from Life Site News:
"A clash between Catholic pro-life groups and major Catholic organizations on whether Congress should enact immediate health care reform has drastically muddled the Catholic response to the debate raging on Capitol Hill. But as one Catholic editor has noted, the conflicting messages on whether to push the Obama administration's health care reform could be traced to at least one organization's monetary interest in such reform.
The struggle came to a head last week with news of an "action alert" released by Catholic Charities USA, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Catholic Health Association (CHA) calling on constituents to contact Congressmen urging the passage of health care reform "now."
Noting that the Obama-sponsored legislation is underway, the group wrote only that there are many "details" in the bills that "still need to be developed" and that nonetheless "we must maintain momentum for health care reform efforts with calls and emails supporting health care reform immediately."
Pro-life leaders are vigorously fighting the bills which, as confirmed by an Associated Press report, would now explicitly expand abortion. The groups denied that they intended to support the current legislation, but were merely fighting the general "pressure to keep the status quo" in the American health care system.
If so, pro-life Catholics questioned, why did the groups step up the pressure at the very same moment President Obama was attempting to ram the troublesome bill through Congress?
Jack Smith, editor of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocesan newspaper The Catholic Key, says part of the problem lies in "confusion over the nature of the Catholic Health Association and [CHA president] Sister Carol [Keehan]'s role."
The Catholic Health Association, he explains, is actually a for-profit trade association, unlike other Catholic entities driven solely by altrustic goals.
The Catholic Key reported on Aug. 6 that Sister Carol's "compensation at Catholic Health Association is $856,093. This in an organization whose expenses are only $17,660,797. Three other employees at CHA each make more than $300,000."
"CHA is not a repository of Catholic social teaching with regard to health care or an association of moral theologians or a charity in service of the poor," wrote Smith. "It is a trade association."
SO, Catholic Health Association is not Catholic. Then why haven't the USCCB revoked the name "Catholic" from their title? Why do the Daughters of Charity, founded by Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, permit Sr Keehan to work for an organization which is fighting to implement a health care plan which opposes the Holy Father's latest encyclical, "Caritatis in Veritate".
"Openness to life is at the centre of true development. When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away."
Read the entire story at Life Site News and American Life League.
2 comments:
I was raised in the Catholic faith. In fact, I went through 16 years of Catholic education. I was also raised an American with a strong belief in our Constitution. I have thought long and hard about the abortion controversy and have finally come to some conclusions:
1. According to the Catholic Church, abortion is a sin. That's an indisputable fact.
2. According to the US Constitution, we are guaranteed separation of Church and State, meaning that a given church or religious group cannot make laws to govern the American people, and the US Government cannot restrict the workings of a church or religious organization in the US. This too is an indisputable fact.
3. For me, personally, being raised in the Catholic faith, abortion is something I would never consider. I believe it to be a grave and mortal sin.
4. I also have come to believe, however, that it is wrong to legislate against a woman's right to have an abortion. Here's why:
5. Although abortion is a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church, that is not the belief held by many others.
6. Just because something is considered a sin does not mean that it should be illegal. There is a vast difference between sin and crime. Sin is a moral, very personal, issue between a person and his/her God.
7. Not only does making abortion a crime violate the separation of Church and State, for Catholics it is taking the easy way out. Instead of consulting one's conscience and talking with God, one can simply rely on whether or not one is a law-abiding citizen to make that decision. It's a cop-out!
Mary, I have a personal belief that it's my right to kill you tonight.
Ooops, I forgot, my personal belief involves a violation of your right to life.
It's also illegal.
I will be punished if I follow through on my personal belief.
There, now, don't you feel better that the law infringes on my rights?
I'd sue your Catholic educators for malpractice. You learned very little.
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