book ends at the Night of the Long Knives and the subsequent death of President Hindenburg leading to Hitler's absolute control.


What is even more chilling is the fact that we have a country full of people who are as unaware as the Germans were during the rise of Hitler.   The difference is we have alternate news outlets that continually trumpet the truth and sound the alarm.  


While the Germans can be excused on the basis of ignorance and propaganda, what are we to make of the citizens of this country who turn their back on the warnings?  Are these the same people who say, "It could never happen again," when referring to Hitler's Germany?  Newsflash:  It can happen again.  It's happening right now.  If that's not chilling, I don't know what is. 




Steve McCann at American Thinker:

Barack Obama: In the Footsteps of Twentieth Century Despots

How many times will the American people have to be hit over the head before they understand that Barack Obama is the most corrupt, dictatorial, and ideologically driven president in American history?  That his entire being and psyche are devoted to transforming the country not only into a socialist utopia, but into a nation permanently governed by a radical oligarchy?

This mindset has been on display since the beginning of Obama's term, as detailed by David Limbaugh in his book, Crimes Against Liberty.  Yet so many seem to not care or are deliberately oblivious to the long-term implications of his actions, many of which mirror those of the despots that ran roughshod over the last century.  read the rest

More:

Keith Koffler at Politico: Obama's high price for birth control

Cardinal Roger Mahony:   JUST A MINUTE, MR. PRESIDENT!

InfoWars:   Obama To Unleash “Truth Teams” To Counter Negative Coverage

Nice Deb:   Sic Obama’s “Truth Teams” on Team Obama

Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia speaks out...

in his usual no-nonsense way.

From this Sunday's edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

(Emphasis mine)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) refused on January 20 to broaden the exception to its mandate that nearly all Catholic employers must cover contraception, abortifacients and sterilization in their health care plans.

An "accommodation" offered Friday by the White House did not solve the problem. Instead, it triggered withering criticism from legal scholars like Notre Dame’s Carter Snead, Harvard’s Mary Ann Glendon, Princeton’s Robert George and Catholic University of America president John Garvey, along with non-Catholic scholars like Yuval Levin, the religious liberty law firm The Becket Fund and numerous Catholic and other organizations.

Many Catholics are confused and angry. They should be.

Quite a few Catholics supported President Obama in the last election, so the ironies here are bitter. Many feel betrayed. They’re baffled that the Obama administration would seek to coerce Catholic employers, private and corporate, to violate their religious convictions.

But it’s clear that such actions are developing into a pattern. Whether it was the administration's early shift toward the anemic language of "freedom of worship" instead of the more historically grounded and robust concept of "freedom of religion" in key diplomatic discussions; or its troubling effort to regulate religious ministers recently rejected 9-0 by the Supreme Court in the Hosanna Tabor case; or the revocation of the U.S. bishops’ conference human trafficking grant for refusing to refer rape victims to abortion clinics, it seems obvious that this administration is -- to put it generously -- tone deaf to people of faith.

Philadelphians may wish to reflect on the following facts. The Archdiocesan Secretariat for Catholic Human Services spends $278,000,000 annually on services to the community. About 4,000 employees comprise our Secretariat’s work force. Catholic Social Services is the largest social service agency in Pennsylvania and the largest residential care/social service sub-contractor with the Department of Human Services of the City of Philadelphia.

There’s more. Archdiocesan Catholic Health Care Services is the largest faith-based provider of long-term-care services to the poor and elderly in the five-county area, and the seventh-largest nationally. And our Nutritional Development Services ministry serves more than 8 million meals a year to school children, summer programs and child care centers. It also provides 2 million pounds of non-perishable food to needy families and the elderly through its Community Food Program.

Much of the money used by these ministries comes from public funding. But of course, the reason these ministries are trusted with public funding is that they do an excellent job. The service relationship works well without compromising the integrity of either the government or the Church. In fact, in a practical sense, government often benefits more than the Church.

It’s also important to note that many millions of the dollars disbursed are resources directly donated by faithful Catholics to carry out their Gospel mission to serve the needy. For the Church, this makes perfect sense: As a believing community, we share our resources freely and gladly. We’ll cooperate with anyone in service to the common good, so long as we are not forced to compromise our religious beliefs.

But the HHS mandate, including its latest variant, are belligerent, unnecessary and deeply offensive to the content of Catholic belief. Any such mandate would make it morally compromising for us to provide health care benefits to the staffing of our public service ministries. Moreover, we cannot afford to be fooled -- yet again -- by evasive and misleading allusions to the administration’s alleged "flexibility" on such issues. The HHS mandate needs to be rescinded.

Many critics are focusing on the details of this or that particular version of the HHS regulation -- the narrowness of the religious exemption, the breadth of the mandate, the hollowness of the grace period. As useful as this approach may be, it risks wandering into the weeds. The White House response on these points is ambiguous and weak. The true magnitude of the issue is getting lost as just another debate about details.

In reality, no similarly aggressive attack on religious freedom in our country has occurred in recent memory.

The current administration prides itself on being measured and deliberate. The current HHS mandate needs to be understood as exactly that. Commentators are using words like "gaffe," "ill conceived," and "mistake" to describe the mandate. They’re wrong. It’s impossible to see this regulation as some happenstance policy. It has been too long in the making.

Despite all of its public apprehension about "culture warriors" on the political right in the past, the current administration has created an HHS mandate that is the embodiment of culture war. At its heart is a seemingly deep distrust of the formative role religious faith has on personal and social conduct, and a deep distaste for religion’s moral influence on public affairs. To say that this view is contrary to the Founders’ thinking and the record of American history would be an understatement.

Critics may characterize my words here as partisan or political. These are my personal views, and of course people are free to disagree. But it is this administration -- not Catholic ministries or institutions or bishops -- that chose the timing and nature of the fight. The onus is entirely on the White House, which also has the power to remove the issue from public conflict. Catholics should not be misled into accepting feeble compromises on issues of principle. The HHS mandate is bad law; and not merely bad, but dangerous and insulting. It needs to be withdrawn -- now.

It's time for the Catholic bishops to make public statements about Sebelius, Pelosi...

and all the rest of the rogue "Catholic" politicians who continue to call themselves Catholic while defying the teachings of the Church. 

To not do so is doing great harm to their credibility. 


Courageously Catholic in the public square
By Judie Brown

There is something intriguing and, at the same time, troubling about the upheaval being created by the Obama administration's dictate regarding religious institutions and the right of conscience. The problem is not so much what Obama has done, but what Catholics are confronted with as a result. Let me be clear. The various bishops who have made statements in opposition to what Obama has done are to be commended. They have decried the arrogance of an administration that literally wants to spit in the face of Christ and His Church.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, for example, says that the Obama administration has revoked the religious freedom of groups that do not regard women's fertility as a "disease." Indeed, this is true.

But when you peel away the layers of righteous indignation, we find a gruesome layer of facts that is being covered over and is not likely to be exposed by the very bishops who are uttering powerful words in defense of conscience. The bishops, as a body of religious leaders, consistently fail to act on their own words — and that will be the downfall of their recent pontificating.  read the rest

More:  

Philothea on Phire:    Priests Preaching the Truth

Pundette:   That Catholic thing again

Catholics are being scammed...

and so is everyone else.

Watching all this hysteria over the HHS mandate can become a little bewildering.  First off, if the bishops had done the job of teaching that their position in the Church requires, Obama wouldn't be President.  It's as simple as that. Then they supported Obamacare as a "right" to promote their Marxist social justice and didn't even make this big of a clamor over the abortion provision.  What's up with that?

Allow me to repeat (and repeat, and repeat) - the issue is this: why is the federal government mandating anything about someone's private health plan?  And for all those "Catholics" demanding that your religious employer provide for contraception?  How about this?  They don't have to provide any insurance at all.  They choose to do that.

A right to "free" contraception?  Guess what?  Your rights stop where mine start.  I have a right not to pay for your life-style drugs of choice.  I don't care what company or church is providing them.  It's as simple as that. 

Which brings us back to this: with all this arguing about contraception, we're losing the main issue.  Insurance should belong to the individual and not doled out by an employer. 

So, how are we being scammed?  This screeching will go on awhile longer, and then this immoral and corrupt administration will do some sort of reversal.  Then all the happy-clappy crowd in the Church can feel good about voting for Obama again, not that this was likely to stop them anyway, and the Obama worshipers can bow down once again to their 'dear leader."  

Here's the only thing Obama has accomplished besides spending boat loads of taxpayer money.

He has:

• turned black against white
• rich against poor
• young against old
• and now he's dividing the Catholic Church

Good work Obama and all the rest of your evil minions doing the work of the devil.

More:  

Pundette:   Rant on HHS mandate