Roman Catholic Blog

Render unto Caesar?

Pope Francis: "A Christian can never say, ‘I’ll make you pay for that.’ Never! That is not a Christian gesture. An offence is overcome with forgiveness, by living in peace with everyone."

From an article by Harriet Sherwood at the Guardian

"Pope Francis has made a thinly veiled criticism of the policies of Donald Trump, saying societies should build bridges not walls to encourage good relations among people.

The pontiff did not directly refer to the US president or his plan to build a fence along his country's border with Mexico.

But his statement at his weekly general audience at the Vatican that it was a Christian calling “to not raise walls but bridges, to not respond to evil with evil, to overcome evil with good” will be seen as an allusion to Trump’s plans and policies.

In improvised remarks, the pope appeared to further refer to Trump by saying: “A Christian can never say: ‘I’ll make you pay for that.’ Never! That is not a Christian gesture. An offense is overcome with forgiveness, by living in peace with everyone.”"

See the full story at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/08/pope-francis-walls-bridges-donald-trump

"Sister" Carol Keehan - Grade 3 Cancer on the body politic of Holy Mother Church

Cancer can be classified into three different grades, per www.differencebetween.com.

Grade 1 is when cancer cells look alike like normal cells. In other words these are a slow growing cell which doesn’t show much symptoms of a cancer infection. A cancer infection if identified in this stage can be cured. This is also termed as early stage.

Grade 2 is when cancer cells start to appear different from normal cells. These are fast growing cells and are in the growing stage. If proper treatment is given at this stage, the disease can be cured. A cancer if unidentified in grade 2 could be termed as a stage where hope of curing is less or rare. A complete cure if guaranteed is only during the initial stages.

Grade 3 is when cancer cells are found to be immensely growing and is in the final stages of growth. This is when, the patient feels the pain in the parts of the body where cancer cell are grown. The pain will be severe and uncontrollable.

I see Sister Keehan as a Grade 3 cancer on the body politic of Holy Mother Church.

          "What Did CHA's Carol Keehan Know and When Did She Know It?

Register news analysis: As threats to religious liberty escalate, critics say it’s time to establish who truly speaks for the Church in the United States.

BY JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND, National Catholic Register

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Feb. 10 confirmed that his administration was offering an “accommodation” to religious groups opposed to a controversial federal rule requiring private health plans to provide contraception and abortion services.

As reported in the media, church-affiliated employers would not have to directly cover those services; instead, their insurance plans would cover them.

The announcement prompted an expression of gratitude from Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, and a polite, but wary response from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said they needed to study the proposed modification.

That evening, the bishops’ conference formally rejected the president’s “accommodation” as essentially meaningless.

For the rest of the weekend, amid a blur of news headlines and talking heads that offered conflicting judgments, the faithful in the pews struggled to determine what, if anything, had changed regarding the administration’s policy.

The contrasting responses from the CHA leader and the USCCB have left Catholics and the general public confused about who speaks for the Church on a matter of grave institutional concern and whether the Obama administration exploited a lack of clarity about that matter.

The dueling positions have fueled questions about the basis of Sister Carol’s endorsement: USCCB officials and health-care experts have since confirmed that the government has not issued any binding regulations that legally override the controversial contraception mandate finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 20.

Subsequent media coverage and interviews suggest that while the White House cleared its talking points with Sister Carol in advance of the president’s public address, the USCCB had been excluded from the administration’s deliberations.

..................................................

Who Speaks for the Church?

The confusion and possible institutional damage generated by Sister Carol’s public endorsement have led some Catholic experts in the health-care field to demand an accounting.

“On the basis of what information and what authority did she issue this endorsement? It’s embarrassing from a policy standpoint,” noted Paul Danello, an expert on civil and canon law issues in Catholic health care, who has received calls from Catholic hospitals worried about the implications of the HHS final rule.

“If the CHA board hasn’t authorized this, if she has no mandate from the USCCB, and if there are no legally binding documents, she is operating without any legal, governance or regulatory basis. That is a hell of a situation for a Roman Catholic nun that heads the Catholic Health Association to be in.”

.....

“It’s the right hand fighting against the left hand,” he said. “Who is speaking for the Church here? The Church needs to get its house in order.”"

For the full story please see:http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/what-did-catholic-health-associations-sister-carol-know-and-when-did-she-kn/

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Jimmy Fallon and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Hat tip to "The Chant Cafe," and in turn "San Antonio Catholic Beat."

Jimmy Fallon on His Catholicism

 

by Angela Santana on Dec 5, 2011 • 10:16 AM

 

“I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and I think they force you to watch every James Cagney movie.”

That was Jimmy Fallon’s first mention of his Catholicism on his recent NPR Fresh Air interview. (He was explaining his first impersonation / impression: James Cagney as a two-year-old.) Later in the interview (listen here), he spoke with host Terri Gross about his Catholic upbringing…

GROSS: So you went to Catholic school when you were young.

Mr. FALLON: Oh yeah.

GROSS: Did you have…

Mr. FALLON: I wanted to be a priest.

GROSS: Did you really?

Mr. FALLON: Yeah. I loved it.

GROSS: Why?

Mr. FALLON: I just, I loved the church. I loved the idea of it. I loved the smell of the incense. I loved the feeling you get when you left church. I loved like how this priest can make people feel this good. I just thought it was – I loved the whole idea of it. My grandfather was very religious, so I used to go to Mass with him at like 6:45 in the morning, serve Mass. And then you made money, too, if you did weddings and funerals. You’d get like five bucks. And so I go ‘Okay, I can make money too.’ I go, ‘This could be a good deal for me.’ I thought I had the calling.

GROSS: Do you think part of that calling was really show business? ‘Cause – like the priest is the performer at church.

Mr. FALLON: Yeah. You know what – I, really Terry, I’m, I recently thought about this. [...] It’s my first experience on stage is as an altar boy. You’re on stage next to the priest, I’m a co-star.

(Laughter)

GROSS: ‘Also starring, Jimmy Fallon.’

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: Yeah, I have no lines but I ring bells. I ring bells and I swing the incense around. And you know, you are performing. You enter through a curtain, you exit through the, I mean you’re backstage. I mean, have you ever seen backstage behind an altar? It’s kind of fascinating.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. FALLON: So I think it was my first taste of show business – or acting or something.

GROSS: And there are comparisons, I think, between a theater and a church. They are just, kind of, places that are separated from outside reality.

Mr. FALLON: Yeah. And I remember I had a hard time keeping a straight face at church as well.

GROSS: Did you?

Mr. FALLON: Which – yeah…

GROSS: Did you do imitations of the priest?

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: Oh, of course. Yeah. I used to do Father McFadden all the time. He’s the fastest talking priest ever. He’s be like…

(Mumbling)

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: And then you leave and you go, ‘What was that?’

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: That guy’s the best. I mean, that was church? Sign me up! I’ll do church. I’ll do it 10 times a day if that’s church! He was great.

GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that. You know, I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALLON: Now, I’m holding hands – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba.

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: I’m holding them (Singing) ha nah hey nah ho.

(Speaking) I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

Transcript adapted from NPR.org

My bold and underline added.

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Corapi is Guilty

How sad, very very sad.

 

Fr. Corapi's order finds him guilty 

Robstown, Texas, Jul 5, 2011 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Father John Corapi’s religious order has found him guilty of substance abuse, sexual activity and violating his promise of poverty.

A July 5 press release from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) said that while Fr. Corapi was involved in public ministry he had “sexual relations and years of cohabitation with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a prostitute.”

The investigative team also found that he “repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs,” “recently engaged in ‘sexting’ activity with one or more women in Montana,” and holds legal title “to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats.”

His religious order said it is concerned “Fr. Corapi is now misleading (many) individuals through his false statements and characterizations.”

“It is for these Catholics that SOLT, by means of this announcement, seeks to set the record straight.”

A fact-finding team created by the order “acquired information from Fr. Corapi’s emails, various witnesses and public sources,” in response to a signed letter from a woman who is well known to Fr. Corapi.

The Society said in the news release that Fr. Corapi, under his vow of obedience, has been ordered to “return home to the society’s regional office and take up residence there,” and to “dismiss the lawsuit he has filed against his accuser.”

The order added that its “prior direction to Father John Corapi not to engage in any preaching or teaching, the celebration of the sacraments or other public ministry continues.”

As the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity sought to carry out its investigation into the allegations against Fr. Corapi, it found that its fact-finding team was hindered by a civil lawsuit the priest had filed and by sweeping non-disclosure agreements he had negotiated with his accuser and other witnesses.

The civil lawsuit argued that his principal accuser had committed slander and breach of contract.

Fr. Corapi refused to dismiss the lawsuit and the team discovered many other contracts that prevented “key witnesses” from speaking.

“Many of these witnesses likely had key information about the accusations being investigated and declined to answer questions and provide documents,” the order said.

The fact-finding team was composed of a priest-canonist, a psychiatrist and a lawyer, two of whom were members of religious orders and one a lay Catholic.

The statement notes that two were men and one was a woman, all with a “national reputation and substantial experience in ecclesiastical processes related to priest disciplinary issues.”

Fr. Corapi expressed his desire to leave the Society and the priesthood in a June 17 statement. He said he felt he was being “unjustly accused,” and that “(t)here are certain persons in authority in the Church that want me gone, and I shall be gone.”

Fr. Corapi has not yet been released from his vows.

“Catholics should understand that SOLT does not consider Father John Corapi as fit for ministry,” the statement concluded.

SEE: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/fr.-corapis-order-finds-him-guilty/

A Catholic University Acting Catholic?!

Seton Hall University Considers

 

Canceling Class On Gay Marriage

By Kelly Heyboer / The Star-Ledger
Religion News Service

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (RNS) Seton Hall University's governing board is debating whether to cancel a course on gay marriage after Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said it conflicts with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The course is scheduled to begin this fall for upperclassmen in any major, university officials said, and would explore the issue without advocating for either side.

Myers said news that Seton Hall students will be studying gay marriage "troubles me greatly." Myers does not have the authority to cancel a class, but is chairman of Seton Hall's board of trustees and president of the school's board of regents.

In a statement, the archbishop said the church teaches marriage should be between only a man and a woman.

"This proposed course seeks to promote as legitimate a train of thought that is contrary to what the church teaches. As a result, the course is not in sync with Catholic teaching," Myers said.

Larry Robinson, Seton Hall's vice provost, said the course was approved by both the political science department and the dean's office.

"The initial review at the departmental level and at the dean's level suggests that the course is not an advocacy course ... but a 'special topics' course to objectively examine a significant current public policy issue," Robinson said.

"Thus, we fully anticipate that the Catholic position on same-sex marriage will be explored."

W. King Mott, the Seton Hall associate professor of political science scheduled to teach the course, told the campus newspaper he didn't think it was unusual for a Catholic university to offer a class on an issue the church does not support.

"The best schools offer controversial classes," Mott told the Setonian. "The class is not about advocacy, but about studying the issue from an academic perspective. It's about awareness."

Mott, who is gay, has clashed before with church and university officials. In 2005, he was demoted from associate dean of Seton Hall's College of Arts and Sciences after his letter challenging the church's view on homosexuality was published in The (Newark) Star-Ledger.

Faculty members protested Mott's demotion, arguing school officials violated his academic freedom when they punished him for writing a letter. But Seton Hall's provost upheld the demotion and Mott, who has tenure, remained as a prominent professor.

SEE: http://www.religionnews.com/

Mahoney goes out, not with a whimper, but with a bang

 

LA cardinal: Nazism in Arizona immigration bill

Apr 20 02:23 PM US/Eastern

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The head of the nation's largest Catholic archdiocese says a proposed Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigrants encourages "German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques."

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese made the comments in his blog Sunday, a day before the Arizona Legislature passed the bill.

If Gov. Jan Brewer (pic above)  signs the bill into law, police would be required to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.

The Los Angeles archdiocese serves a large Hispanic immigrant population. Mahony says he can't imagine people turning in others who look foreign or because they might lack papers.

NYT Attack Mode

The New York Times and Pope Benedict XVI:
how it looks to an American in the Vatican

by Cardinal William J. Levada
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

In our melting pot of peoples, languages and backgrounds, Americans are not noted as examples of “high” culture. But we can take pride as a rule in our passion for fairness. In the Vatican where I currently work, my colleagues – whether fellow cardinals at meetings or officials in my office – come from many different countries, continents and cultures. As I write this response today (March 26, 2010) I have had to admit to them that I am not proud of America’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, as a paragon of fairness.

I say this because today’s Times presents both a lengthy article by Laurie Goodstein, a senior columnist, headlined “Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest,” and an accompanying editorial entitled “The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal,” in which the editors call the Goodstein article a disturbing report (emphasis in original) as a basis for their own charges against the Pope. Both the article and the editorial are deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness that Americans have every right and expectation to find in their major media reporting.

In her lead paragraph, Goodstein relies on what she describes as “newly unearthed files” to point out what the Vatican (i.e. then Cardinal Ratzinger and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) did not do – “defrock Fr. Murphy.”  Breaking news, apparently. Only after eight paragraphs of purple prose does Goodstein reveal that Fr. Murphy, who criminally abused as many as 200 deaf children while working at a school in the Milwaukee Archdiocese from 1950 to 1974, “not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims.”

But in paragraph 13, commenting on a statement of Fr. Lombardi (the Vatican spokesman) that Church law does not prohibit anyone from reporting cases of abuse to civil authorities, Goodstein writes, “He did not address why that had never happened in this case.” Did she forget, or did her editors not read, what she wrote in paragraph nine about Murphy getting “a pass from the police and prosecutors”? By her own account it seems clear that criminal authorities had been notified, most probably by the victims and their families.

Goodstein’s account bounces back and forth as if there were not some 20 plus years intervening between reports in the 1960 and 70’s to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and local police, and Archbishop Weakland’s appeal for help to the Vatican in 1996. Why? Because the point of the article is not about failures on the part of church and civil authorities to act properly at the time. I, for one, looking back at this report agree that Fr. Murphy deserved to be dismissed from the clerical state for his egregious criminal behavior, which would normally have resulted from a canonical trial.

The point of Goodstein’s article, however, is to attribute the failure to accomplish this dismissal to Pope Benedict, instead of to diocesan decisions at the time. She uses the technique of repeating the many escalating charges and accusations from various sources (not least from her own newspaper), and tries to use these “newly unearthed files” as the basis for accusing the pope of leniency and inaction in this case and presumably in others.

It seems to me, on the other hand, that we owe Pope Benedict a great debt of gratitude for introducing the procedures that have helped the Church to take action in the face of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse of minors. These efforts began when the Pope served as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and continued after he was elected Pope. That the Times has published a series of articles in which the important contribution he has made – especially in the development and implementation of Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, the Motu proprio issued by Pope John Paul II in 2001 – is ignored, seems to me to warrant the charge of lack of fairness which should be the hallmark of any reputable newspaper.

.......................................

The Times editorial wonders “how Vatican officials did not draw the lessons of the grueling scandal in the United States, where more than 700 priests were dismissed over a three-year period.” I can assure the Times that the Vatican in reality did not then and does not now ignore those lessons. But the Times editorial goes on to show the usual bias: “But then we read Laurie Goodstein’s disturbing report . . .about how the pope, while he was still a cardinal, was personally warned about a priest … But church leaders chose to protect the church instead of children. The report illuminated the kind of behavior the church was willing to excuse to avoid scandal.” Excuse me, editors. Even the Goodstein article, based on “newly unearthed files,” places the words about protecting the Church from scandal on the lips of Archbishop Weakland, not the pope.  It is just this kind of anachronistic conflation that I think warrants my accusation that the Times, in rushing to a guilty verdict, lacks fairness in its coverage of Pope Benedict.

As a full-time member of the Roman Curia, the governing structure that carries out the Holy See’s tasks, I do not have time to deal with the Times’s subsequent almost daily articles by Rachel Donadio and others, much less with Maureen Dowd’s silly parroting of Goodstein’s “disturbing report.” But about a man with and for whom I have the privilege of working, as his “successor” Prefect, a pope whose encyclicals on love and hope and economic virtue have both surprised us and made us think, whose weekly catecheses and Holy Week homilies inspire us, and yes, whose pro-active work to help the Church deal effectively with the sexual abuse of minors continues to enable us today, I ask the Times to reconsider its attack mode about Pope Benedict XVI and give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on.

See the full story at:

  http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_card-levada2010_en.html

Catholic School Chirldren Unwelcome at Obama White House

Obama Excludes Private and Catholic School Children From Easter Egg Roll Ticket Giveaway

By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration announced on Tuesday it has reserved 3,000 free tickets to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for students in D.C.-area public and charter schools, but not for children who attend private or parochial schools.
 
Why exclude children in private and parochial schools, asked the father of a parochial school student at Tuesday’s press conference where U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty announced the ticket giveaway.
 
“These tickets are from the White House to public schools, and we’re appreciative, but there may be other things unrelated to this press conference,” Fenty responded. “That’s a great question.”
 
The 3,000 reserved tickets will be distributed to students at 11 public schools in D.C. and a few others in Virginia and Maryland. Children at private or parochial schools in the Washington metropolitan area may attend the April 5 event, but only if they are among the people who registered for an online lottery system, by which the remaining free tickets -- an estimated 27,000 -- will be distributed.
 
That lottery is now closed, however. “All entries will have an equal chance of being selected if your application was submitted by Sunday, February 28,” the White House Web site says. Lottery results were announced on March 4.
 
Robert Brannum’s 17-year-old son Nicholas attends St. John’s College High School, a Catholic school in the District. Brannum told CNSNews.com he believes the 3,000 tickets reserved for public school students should be available to all students.
 
“The White House is a public building,” Brannum said. “The tickets are essentially being paid for with public dollars. So it should be open to everyone, not just going to select categories of students.”
 
Brannum said he not only supports D.C. public schools, he attended and taught at those schools. But, he added, “There are students in the District of Columbia who attend private schools, parochial schools, or even (are) home schooled, and their parents pay taxes and they should be able to participate in some of the benefits of being citizens of the District of Columbia.”

Mayor Fenty and D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee accepted the 3,000 tickets in an Easter basket from Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Children from the city’s J.O. Wilson Elementary School cheered and jumped up and down when they were asked if they wanted to go to the Easter Egg Roll at the White House.
 
There’s no guarantee that the children at the press conference will get tickets, however. Rhee said it was up to each of the public schools chosen by the Obama administration to decide which students will get the reserved tickets.
 
The Obama administration has been criticized for failing to support programs to help low-income and minority children attend some of D.C.’s top private and parochial schools, including the Sidwell Friends School where the Malia and Sasha Obama attend classes.
 
Early in his administration, President Barack Obama called for an end  to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which since 2004 has provided vouchers for thousands of low-income and minority children to attend private schools. Following widespread protest, Obama said the program would be funded to allow those children already enrolled in the program to graduate from the school of their choice, but that no funding would be provided to bring new children into the program.
 
On March 16, the Senate voted down a measure that would have reauthorized funding for the program.
 
The Easter Egg Roll dates back to 1878 when President Rutherford B. Hayes held the event after Congress banned egg rolling on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building.
 
The theme of this year’s event is “Ready, Set, Go,” and the White House says it will “promote health and wellness.”
 
“All of the activities will encourage children to lead healthy and active lives and follow the First Lady’s ‘Let’s Move!’ initiative, a national campaign to combat childhood obesity,” the White House said.
 
The event will feature live music, sports courts, storytelling, egg rolling – and cooking stations.

Douglas Kmiec has gone mad.

From the National Catholic Reporter (Bastion of neo-modernism)

Lifting up the opposition

Commentary

"We are neither red states nor blue states, but the United States"
--Barack Obama

It is natural for those giving advice to the president to enjoy the hard-won victory represented by the passage of the health care reform. The president's tenacity in the pursuit of this measure is to be commended heartily.

In this moment of happiness for the respect for life and the dignity of God's creation represented by the health care measure, it is indeed important to give appropriate credit for those who brought us to this opportunity to have publicly provided means to show greater respect for life and the dignity of all of God's creation.

In this spirit, Michael Sean Winters lifting up Sr. Carol Keehan for leading the Catholic Health Association to make a pivotal endorsement is much, much deserved. In Mr. Winters' usual style, he gave praise cleverly and insightfully. Mr. Winters redeployed those charitably and eloquently given words by John Noonan, my former Notre Dame colleague, who spoke in lieu of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon at last year's contentious Notre Dame commencement.

......

Those of us who defended the president and Notre Dame's decision to honor him last year missed this opportunity when we didn't commend Mary Ann Glendon's act of conscience even as we may have perceived it as disproportionate or unjustified. John Noonan bridged that oversight on our part by making reference to the former ambassador to the Holy See as "our friend," and this is what makes Michael's reference to Noonan so meaningful. Mary Ann Glendon indeed remains our friend notwithstanding the rancor and division that some partisans have sought to impose upon us. This core friendship which we share in the fullness of the faith ought never to be seen in jeopardy merely because of occasional difference over the means to achieve the common good.

Notre Dame's commencement was intended to honor President Obama and Catholic social teaching at one in the same time. It was, in my judgment, a serious error for a number of influential American bishops for whom I have great respect to have then proclaimed that dual purpose to be impossible. Despite the bishops' insistence that they did not want to have their opposition to the president's designation understood as personal disdain for the president, in the context of the moment, many of the president's allies could see it as little else. Certainly, to many of us who defended Our Lady's university, those arguing to bar the president seemed to reason more from personal politics than pastoral grace.

......

Sr. Carol's act of conscience will indeed be long remembered along with the likes of that of Notre Dame president Holy Cross Fr. John Jenkins, and if I may be permitted a more personal reference to Sister Bernadette Murphy SSL, a member of my parish in California, who passed from this earth just shortly before seeing the hopeful glimmer of universal care taken up in America. I am confident Sr. Bernadette represents many names, lay and religious, known to each of us and for whom we offer constant prayer and whose work in behalf of social justice is accomplished each day in ways less public but every bit as meaningful. Sr. Bernadette, like the long-time champion of the needs of the overlooked, Ted Kennedy, is in this moment of success also fondly remembered.

It turned out not to be, and just as we praise Sr. Carol, we should affirm, or at least, embrace Mr. Stupak. It is the other side that shouts out with irrational venom in the House chamber "baby killer" as the Congressman accepted the assurances of the presidential executive order, not us. Let us instead applaud, whether we thought it necessary or not, that Mr. Stupak demonstrated throughout the process an extra measure of faith, reason and political courage.

........

[Douglas W. Kmiec is on leave from his teaching post at Pepperdine University to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Malta. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Department of State.]

See the full article at: http://ncronline.org/print/17542

My color, bold and underline added.

______________________________________________________________________________

According to Ambassador Kmiec we must "lift up" the following cadre:

Sr. Carol Keehan, Head of the Catholic Health association who endorsed the pro-abortion healthcare package.

Fr. John Jenkins, President at Notre Dame, who gave a "Catholic" award to pro-abortion President Barak Obama

Congressman Bart Stupak, who sold out his stated pro-life principles at the expense of yet to be aborted babies.

The late Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy

Kmiec wants to heap accolades on these folk and..... 

I want the same list to be the staring line up at a new auto de fe!

The chasm between right and wrong, light and dark, logic and illogic grows to unbelievable proportions every day. I feel old remembering a time when this level of dysfunction was either not present or blissfully unmouthed! Faith in Almighty G*d and the indestructability of His Church are my main mental recourse.

I am saddened to think , nonetheless, of what the future holds for our once great Republic.

The Devil is in the details.....

Per FOXNews.com - March 21, 2010

Stupak Announces Deal With

White House on Abortion Funding Ban

"Pro-life Democrats have reached a deal with President Obama to ensure that no taxpayer money goes to abortion services, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who led Democratic lawmakers opposed to the Senate bill, said Sunday about an arrangement that appeared to cement passage of the massive insurance overhaul.

Pro-life Democrats have reached a deal with President Obama to ensure that no taxpayer money goes to abortion services, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who led Democratic lawmakers opposed to the Senate bill, said Sunday about an arrangement that appeared to cement passage of the massive insurance overhaul.

Stupak made the announcement surrounded by a handful of Democratic lawmakers who had held out their "yes" votes on the bill set for a vote on Sunday. The swing means a movement by as many as a dozen Democrats who had said they wanted stronger restrictions on abortion funding in the 10-year, $870 billion legislation.

"I'm pleased to announce that we have an agreement, and it's with the help of the president and the speaker we were able to come to an agreement to protect the sanctity of life in the health care reform. There will be no public funding for abortion in this legislation," Stupak said. 

Stupak announced support for the bill as the White House issued its statement about the executive order. 

The president "will be issuing an executive order after the passage of the health insurance reform law that will reaffirm its consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion," reads the statement from White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer.

"While the legislation as written maintains current law, the executive order provides additional safeguards to ensure that the status quo is upheld and enforced, and that the health care legislation's restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented," the statement reads.

Opponents say an executive order does not have the force of law that legislation would provide.

"That is not the rule of law. That's the rule of man. One man can sign an executive order and one man can repeal that again, the president of the United States," said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., appearing on "Fox News Sunday" before the deal was announced. "So for those of us in the pro-life movement and the -- and my Democrat friends who are pro-life, that doesn't cut it. A executive order is not something that is permanent law."

House Minority Leader John Boehner added that the executive order "can direct members of the executive branch, it cannot direct the private sector."

"Because of Roe v. Wade, courts have interpreted the decision as a statutory mandate that the government must provide federal funding for elective abortion in through federal programs. In other words, no executive order or regulation can override a statutory mandate unless Congress passes a law that prohibits federal funding from being used in this manner," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

Stupak had frustrated Democratic liberals who said they were fine with the language in the Senate health care that stipulated taxpayer money for abortions not be used by private insurance plans operating in a new insurance marketplace. 

Opponents of the Senate bill, however, had wanted more rigorous language like that which had passed the House in November under the "Stupak amendment." Stupak said statutory language would've been preferable but would not pass the Senate.

But concerns seemed to be allayed by the executive order even though the Senate bill creates a tricky accounting technique to separate out federal subsidies for premiums on plans that allow abortion coverage and those that do not.

He added that he was confident the language would not be rescinded by Obama.

The president "said there will be no federal dollars for abortion. The president has put his commitment in writing," Stupak said. "This is a very extensive order, he does not plan on rescinding it."

Health insurance provided by government-run exchanges is not set to go into effect until 2014, after the 2012 election.

Stupak said he was confident the changes in the language would give House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the numbers she needed to pass the bill universally opposed by Republicans though he hesitated on the count.

"We're well past 216," he said, later adding, "I think we're pretty darn close to having 216, yes."

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The force of an "executive order" is not equal to that of an act passed by the Congress.

We are apparently being asked to trust President Obama.