Tag Archives: catholicism

“Nuns on a Bus” want Mitt Romney to join them — even for one hour

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Think Progress reports “The group behind the Nuns On A Bus tour that highlighted the ill-effects of the House Republican budget in congressional districts across the country is now setting its sights on the party’s presidential candidate, inviting Mitt Romney to spend a day with the nuns to learn about the plight of America’s poorest citizens.”

“Romney has endorsed the House GOP budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). It was that plan, which includes deep cuts to food stamps and other safety net programs that benefit the middle class, that NETWORK’s Nuns On A Bus tour targeted, with [Sister Simone] Campbell and other sisters blasting it as “immoral” at the tour’s conclusion in Washington D.C. Romney has also proposed massive tax cuts for the rich that would likely come at the expense of lower- and middle-class families, which would see higher taxes or significant cuts to the programs they depend on.

“Those policies, Campbell told ThinkProgress, show that Romney “doesn’t have clue” about the struggles the poor face. “The fact is, his policies shift wealth to the upper class,” she said. “Yes, it hurts the middle class, but it devastates those at the margins of our society.” If Romney were to accept their invitation, Campbell said she would take him to places like St. Augustine’s in Cleveland, where food programs “provide a hand up” to the community’s neediest members. “He thinks they’re lazy,” Campbell said, in reference to Romney’s misleading welfare reform ad. “It is hard work to keep things together when you’re poor. He doesn’t have a clue. Let him talk to them, and maybe they’ll touch his heart. And his mind too.”

“The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Campbell said she “lives in hope” that he will accept, even if he spends only an hour with the group. “I’ll take whatever I can get,” Campbell said. “He should accept.””

Unfortunately Mitt, more than most, does need to step outside the gates of his lavish lifestyle to understand exactly how the peasantry lives. But spending time with nuns in service to the poor is something that will never happen. There’s no upside to this kind of PR for a Republican candidate, and especially for Willard Romney — even if it’s very clear that he could benefit from some experience and education on America’s working class and income / poverty:

Flashback (July/2012): Romney completely unaware of what waiters and waitresses earn, calls them “middle class”

Sunday sermon: Mitt Romney criticized by Franciscan Friars for comments on the poor

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“Our Christian tradition teaches that we are to treat the poor with dignity and to prioritize the poor in our policies as a society. At a time when millions are struggling financially, it is degrading to talk about the ‘dependency’ of people hurting in this economy, as Gov. Romney did recently.” — The Franciscan Action Network (FAN), a Catholic faith-based advocacy and civic engagement organization, strongly criticizing Mitt Romney’s recent ads and rhetoric regarding welfare programs and welfare recipients. (via: azspot)

I would imagine, but I couldn’t say for sure, that this Christian tradition is similar between Mormons and Catholics. But the political agendas of Romney and Ryan — both of whom profess to be Mormon and Catholic, respectively — are not inspired by any of the teachings of Jesus Christ, as far as I can see.

It seems like Christianity only matters to far-right conservatives when they can use it as a weapon against a political enemy. Sometimes atheists can also be found wearing sheep’s clothing.

Catholicism and American politics: then and now

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50 years ago:

“But because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again — not what kind of church I believe in for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute — where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote — where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference — and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.” — President John F. Kennedy, in a 1960 speech, assuring Southern Baptist leaders that as the nation’s first Catholic president, he would not take orders from the Pope. 

And today:

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country… To say people of faith have no role in the public square, you bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live in that says only people of non-faith can come in the public square and make their case. That makes me throw up and it should make every American.” — Rick Santorum, today, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

Saturday morning’s 9 interesting things

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1) Catholicism then: “I as a Catholic have absolutely no right in my thinking to foist through legislation or through other means, my doctrine of my church upon others. It is important to note that Catholics do not need the support of the civil law to be faithful to their religious convictions,” - Boston’s late Cardinal Richard Cushing, 1965, the man who married John F Kennedy. – The Dish

2) Catholicism now: “[O]nce the colleges fell and those who were being educated in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.” - Rick Santorum’s assessment of mainline Protestantism, at Ave Maria University in 2008 [Note: you can listen to audio here]

3) Bill Moyers on contraception debate: religious freedom includes freedom FROM it - “If an individual Catholic worker wants coverage, she should have access to it,” Moyers said. “Just like any other American citizen. Under the new plan, she will.”

The GOP’s uterus inspection device

4) Va. GOP Demands Invasive Vaginal Ultrasound Procedure Before Abortion - Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates really have their hearts set on new legislation that will force all women seeking abortions to first undergo penetration by a transvaginal ultrasound transducer. They’re so enthralled with this harlot-shaming tool that today they voted down an amendment that would have allowed doctors to determine whether this penetration was necessary. Clearly, whether it’s medically necessary or not has nothing to do with this law. The GOP wants to get all up in women’s uteruses — literally. The penetration part is vital to their agenda.

CNN contributor and Andrew Breitbart editor DANA LOESCH saying, basically, if you’ve spread your legs  for intercourse, why would you have a problem with other things being inserted into your vag for no reason? - “That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth… [high voice] “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What!? Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.“

5) Panic on the Streets of DC - They are terrified: A prominent Republican senator just told me that if Romney can’t win in Michigan, the Republican Party needs to go back to the drawing board and convince somebody new to get into the race. “If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,” said the senator, who has not endorsed anyone and requested anonymity. They really have no one to blame but themselves. They’ve spent so much time lying about everything and creating an echo chamber to reinforce and transmit those lies within the so-called “conservative” movement that quite simply, anyone who appeals to the wingnut base is someone so twisted as to be utterly repugnant to the rest of the nation.

6) BREAKING: Obama DOJ Won’t Defend Constitutionality Of Denying Military Benefits To Same-Sex Couples - the Obama administration has announced that it will not defend laws that prevent married same-sex couples from obtaining military benefits. In a letter to Congress today, Attorney General Eric Holder argued, “[t]he legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans … Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that would warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.”

7) Arizona Bill To Limit Unions Would Cost Local Goverments Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars - Arizona Republicans introduced a slate of legislation earlier this month targeting public sector unions… Though two of the bills, including one that would have essentially banned public sector unions, stalled in the state legislature, a bill that would end the practice of workers automatically deducting union dues from their paychecks is still proceeding. Like Walker and his Republican colleagues in Wisconsin, Brewer and Arizona’s Republicans have presented the union “reforms” as a necessary step in bringing the state’s budget under control. But according to a new report from the state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the bill would actually cost local and municipal governments — and Arizona taxpayers — hundreds of thousands of dollars…

8) FBI breaks up latest terrorist plot that it created (God knows how much this cost) - The FBI is masterful when it comes to thwarting their own baroque terrorist plots in dramatic fashion at the very last minute, just as their scripts instruct them to do. The Feds found today’s lucky arrestee, a 29-year-old Moroccan, about a year ago and thought, Sure, this one looks Muslim enough to me, he’ll do… now let’s start brainstorming a plot and getting him all the fake bombs and training and support he needs so we can arrest him in a year.

9) Six recused in Maxine Waters ethics case - Six members of the House Ethics Committee — including all five Republicans on the secretive panel — have recused themselves from the long-running case involving Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), an unprecedented move that raises new questions on whether the Waters case can be finished. [...] Waters is alleged to have improperly intervened on behalf of a minority bank where her husband owned more than $350,000 in stock during the 2008 U.S. financial crisis. Waters has denied any wrongdoing, but the Ethics Committee initially voted to charge her with three violations last summer. Waters then asked for an ethics “trial.” Those proceedings were postponed in Nov. 2010 and the case has been on hold following legal and partisan fights.

Catholic Cardinal Edward Egan makes Jesus cry

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Catholic cardinal withdraws apology for covering up sex abuse

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

More…

It’s interesting that so many self-proclaimed Christians, the ones who get a lot of attention or claim to be so religiously devout, seem like they’ve never quite got the hang of being Christlike.  Mahatma Gandhi said, I like your Christ but not your Christians and most of us agree with him completely.

And while we’re on the subject of the Catholic Church, have you caught the ‘row’ over contraception in health care plans that’s been going on lately?

Charles P. Pierce says,

In arguing for the existence of some mythical “Catholic backlash” to the Obama administration’s decision to require that contraception be included in any health plans sanctioned under the Affordable Care Act, Weigel said the following:

“This has struck a tribal nerve in Catholicism,” Catholic scholar George Weigel said to Chuck Todd on the Daily Rundown. “The Catholic Church has been beaten up over the last 10 or 11 years and I think Catholics are tired of the government and others beating up on the church.”

Holy mother of god, to coin a phrase. [...] And what are we talking about here?

The Church has been “beaten up” over the last 10 or 12 years because, at its highest possible echelons, it functioned as an international conspiracy to obstruct justice regarding the crime of sexual assault. In the old formulation, these crimes — which have still gone largely unpunished, as when Bernard Cardinal Law from Boston beat feet to his sinecure at the Basilica Of Our Lady Of The Bullshit Alibi in Rome — were such a “scandal to the faithful” that most of the Catholic laity, here and around the world, were fundamentally disgusted by the sub-primate morality of many of the primates in question. Most Catholics I know don’t believe the Church has taken a beating over the last decade; in fact, they believe a lot of ermined layabouts haven’t gotten half of what they deserve. They’re certainly not as prepared as Weigel apparently is to link the pale and sporadic justice dealt out to the victims of the hierarchy’s monstrous crimes to the current politically driven foolishness regarding whether or not Catholic institutions should have to choose between obeying the law or abandoning some tax breaks. If the White House surrenders in any way to this nonsense, somebody in the political operation should be cleaning out his desk by the end of business today. There is no risk in sticking to your guns here. Unless, of course, E. J. Dionne plans to vote a couple of million times next November.

No, This Is Why We’ve Been Beating Up on the Church…

Pope Benedict XVI: Pedophilia isn’t an “absolute evil” and child porn considered “normal” by society

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I have no words.

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim [last week] that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.

Belfast Telegraph