Roman Catholic opposition to the health care overhaul package is crumbling, with some church officials and lawmakers concluding that their long-sought goal of health care overhaul trumps the desire to adopt the severest restrictions on abortion funding.
A coalition of 59,000 nuns released a letter yesterday calling on Congress to approve the overhaul, defying the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposes the measure. The Catholic Health Association, which represents 1,200 Catholic hospitals, has endorsed the package, as have Catholics United and Catholic groups promoting social justice.
That split mirrors a division among some antiabortion US representatives. In preparing to cast perhaps one of the most important votes on a domestic issue in their careers, they are wrestling with questions that strike at the core of their beliefs and that threaten to embolden voters in November.
Ardently antiabortion Representative Dale Kildee, a Michigan Democrat who once studied in a Catholic seminary, said yesterday he will vote for the package despite language that some believe is not strict enough in ensuring that no federal funds are used for abortions.
Catholic social teaching elevates opposing intrinsic evil above promoting social justice. So all these “Catholic” groups are just chasing after their favorite items in the cafeteria line.
One of the nuns here in Louisville who has celebrated her 75th anniversary as a sister, faithfully prays in front of the abortion clinic on a regular basis. There are several others, however, who think a Course in Miracles and Eckart Tolle are worthy of study–making them unfit to dispense spiritual guidance to Christians.
The headline is wrong. “CAFETERIA Catholic ‘opposition’ (which never really existed anyway) fades.” is more accurate.
I agree with the foregoing; few in the cheerleading MSM will report that these groups are not the catholic church. The CHA is a simply trade association.
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Get religion chimes in on how misleading such articles are. In addition, the Catholic News Agency now reports that the Bishops speak for the Catholic Church:
But don’t expect any corrections from the MSM.
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WRONG,WRONG,WRONG,WRONG, WRONG!!!! The Devil’s servants have been busy.
I don’t put much stock in what the “Catholic” Hospital Association says regarding this bill. Having practiced at a nominally Catholic hospital that routinely permitted sterilization procedures to be performed and then renamed them “uterine isolation procedures,” I suspect that the adherence to Catholic teaching and doctrine on this and other core RC moral issues by CHA members is lukewarm at best.
I also bet that, if and when push came to shove regarding permitting abortions or closing their doors, these same institutions follow the money and the culture, shedding crocodile tears all the way. Call me cynical, but in my experience there’s a whole lot of cultural/cafeteria Catholics running and staffing these hospitals. And they care just as much about market share as their benighted secular hospital competitors.
One of the reasons other countries have a lower abortion rate is because of universal health care. Lower-income, uninsured mothers don’t have to worry about how to spend money to care for their children.
BTW, Some nuns are anti-abortion AND read Eckhart Tolle.
I’d also note that the National Catholic Reporter has come out in favor of the bill.
Ralinda’s complaint reminds me of the time the Pope responded to Claire Booth Luce, “you know, Mrs. Ambassador, I am a Catholic too.”
The “National Catholic Distorter” doesn’t necessarily speak for or support values and positions consistent with orthodox RC teaching and doctrine, John. Neither does America magazine. Or Nancy Pelosi.
Then again, at least the NCR doesn’t at present embrace the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, as a certain mainline denomination we both know does.
55 signatories do ..not represent 59,000 nuns just as the fools in Congress are NOT representing the American people.
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March 19, 2010
Washington DC (MetroCatholic) – A recent letter from Network, a social justice lobby of sisters, grossly overstated whom they represent in a letter to Congress that was also released to media.
Network’s letter, about health care reform, was signed by a few dozen people, and despite what Network said, they do not come anywhere near representing 59,000 American sisters.
The letter had 55 signatories, some individuals, some groups of three to five persons. One endorser signed twice.
There are 793 religious communities in the United States.
The math is clear. Network is far off the mark.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh
Director of Media Relations
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
When Roman Catholic priests sexually abused children on multiple continents for multiple decades, it was the Roman Catholic bishops—including the current Pope—who helped cover it up. I think that’s why greater and greater numbers of Roman Catholics (and Protestants) are more and more disinclined to heed input from Roman Catholic bishops on other moral matters.