The editorial [in the Tablet] has value for several reasons. First, it proves once again that people don’t need to actually live in the United States to have unhelpful and badly informed opinions about our domestic issues. Second, some of the same pious voices that once criticized U.S. Catholics for supporting a previous president now sound very much like acolytes of a new president. Third, abortion is not, and has never been, a “specifically Catholic issue,” and the editors know it. And fourth, the growing misuse of Catholic “common ground” and “common good” language in the current health-care debate can only stem from one of two sources: ignorance or cynicism.
No system that allows or helps fund””no matter how subtly or indirectly””the killing of unborn children, or discrimination against the elderly and persons with special needs, can bill itself as “common ground.” Doing so is a lie.
In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, people came and laid there money at the disciple’s feet. The one additional arguement the good priest could easily make was that any system that required us to bring our money and lay it down at government’s feet is idolitry.
Don
The link is bad.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has [url=http://www.faithfulreform.org/index.php/Theology-and-Policy/United-States-Conference-of-Catholic-Bishops.html]this[/url] to say on the subject. Note especially:
[blockquote] Health care reform is not a new issue for the U.S. Bishops’ Conference. In our 1981 pastoral letter Health and Health Care, the bishops called for an adequately funded national health insurance program for all Americans: “Following on these principles and on our belief in health care as a basic human right, we call for the development of a national health insurance program. It is the responsibility of the federal government to establish a comprehensive health care system that will ensure a basic level of health care for all Americans. The federal government should also ensure adequate funding for this basic level of care through a national health insurance program.”
This public position is not based in some political theory, but is rooted deeply in the Judeo-Christian belief that every human person is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). As such, every person possesses an inherent dignity that must be deeply respected, and every person has the right and the responsibility to realize the fullness of that dignity. [/blockquote]