"I Am A Son of the Church": Pope Francis on Liturgy, Faith and Morals

Pope Francis shouldn't be making any of the liturgical traditionalists nervous. Not after this quote.  Excerpts:

...In the Orthodox Churches, they have retained that pristine liturgy, which is so beautiful. We have lost some of the sense of adoration. The Orthodox preserved it; they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time does not matter. God is at the centre, and I would like to say, as you ask me this question, that this is a richness. Once, speaking of the Western Church, of Western Europe, especially the older Church, they said this phrase to me: Lux ex oriente, ex occidente luxus. Consumerism, comfort, they have done such harm. Instead, you retain this beauty of God in the centre, the reference point. When reading Dostoevsky – I believe that for all of us he is an author that we must read and reread due to his wisdom – one senses what the Russian soul is, what the eastern soul is. It is something that does us much good. We need this renewal, this fresh air from the East, this light from the East. John Paul II wrote about this in his Letter. But many times the luxus of the West makes us lose this horizon. I don’t know, but these are the thoughts that come to me. Thank you...

And if you were wondering if he'd be changing doctrine any time soon, well:

...Patricia Zorzan:

Speaking on behalf of the Brazilians: society has changed, young people have changed, and in Brazil we have seen a great many young people. You did not speak about abortion, about same-sex marriage. In Brazil a law has been approved which widens the right to abortion and permits marriage between people of the same sex. Why did you not speak about this?

Pope Francis:

The Church has already spoken quite clearly on this. It was unnecessary to return to it, just as I didn’t speak about cheating, lying, or other matters on which the Church has a clear teaching!

Patricia Zorzan:

But the young are interested in this ...

Pope Francis:

Yes, though it wasn’t necessary to speak of it, but rather of the positive things that open up the path to young people. Isn’t that right! Besides, young people know perfectly well what the Church’s position is.

Patricia Zorzan:

What is Your Holiness’ position, if we may ask?

Pope Francis:

The position of the Church. I am a son of the Church...

Religious Freedom, HHS Mandate, and The Future in America

Kathryn Jean Lopez spells it out for you. Excerpts:

...On Wednesday, President Obama said that “maintaining our nation’s commitment to religious freedom is also vital.” He said that: “How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions. Nothing about this decision – which applies only to civil marriages – changes that.” Forgive me for having very little confidence on this front, given this continuing HHS mandate charade. A priest on a secular campus, even if employed by a Catholic diocese, will likely have some legal trouble in his future, the way this is all going. (And we’ve already seen hints of the cultural posture that will lead there. And don’t expect retreat centers to be safe, either.)

The administration’s position in this abortion/contraception/sterilization HHS mandate controversy appears to be, and consistently, since January 2012, and the summer before and in the roots of the regulation in an abortion-industry dream of a panel: Women’s health and freedom absolutely, fundamentally requires ready and covered access to abortion and contraception and sterilization (sorry, guys, you’re not covered). Religious folk with objections are wrong, and we’ll pretend to let them off the hook with a little sliding of the hand, but they’ve got to get their employees to abortion-pill and contraception coverage, because that’s good and their teachings aren’t.

Conveniently brought to you by the graduate of a Catholic college as HHS secretary ….

“The fundamental problem here is that the government has no business deciding who is religious enough to qualify for their exemption,” Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, who has sponsored conscience-protection legislation in the House (first introduced before this HHS mandate controversy blew up), tells National Review Online in response to today’s rule finalization. ”This is a matter of deeply-held principle, the right of conscience, and religious freedom. The government should be upholding these essential rights, not coercing people to act against them.”

But here we are. Employers with religious objections to abortion, contraception, sterilization have no religious-freedom claim in the eyes of the Obama administration, despite pleas, despite good-faith discussions, despite assurances by the administration...

The Nature and Mission of Catholic Universities: According to Pope Benedict

A review of what sounds like an interesting book brought up some interesting historical notes. Excerpts:

...[A] revolution took place in 1967 that changed Catholic higher education radically, but we hope not forever. It was known as the Land O’ Lakes Conference, for that is where a group of Catholic college presidents and academics undertook a revolution in Catholic education that hopefully will someday (soon) be rolled back.

The Land O’ Lakes document began this way:

“The Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern sense of the word, with a strong commitment to and concern for academic excellence. To perform its teaching and research functions effectively, the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself. To say this is simply to assert that institutional autonomy and academic freedom are essential conditions of life and growth and indeed of survival for Catholic universities, as for all universities.”

Now compare this with Pope Benedict’s address to Catholic educators at Catholic University in Washington on April 17, 2008:

“It is the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university’s freedom and identity and mission: a mission at the heart of the Church’s munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it...”

I simply don't understand the basic premise of the Land O' Lakes document. "[T]he Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself." Authority of whatever kind? Really. And yet they don't complain about accrediting organizations, like the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, or even the most basic accreditors of colleges. But perhaps they would argue that such organizations speak from within academia, and as such cannot conceivably violate academic freedom. They maintain academic standards, right? They make sure the unqualified are not admitted to the hallowed halls of academe. They, in fact, test for the right teaching of the professors at a university. They check them for academic orthodoxy.

Why is it a problem for the Church to regulate the teachings of her theologians again? 

More from the review:

...I found most interesting those talks in England, on the occasion of his trip to beatify Blessed John Henry Newman, with whom Pope Benedict had a special relation as a fellow theologian. In his homily, Pope Benedict used Blessed John Henry’s own words to describe the goal of Catholic university professors:

“I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious — but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it...”

What Difference Did Roe Make?

Mark Steyn talks Gosnell back in February 2011. Many links and graphic details in original.  Excerpts:

With Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting child prostitution, my friend Rich Lowry argued that the back alley is back:

Legal abortion was supposed to end "back-alley abortions," both their dangers and their entanglements with shady characters. But the practice and the mores of the back alley are with us still, tolerated by people for whom the ready provision of abortion trumps all else.

Rich is right. Ever since Roe v Wade, proponents of a woman's "right to choose" have warned us against going back to the bad old days of rusty coat hangers and unsterilized instruments from money-grubbing butchers on the wrong side of town. Now, happily, the back alley is on the main drag, and with a state permit framed on the wall...

For years, the supposed regulators averted their gaze - as a matter of policy. For abortion's ideological enforcers, the official euphemisms trump reality. For those on the receiving end of infection, mutilation, sterilization and death, reality has a way of intruding...

The back alley is back, and supersized: The above New Jersey clinic performs 10,000 abortions a year. When the pro-choice rally ends and Cameron Diaz, Ashley Judd and other celebrities d'un certain age return to Hollywood, and the upper-middle-class women with the one designer baby go back to their suburbs, a woman's "right to choose" means that, day in, day out, the blessings of this "right" fall disproportionately on all the identity groups the upscale liberals profess to care about - poor women, black women, Hispanic women, undocumented women, and other denizens of Big Government's back alley.

A government back alley, licensed and supposedly regulated, is worse than the old kind, because it implies the approval of the state, and of society. That's what Gosnell thought he had, when he murdered those babies and mutilated those teenage girls. That's what Planned Parenthood think they have, when they facilitate the sexual exploitation of Third World children. And, given the silence of the PC media, maybe they're right. Aside from the intrinsic evil of not only Gosnell but a state that knowingly colludes with him, these "little" abortion stories reveal an almost totalitarian mindset in the "pro-choice" movement's determination to brook no intrusion of reality upon the official myths. You may be one of those wealthy suburban "feminists" or "new men" indifferent to the fate of eight-pound "blobs of tissue" or 14-year old "women", but the gulf between propaganda and truth, between the fatuous feelgood bumper stickers and the rusty crochet hooks, is profound - and, in a world where statists and social engineers serve as ruthless enforcers for the prevailing ideology, its deep moral corruption will eventually swallow you, too. America should be at the very minimum deeply disquieted by these revelations. That it is not - that it is dismissed as a "little thing" - is even more disquieting.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL, once discussed the reason why abortion tends to attract the worst doctors--why the Gosnell case is unlikely to be the last such.  He listed a number of reasons, both personal and professional, including the technical ease of the procedure, the distaste amongst many younger physicians who'd rather not perform it, the effect of ultrasound on people who could now see what it was that they were killing, and the high profits to be made by those willing to perform abortions quickly.  Gosnell is not alone.  Update:  Gosnell is not alone.

If these conditions are persisting, even after abortion is legalized, we need to start asking whether illegal abortions were awful because desperate women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the illegal for money, or whether they were awful because women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the unthinkable for money.

Gosnell Coverage, Clinic Regulation, and the Pro-Life Movement

"The picture above, for what it’s worth, is of the reserved media seats at the Gosnell trial. It was taken by JD Mullane, a news writer and columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, The Intel and the Burlington County (NJ) Times. He says:
Sat through a full day of testimony at the Kermitt Gosnell trial today. It is beyond the most morbid Hollywood horror. It will change you.
I was surprised by the picture and asked 'really?' He responded 'Local press was there, Inky, PhillyMag, NBC10 blogger. Court staff told me nobody else has shown up.'"--GetReligion

Well, coverage is finally picking up, compared to the early days of the trial (see picture of an empty press section above).  A friend recently raised the following concern:

One week ago, clinic regulation represented a political compromise, a half-measure of a defeated movement. Today, discussing regulation would be surrendering on the verge of a route. Admit it, both "sides" used regulation tactically--it is no one's goal, nor should it be. But the value of the tactic has now increased exponentially for one side, and could accomplish its critical need to weather this unprecedented storm.

I think this piece answers that concern quite well. Excerpts:

...Normally, like a game, the media will only admit to this kind of oversight long after it is too late to do anything about it. Worse still, the admission of the mistake is generally just a convenient excuse for the media to talk about their favorite subject -- themselves.

That doesn’t appear to be the case this time. Last night on CNN, Jake Tapper (one of the few who had already covered Gosnell), Erin Burnett, and Anderson Cooper devoted extensive time to the story. And as you can see above, the media are promising to do more next week than just navel gaze.

And I for one am very grateful for that, because even marginally bad coverage, like what we saw from CNN's Erin Burnett last night, is a win. (Anderson Cooper's segment was flat-out outstanding and a must-watch.)

Regardless, let the left-wing media spin the Gosnell horrors into a pro-choice argument for safer abortion clinics. As someone who considers abortion a moral abomination, as long as it is legal, I don't want to see that abomination made worse with unsafe clinics and the horrific exploitation of desperate women.

But that is the worse-case scenario (which is still a plus). What is also likely to happen is an increased  public knowledge of the act of outright infanticide known as partial-birth abortion. For over a decade now, the media has tried to turn that horror into a "right-wing myth." But now we not only have an example of a doctor eagerly engaged and made wealthy by the practice, but other doctors referring patients to him.

New Media has a responsibility now, as well. We need to use this opportunity to do our own reporting on Gosnell, not just to peck away at the mainstream media for not covering the story in the way we would like...

More shame-faced acknowledgements that the story deserves coverage from Bloomberg and Politico.  My main post on the case.  And we need to keep asking:

If these conditions are persisting, even after abortion is legalized, we need to start asking whether illegal abortions were awful because desperate women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the illegal for money, or whether they were awful because women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the unthinkable for money.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, and the Low Quality of Abortion Doctors

Warning: graphic images and descriptions.

3801 Lancaster from 3801Lancaster on Vimeo.

So there's finally beginning to be a rumpus about the Kermit Gosnell trial, than which a more perfect storm of horrors could not be imagined.  (Update:  The grand jury report here.)

Elizabeth Scalia points out avenues in for media coverage and calls on Christians to seize the moment in a Gospel fashion. Excerpts:

...Embracing this moment with a Christlike heart and mind means no hateful postings on Facebook. No hashtags on twitter meant to insult, demean or cast down. Try #pro-abortion instead of #pro-murder.

Let me put it another way: if you’re a Christian who hates abortion and you see a sliver of light in this 40 years of darkness — which is exactly what this hushed admission from the press might be — and you repel the light with your anger instead of widening it (and its pathway) by taking a gentler, more merciful tone, then you will have to answer to the God of Justice about it. You’ll have to tell God why you thought it was more important to beat his wounded sheep rather than heal; you’ll have to explain why you thought your immediate “justice”, which can never be as informed as God’s, was preferable to waiting for his, which (for others) might come well after some years of regret, and contrition and penance and (for others) may be wholly beyond our comprehension.

We may be in a moment of grace, standing at the advent of a great gift. It’s not time to put a nail through a bat and start swinging...

Catholic World Report's Catherine Harmon has more on the coverage of the story and brings up Dr. Bernard Nathanson's documentary The Silent Scream , pointing out that the silent scream of the fetus in the abortion depicted in that documentary has now become rather less silent in the Gosnell case.  Warning to the weak-stomached.  Excerpts:

This week we have reports of another tiny victim of abortion screaming—not silently this time:

A Delaware woman who worked for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell recalled hearing one child “screaming” after it was delivered during an abortion procedure at Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic.

Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.”

When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.

West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room...

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL, once discussed the reason why abortion tends to attract the worst doctors--why the Gosnell case is unlikely to be the last such.  He listed a number of reasons, both personal and professional, including the technical ease of the procedure, the distaste amongst many younger physicians who'd rather not perform it, the effect of ultrasound on people who could now see what it was that they were killing, and the high profits to be made by those willing to perform abortions quickly.  Gosnell is not alone.  Excerpts:

...Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, former employee said, "It was just unsafe. I couldn't tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was."

Werbrich alleges conditions inside the facility were unsanitary.

"He didn't wear gloves," said Werbrich.

Another former employee, Joyce Vasikonis told Action News, "They were using instruments on patients that were not sterile."

The former nurses claim that a rush to get patients in and out left operating tables soiled and unclean.

Werbrich said "It's not washed down, it's not even cleaned off. It has bloody drainage on it."

"They could be at risk of getting hepatitis, even AIDS," added Vasikonis.

Both of these nurses said, they quit to protect their own medical licenses, stunned by what they called a meat-market style of assembly-line abortions...

Gosnell is not alone.

Gosnell is not alone

Go hunt through pro-life websites, and there's no shortage of links to other stories about abortion clinics being shut down for unsanitary conditions, injured patients, and more.  Listen to the testimony of Carol Everett in Blood Money: Getting Rich Off a Woman's Right to Choose.  Read Dr. Nathanson's The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind, or Abby Johnson's Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line (Focus on the Family Books) to learn that abortion clinics are usually first and foremost businesses.  All too often, the bottom line is the bottom line, not women's health and safety.

Update:  CNN is on the job!

If these conditions are persisting, even after abortion is legalized, we need to start asking whether illegal abortions were awful because desperate women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the illegal for money, or whether they were awful because women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the unthinkable for money.

Your Brilliant Posts for the Day

George Weigel is witheringly scathing about the cardinatial closure of public comment.

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling.

O’Reilly-Colmes Family Spat Shows Why There’s Fox News…And There’s Everyone Else.  Excerpts:

...Remember, O’Reilly is the LeBron James at Fox News: He’s the network’s highest-paid, most influential, most revered player on the team. He’s authored multiple best-sellers, he’s host of a program that destroys everything in the ratings and has since 2001, and is such an influential personality that he receives regular guest invites on CBS, NBC, ABC, The View, Letterman and Leno.

Yet here’s Kirsten Powers, a liberal contributor, a fellow employee at Fox News who gets infinite crap on a daily basis from fellow liberals for sleeping with the enemy, telling him he’s full of it on his own program.

You want to know why Fox is #1?

Let me answer a question with a question: Could you ever picture this scenario happening at MSNBC or CNN?...

Economic Injustice: A Case Study  (Spoiler: It's about Wal-Mart).

Simcha Fisher is brilliant. Excerpts:

...We hear a lot about young people heading into a marriage and seized with a sudden panic when they realize that they're binding themselves for a lifetime to someone they hardly know, hardly can know. What a risk! But what frightens me is not what I'm exposing myself to. What frightens me is that I will be exposed -- yes, even after fifteen years of marriage, at a point when my husband certainly knows me, and most certainly still loves me. Even after fifteen years, I'm afraid that for the next forty years, I will keep up a charade of being a good wife and mother, a decent person, someone who learns and improves throughout my life . . . until I am very old, and I no longer have the mental wherewithal to hide who I really am.

When my grandmother got Alzheimer's, she lost her words, she lost her good sense, she lost her ability to do anything. She even forgot how to swallow food. But one of the last things that lingered was her personality. She saw someone holding a peeled banana, and from the miscellaneous soup of vocabulary that her brain had become, there bobbed up a little expression of sympathy for the poor denuded fruit. "Poor thing!" she crooned. I showed up wearing jeans with a hole in the knee, and she followed me around, stooping and pawing at my leg, trying to piece the denim back together with her bare hands -- because that is what she did. She fixed things. She was fundamentally a sympathetic person, a healer, and this trait remained long after she was capable of actually being helpful.

What will come up to the surface when I'm no longer able to hide? This is the question that's been following me around this Lent, whispering in my ear like a malign old woman who knows me to the core and cannot stand what she knows. Selfish, selfish, and you'll never change.

I know this is not the voice of God....

As is Jennifer Fulwiler. Excerpts:

...It was only late in the conversion process that I came to see that I entirely misunderstood the significance of the idea that God is love. I was thunderstruck when I realized that these Christians weren't using an awkward phrasing to convey the opinion that God is a super-dooper nice guy; they were saying that God is, literally, the source and essence of all that we call love. To paraphrase a point that the Cynical Christian made in this excellent post, when we say that "God is love" we're not describing what God is, we're describing what love is -- Love is God.

It was a mind-blowing revelation, one that fundamentally changed the way I approached God and the search for truth. And the more I talk with fellow converts and potential converts, the more I've come to believe that this is the most important concept for a seeker to understand. Here are a few reasons why:...

The War on Women

It has claimed many lives, and looks to claim many more.

Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.--Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae: On The Regulation of Birth, July 26, 1968, article 17

Populorum Progressio and Octogesima Adveniens: Pope Paul VI on Economic Development and Post-Industrial Society

From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...“Development is the new name for peace”[180], Pope Paul VI solemnly proclaims in his Encyclical Populorum Progressio[181], which may be considered a development of the chapter on economic and social life in Gaudium et Spes, even while it introduces some significant new elements. In particular, it presents the outlines of an integral development of man and of a development in solidarity with all humanity: “These two topics are to be considered the axes around which the Encyclical is structured. In wishing to convince its receivers of the urgent need for action in solidarity, the Pope presents development as ‘the transition from less humane conditions to those which are more humane' and indicates its characteristics”[182]. This transition is not limited to merely economic or technological dimensions, but implies for each person the acquisition of culture, the respect of the dignity of others, the acknowledgment of “the highest good, the recognition of God Himself, the author and end of these blessings”[183]. Development that benefits everyone responds to the demands of justice on a global scale that guarantees worldwide peace and makes it possible to achieve a “complete humanism” [184] guided by spiritual values.

In this regard, in 1967, Pope Paul VI establishes the Pontifical Commission “Iustitia et Pax”, thus fulfilling the wishes of the Council Fathers who considered it “most opportune that an organism of the Universal Church be set up in order that both the justice and love of Christ toward the poor might be developed everywhere. The role of such an organism would be to stimulate the Catholic community to promote progress in needy regions and international social justice”[185]. By initiative of Pope Paul VI, beginning in 1968, the Church celebrates the first day of the year as the World Day of Peace. This same Pontiff started the tradition of writing annual Messages that deal with the theme chosen for each World Day of Peace. These Messages expand and enrich the corpus of the Church's social doctrine.

At the beginning of the 1970s, in a climate of turbulence and strong ideological controversy, Pope Paul VI returns to the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII and updates it, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, with his Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens[186]. The Pope reflects on post-industrial society with all of its complex problems, noting the inadequacy of ideologies in responding to these challenges: urbanization, the condition of young people, the condition of women, unemployment, discrimination, emigration, population growth, the influence of the means of social communications, the ecological problem...(articles 98-100)

HHS Mandate Driving Catholic Orders to Emigrate?

See, this is a key reason why that regulation is a problem.  Excerpts:

A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future presence in the United States because of Obamacare’s impact on its charitable operations. The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare’s healthcare mandate. The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities...

The crux of the matter is a religious exemption that the federal government is expected to make available to Catholic churches, but not to other Catholic institutions.

That’s because unlike Catholic parishes and dioceses, the church’s many affiliated schools, charities, religious orders and hospitals don’t discriminate in their hiring or service, often employing staff — and serving people in need — who come from other Christian denominations or from other faiths entirely.

“We are not exempt from the [Obamacare] mandate because we neither serve nor employ a predominantly Catholic population,” Constance added. ”We hire employees and serve/house the elderly regardless of race and religion, so that makes us ineligible for the exemption being granted churches.”

Those employees, she said, number in the thousands.

...In a June 2012 essay appearing in The Tablet, a Catholic newspaper in Brooklyn, N.Y., she said leaving the United States entirely wouldn’t be without precedent.

“[A]s Little Sisters of the Poor, we are not strangers to religious intolerance,” she wrote. “Our foundress was born at the height of the French Revolution and established our congregation in its aftermath. Our sisters have been forced to leave numerous countries, including China, Myanmar and Hungary, because of religious intolerance. We pray that the United States will not be added to this list.”

Ultimately, it’s all a matter of numbers.

“[I]f we were to stop offering health insurance rather than comply with the mandate,” she told the National Catholic Register in October, “we would have to pay a $2,000 penalty per employee. This penalty aside, it just does not seem right to us to stop providing health insurance to our employees.”

“If we chose to offer insurance without the objectionable services,” she continued, “we would honor our consciences, but we’d have to pay $100 per day per employee. … [F]or an organization with 50 employees, that would mean almost $2 million per year.”

Constance added that Medicaid reimbursements from the government cover only half the cost of caring for elderly sick people “in the way they deserve.”

She also explained to the National Catholic Reporter that although the Catholic Church’s primary objection to Obamacare involves reproductive health care — a subject seldom associated with nuns or their elderly patients — “we are concerned about what could happen later.”

“What we fear is that, if the federal government succeeds in this case, there are other areas where they could exert pressure or enact measures that could endanger our apostolate — particularly in end-of-life care and in the possible rationing of care to the elderly as a cost-saving measure...”

Court Requires HHS Mandate Revision

Hurray! Excerpts:

...Today, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. handed Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College a major victory in their challenges to the HHS mandate.  Last summer, two lower courts had dismissed the Colleges’ cases as premature.  Today, the appellate court reinstated those cases, and ordered the Obama Administration to report back every 60 days—starting in mid-February—until the Administration makes good on its promise to issue a new rule that protects the Colleges’ religious freedom.  The new rule must be issued by March 31, 2013...

The court based its decision on two concessions that government lawyers made in open court. First, the government promised “it would never enforce [the mandate] in its current form” against Wheaton, Belmont Abbey or other similarly situated religious groups.  Second, the government promised it would publish a proposed new rule “in the first quarter of 2013” and would finalize it by next August. The administration made both concessions under intense questioning by the appellate judges.  The court deemed the concessions a “binding commitment” and has retained jurisdiction over the case to ensure the government follows through.

“This is a win not just for Belmont Abbey and Wheaton, but for all religious non-profits challenging the mandate,” said Duncan. “The government has now been forced to promise that it will never enforce the current mandate against religious employers like Wheaton and Belmont Abbey and a federal appellate court will hold the government to its word...”

The Costs of Catholicism: HHS Mandate Fines

This is why repealing the HHS mandate matters for the future of religious organizations and for businesses and organizations owned and operated by people of certain religious convictions.  Excerpts:

The owners of Hobby Lobby asked to be exempted from providing the "morning after" and "week after" pills on religious grounds, arguing this would violate their Christian belief that abortion is wrong.

Judge Joe Heaton of the U.S. District for the Western District of Oklahoma denied the request for a preliminary injunction.

Heaton ruled that while individual members of the family that owns and operates Hobby Lobby have religious rights, the companies the family owns are secular, for-profit enterprises that do not possess the same rights.

The family operate 514 Hobby Lobby stores in 41 states and employ 13,240 people. It funds a variety of Christian charities, closes its stores on Sundays and plays inspirational Christian music in its stores...

...The Food and Drug Administration lists the "morning after" and "week after" pills as emergency contraceptives. But abortion opponents like the Green family consider them abortion-inducing drugs because they are often taken after conception.

Hobby Lobby faces a January 1 deadline to comply with the mandate to provide all FDA-approved contraceptives. Failure to do so would entail a penalty of up to $1.3 million per day...

Bishop Jenky, Presidential Elections, and "God is Not Mocked"

Compare the letter Bishop Jenky sent out with this reading of his letter and ask yourself who McClatchy supports for president.

Bleah. I'm Voting for Romney

It behooves me to point out here that I had previously said I would not vote for Romney, based on his propensity to change his stated position at the drop of a hat.  This isn't an encouraging sign for times ahead.

What changed my mind?

I Can't Vote For Romney

Welp, he just lost my vote.  Excerpts:

...Romney: “I’d just note that I don’t believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not. And I don’t believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives.”

This is basically conceding the farm on the Mandate. It’s a line straight from the Obama playbook. According to the Administration, employers who don’t want to be forced to buy contraceptives are “telling women they cannot have contraception”. Romney is signaling he opposes employers who make that argument just as much as Obama does.

Complete and utter betrayal...

Again, I think the man would be great on turning the economy around, but on the life issues, he's just not there.

An African Woman Tells Us What She Wants, What She Really, Really Wants

rather than the extensive contraceptive distribution programs of such charitable organizations as the Gates Foundation (via Mark Shea).

National Catholic Bioethics Center: Options On the HHS Mandate

Here's a useful guide to the options for employers from the NCBC when it comes to the HHS mandate.

A Catholic Woman Talks Contraception, War on Women

From Father McCloskey's review of Mary Eberstadt's Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution.  Excerpts:

...This relatively lean book relies heavily on secular sources. Likewise, Eberstadt analyzes the culture from a primarily secular perspective as she charts the horrors that have been unleashed upon the world and particularly the United States as a result of separating sex activity from procreation. Nonetheless, her book is written largely to vindicate the most controversial Catholic encyclical of modern times—Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, issued at the height of the culture-changing 1960s. As Eberstadt puts it, “Forty plus years after ‘Humane Vitae’ and fifty plus after the approval of the Pill, there are more than enough ironies both secular and religious, to make one swear there is a humorist in Heaven.”

Wealthy Americans, Europeans Seek Fewer Africans

Cause that doesn't sound strange at all.  Excerpts:

It was almost embarrassing to watch. African presidents stepped up to the stage to make promises to Melinda Gates and donor countries, as European leaders held out the elusive dream of  ‘development’  if only these countries will dedicate themselves to free access to contraception...

The mingling outside the hall was stiff and uncomfortable, with many standing alone. Only the young staffers seemed happy to be there...

Contraception: Why Not--Organic Living

An interesting article, making a rarely heard argument: there are serious medical and environmental effects from artificial contraceptives.

The good news: organic family planning methods exist and they are effective!