The Blog

Generally speaking, I agree with Archbishop Chaput, who said in his book Render Unto Caesar:

If Catholic political life is dominated by bickering over who will or will not be denied Communion, the real issue will be overlooked. The real issue is this: Many of the same American Catholics who are successful, assertive and professionally well educated in their secular lives really know very little about the church, their faith, and what being “Catholic” requires. As long as that continues, we’ll have petulant clams of conscience and equally petulant demands for punishment. (p. 227)

But, I’m mad as hell and I just can’t take it anymore. For the good of souls (not the least of which being her very own), the time to hesitate on publicly acknowledging Nancy Pelosi’s excommunication is through. It is absolutely scandalous (to say the least) for this woman to continue to publicly claim to be a Catholic in good standing and then have the gall to publicly say things like this:

At a press conference, Leader Pelosi was asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD: “The Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., is a self-insured institution. Should the Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., be required to pay for these morning-after pills and birth control if they find that morally objectionable?”

Pelosi talked about the importance of women’s health, and then said, “Yes, I think that all institutions who cover, who give, health insurance should cover the full range of health insurance issues for women.”

Read more – if you can stomach it.

The very mandate that Pelosi is defending is an unprecedented assault on religious liberty in this country and every single U.S. Catholic bishop has now made some public statement condemning it. Quoting Canon lawyer Ed Peters from earlier this month:

If Pelosi’s “prolonged public conduct does not qualify as obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin,” I wrote two years ago, “then, in all sincerity, I must admit to not knowing what would constitute obstinate perseverance in manifest grave sin.”

It’s now February of 2012, and nothing in Pelosi’s conduct over the last 23 months suggests any emendation of her attitudes toward killing unborn babies, etc., etc., etc. Indeed her recent call for Catholics qua Catholics to unite behind, of all things!, President Obama’s plan to impose immoral policies on private medical insurance plans…suggests that Pelosi’s views, like Pharaoh’s heart, have only hardened with time.

You know, I used to think Pelosi was just profoundly ignorant when it came to Catholic teaching, but but at this point the woman clearly knows what the Church teaches and chooses to defy it in favor of her own false theology. In which case, it’s not so much ignorance as it is arrogance. She excommunicated herself a long time ago, it’s now time for her bishop to acknowledge it – publicly.

Pray for her – and her bishop.

Ok. That’s really all I have to say about that. If you want more, check out: Fr. Z, Ed Peters and The Crescat

Image via Fr. Z’s Can. 915 Swag – get yours today!

Today, in an address to the Italian National Association of Large Families, Pope Benedict said:

“In today’s social environment, families with many children are witnesses of faith, courage and optimism, because without children there is no future”

Hmm…I’m thinking of a song…

RIP

and another quote from BXVI’s Blessed predecessor: A people which kills its own children is a people without a future (Sept. 1996).

How Can There Be Too Many Children?

The wicked have laid a snare for me,
but I do not stray from your precepts.
-Psalm 119

Well, if Chris Matthews had me singing the Eagles the other day, the Bishops have me singing Tom Petty today:

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change.

But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.

…We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue — with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency — our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.

BOO-YAH! (read more.) Sorry, Mr. President, you can’t ‘adjust’ a mandate that you and the HHS never had the constitutional authority to make in the first place. Come on, y’all, sing it with me:

Obviously Catholics are hardest hit by this mandate, but it’s not just about Catholics or contraception. Whether you’re Catholic or atheist, pro-life or pro-choice, all freedom-loving people should be outraged by this unprecedented overreach of the federal government into the lives and the consciences of private American citizens.

Take action here!

When the defense of truth is at stake, how can one desire neither to displease God nor to clash with one’s surroundings? These two things are opposed: it is either one or the other! The sacrifice has to be a holocaust where everything is burned up, even the thought: “what will they say?”, even what we call our reputation.
~St. Josemaria, Furrow pt. 34

Must reads:
Obama’s Frightening ‘Adjustment’
‘Birth control pills don’t fall out of the sky like manna’