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PICKING POCKETS IN THE PEW: THE CCHD SCANDAL Posted: Monday November 9, 2009 at 4:40 pm EST by Judie Brown
By Mary Ann Kreitzer
On November 22, in Catholic churches around the country, ushers will pass collection baskets for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Millions of trusting Catholics will contribute “to help the poor.” What many don’t know is that their hard-earned dollars will pour into the coffers of liberal organizations promoting causes they oppose and which often hurt the poor.
In 1969, the U.S. bishops established CCHD “to fund low-income controlled empowerment projects and to educate Catholics about the root causes of poverty.” Since then, the campaign has spent $300 million funding community and parish organizing. According to the grant application criteria on the CCHD web site, groups offering direct services, e.g., soup kitchens, day care centers, homeless shelters, etc. are ineligible. So scrap the Missionaries of Charity, your local free clinic or crisis pregnancy center; they are banned by definition. Not a single one appears on the 2007 summary of CCHD grantees.
To be eligible, groups must organize the poor “to enact institutional change.” That means working for “modification of existing laws and/or policies” and “establishment of participatory and just social structures and/or redistribution of decision-making powers so that people living in poverty can be involved in policy-making that affects their lives.” (There is also an “economic development” category of funding for businesses run by and creating jobs for low-income people, but it’s a small percentage of the pie – useful, however, for CCHD public relations.)
The bottom line is that CCHD primarily funds community organizers who go into neighborhoods and agitate for change using local people led by trained organizers, the real decision makers. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on the change and the tactics used, but CCHD has a shaky history of funding groups that promote radical left socialism rather than Catholicism. CCHD policy is modeled more on the failed strategies of secular poverty programs than on Catholic social justice philosophy.
In 1994, the Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly, ran a series of articles by Paul Likoudis about what was then called the Campaign for Human Development. (The word Catholic was added later.) The group was celebrating 25 years and the more than $200 million donated, ostensibly to aid the poor. Likoudis wrote that the anniversary “brought [many U.S. Catholics] to plead with the… bishops for an investigation of and an audit into what kinds of programs the ecclesiastical apparat has funded.” He exposed a broad range of serious problems. They included financing organizations that support abortion and contraception, funneling money into leftist groups working for socialistic political goals and organizing voter drives to elect radical politicians. (In 1996, leading pro-life Congressman Bob Dornan was targeted by CCHD-funded groups that worked to elect pro-abortion playgirl Loretta Sanchez.)
Likoudis exposed the intimate connection between atheist Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and CCHD. Alinsky, the granddaddy of a new type of community organizing, promoted radical and immoral means. Some of the tactics used by those trained in his method will be described later in this article. No longer were Catholics to follow the Church’s long history of Catholic Action, which addresses both body and soul through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The new paradigm would educate the poor in their neighborhoods and middle-class Catholics in their parishes to acquire power using whatever tactics were necessary, then use that power to bring about systemic change.
Organization strategies came from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, dedicated to Lucifer, and works based on it, like Dean Brackley’s Organize: A Manual for Leaders. Organize (copyrighted by the Jesuits and published by liberal Paulist Press) calls for tactics “from banners and posters to public service announcements, picketing, threatening lawsuits…’destruction of your own property,’ protests, teach-ins, walkouts, registering voters, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, ‘overloading the system’ (for example ‘100 people ask for medical help in the emergency room or clinic’) … to the most important thing: controlling a meeting with public officials.”
While some of the strategies are perfectly fine, presuming a moral end and charitably carried out (think of the rescue movement at abortion mills), the Alinsky model encourages lying, manipulation, stirring up class antagonisms and mob action. Manipulating power to coerce both government and private business is a primary strategy of both IAF and ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now), two of the organizations receiving a generous portion of CCHD funds over the years. Likoudis described ACORN’s 1992 efforts to organize the Shaw area of Washington, D.C. (a depressed neighborhood where I student-taught in 1967). When local Korean small businesses refused to financially support ACORN’s efforts, they organized a shakedown, picketing outside shops. As one merchant said, “This is something the Mafia would do.”
Likoudis noted a study by the Capital Research Center in Washington that called CCHD’s 25- year legacy “a dreadful failure.” He summarized CCHD’s efforts saying, “What [C]CHD has actually done is offer the poor ‘a false faith in the power of government,’ and 25 years and $200 million later, the worsening misery index of Americans can be measured by dramatic rises in homicide and suicide rates, abortion and illegitimate births, divorce and huge increases in the numbers of people living in poverty – all accompanied by exponential increases in government spending on ‘poverty programs.’”
Have things changed since Likoudis’ 1994 report? Yes and no. In 1998, the campaign changed its name by adding the word Catholic and, the next year, issued new guidelines supposedly assuring that CCHD grants would comply with Catholic moral doctrine. “But since these changes were made, CCHD seems to have plodded along the same weary course…. stuck in, as one observer called it, a ‘60s time warp’ happy to fund leftwing, big-government political mobilization and ‘anti-poverty’ groups,” Human Events reported in 2000. That description still applies today. CCHD primarily supports groups committed to government solutions. If they worked, of course, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would have solved the problem of poverty decades ago. As it is, CCHD pours good money after bad.
So who does CCHD fund and how do these groups use the money? According to Stephanie Block, a researcher with extensive files on CCHD’s links to community organizing, Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) rakes in about 16% of all grants annually. ACORN, a group that is separate from but similar to IAF, receives about 5%. And there are others. A third to one-half of all funded organizations are Alinskyite groups with philosophies antithetical to Catholic teaching on social justice.
Since ACORN is easy to identify on the CCHD grant list, it’s a good group to target for analysis. The 2007 grant summary, a 24-page rundown of groups receiving between $25,000 and $50,000 each, shows that about three dozen ACORN affiliates received over a million dollars. That’s quite a chunk of Catholic change. So what exactly are the faithful (and the poor) getting for the money?
In 2006, the Employment Policies Institute released a study called Rotten ACORN: America’s Bad Seed. It describes ACORN as a “vast web of groups run by long-time anti-corporate activist Wade Rathke and a handful of his closest allies…[with] more than 75 organizations run … out of one office … in New Orleans” (page 2). The 30-page report with 140 footnotes goes on to describe what essentially is the “Rathke family business” (p. 3) which is up to its neck in voter fraud, shaking down banks and private businesses, funneling massive amounts of money into the pockets of family members through its spiderweb of networks and mistreating its employees. Rathke was forced out in 2008 after his brother, Dale, embezzled almost a million dollars, and he covered it up keeping his brother on the payroll for eight years after the 2000 crime.
Rathke’s agenda was not about promoting the well-being of ACORN members but building his own power. “An internal ACORN manual instructed organizers to sign up as many residents as possible because ‘this is a mass organization directed at political power where might makes right’” (p. 16).
Consumer Rights League’s chief public advocate, James Terry, testified on September 24, 2008 at a joint House Administration Subcommittee and House Judiciary Subcommittee oversight hearing concerning “Federal State and Local Efforts to Prepare for the General 2008 Election.” Terry described ACORN’s “decade-long history of voter fraud, embezzlement, and misuses of taxpayer funds…We know about the thousands of potentially fraudulent voter registration cards turned in by ACORN and caught by officials…how many more fraudulent registrations have not been discovered…we believe it is fair to question how many fraudulent registrations may lead to fraudulent votes or what other activities they are willing to undertake to influence the election…We respectfully submit that our nations’ election system is facing a concerted campaign that raises serious issues” (pp. 12-13).
Terry wasn’t talking through his hat. In July 2007, ACORN was involved in the largest case of voter fraud in Washington State history. Similar schemes occurred in at least a dozen other states including Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, and Colorado among others (Employment Policies Institute, pp. 18-20). Investigations of ACORN were instigated in numerous states, including Missouri, where during the 2006 midterm elections, “St. Louis election officials were … inundated with bogus Acorn-generated voter registrants…. over 1,000 addresses listed on its registrations don’t exist.” In 2006 in Kansas City, the Republican head of the Board of Elections said 40% of the 35,000 ACORN registrations appeared to be fakes. ACORN has also used federal grants illegally to engage in political activity.
And who are the primary recipients of ACORN’s hard work? Democrats. In 2004, ACORN internal documents disclosed its strategy to use a minimum wage campaign in Florida to “increase voter turnout of working class, mainly Democratic voters without increasing opposition turnout.” ACORN pumped nearly $20 million dollars into the contested 2004 presidential election (Employment Policies Institute, p. 18).
Democratic partisan politics is ACORN’s legacy. In 2005, Gary Delgado, founding ACORN organizer, shared a story at a conference on the group’s history. “ACORN was early on interested in registering voters….We did not register a single Republican in that election [1970 Arkansas governor’s race]” (Employment Policies Institute, p. 16). In 1980, ACORN was actively promoting a Democrat for president “urging its members to register and vote in primary elections and caucuses. In certain states it had considerable influence. In Michigan, for example, ACORN delegates proved important in Senator Edward Kennedy’s [primary] campaign” (Employment Policies Institute, p. 17) and worked for Jesse Jackson in 1984 (Employment Policies Institute, p. 17). The Wall Street Journal reported April 29, 2008 that “ACORN’s national political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama. And its ‘nonpartisan’ voter registration affiliate has announced plans to register hundreds of thousands of voters before the November election.” Nonpartisan?
Not surprisingly ACORN opposes voter identification laws. In 1995, Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar refused to implement the “Motor Voter” law, which allowed postcard registration, which he felt invited fraud. The young lawyer who sued on behalf of ACORN and won was Barack Obama. Obama was no stranger to ACORN. According to Block, “Obama ran [its] 1992 voter-registration drive, Project Vote, and in turn received ACORN’s endorsement for Illinois senator.” ACORN has challenged many state efforts to limit voter fraud by requiring identification at the polls. It’s no wonder, in view of its history, which includes padding voter rolls with the names of underage, dead and nonexistent persons.
ACORN’s immoral actions are not limited to voter fraud. According to Stanley Kurtz, writing in the New York Post September 29, 2008, “intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats…have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions.”
With aid from CCHD grants, ACORN helped force passage of President Bill Clinton’s changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1995. Those changes required banks to get satisfactory CRA ratings (necessary for mergers) by demonstrating that they were providing a significant number of loans to poor, middle class and minority home buyers. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of bad loans to people who couldn’t afford them (including illegal aliens), a problem which contributed to the current economic crisis.
A key player in what’s been described as the “housing shakedown,” ACORN used typical Alinskyite tactics to pressure banks to meet its demands. For example, in 1992 Madeline Talbott, Chicago head of ACORN, “announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks…. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on down payments and underwriting – for example by overlooking bad credit histories. By September 1992, [t]he Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott’s program as ‘affirmative-action lending’ and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.”
Talbott pressured five Chicago financial institutions, two of whom had experienced her direct action bullying, to participate in a pilot program to give mortgages to individuals with bad credit histories. “What made this program different…was the participation of Fannie Mae – which agreed to buy up the [bad] loans.”
ACORN frequently serves as an “adviser” to banks seeking mergers. When J.P. Morgan wanted to merge with Chase Manhattan, ACORN became the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands in donations from both Morgan and Chase. (ACORN Housing Corporation’s 2000 tax return shows grants from Bank of America, Fleet Services Corp., Fannie Mae, Chase Manhattan, and Wells Fargo totaling $4,752,198 [Employment Policies Institute, p. 26].)
“The banks that ACORN has shaken down refuse to discuss their contributions to a political organization that, to put it mildly, is hostile to free enterprise,” wrote Sol Stern, of the Manhattan Institute, in 2003. Talbott’s pressure tactics are typical of ACORN organizers in every state because they all come from the Alinsky game book. They were the same tactics used by top ACORN activist, Mitch Klein, in the early 2000s. He “injected a new aggressiveness into the Baltimore chapter. Underlings piled garbage in front of City Hall to protest lack of services in poor neighborhoods, wielded huge inflated rubber sharks to disrupt a bankers’ dinner, and – most controversially – staged a profanity-laced protest in front of [the mayor’s] home…. (Despite – or perhaps because of – the intimidation, ACORN still gets $50,000 a year from the city of Baltimore to provide housing counseling to the poor.)”
An even more egregious example of intimidation happened in New York City when Mayor Rudy Giuliani proposed the takeover of five of NYC’s worst schools by Edison Schools, Inc., a for-profit educational group. ACORN opposed the move [by] distributing flyers (printed at public expense) lying about Edison’s record. Using school lists extorted from city officials, they bombarded parents with letters and phone calls and stacked public forums in Harlem with ACORN activists who shouted down the Edison representatives. The plan was abandoned.
Failing inner city schools are one of the most serious problems for the poor. One might think a group concerned about their welfare would support the option of school choice, but ACORN has consistently resisted any effort to allow the poor to escape the public school monopoly. As Stern said, “[ACORN] promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor. As a result, not only does it harm the poor it claims to serve; it is also a serious threat to the urban future.” So why does it receive millions of dollars from CCHD?
But there’s another ugly aspect to ACORN that makes Catholic funding for its activities baffling. While the organization bullies others to pay minimum wage and treat employees justly, a growing cadre of ACORN whistle-blowers describe the awful treatment of the group’s own employees. A blog called “The Real ACORN” describes how workers have been lied to, not paid, refused benefits, etc. In Florida, dozens of unpaid employees “turned a Miami campaign office upside down in anger…. Elizabeth Andrades, who heads the Hialeah office of [ACORN] , said a boisterous crowd took over the Miami office …. One woman carried a bat. The kitchenette was set on fire, she said.” It’s hard to empathize as ACORN feels the sting of its own mob tactics used against it.
Mistreatment of these employees was not an isolated case. In 2006, Bruce Bartlett writing in Human Events, described how ACORN sued California for exemption to the minimum wage law. Its brief argued, “A person paid limited sums of money will be in a better position to empathize with and relate to the low and moderate membership and constituency of ACORN.” Maybe paying nothing would be even more effective! The hypocrisy staggers the imagination. ACORN has denied workers the right to organize, something they demand from private businesses. In 2001, the Seattle office attempted to unionize. ACORN management retaliated by locking workers out. They settled later for $20,000. In Dallas, in the same year, workers who threatened to organize were fired, an act the National Labor Relations Board ruled in 2003 violated the law.
In view of all the information readily available about ACORN, why does CCHD continue to fund it year after year to the tune of multimillions of dollars? One must conclude that promoting the liberal Democratic agenda is what the campaign is all about, a fact Likoudis documented in 1994 that remains unchanged today.
But do the bishops know? Block’s opinion: “A few bishops understand exactly what the [CCHD] is and approve what it funds. Most, however, swallow the concept of its ‘helping the poor’ and have probed no deeper.” But what about CCHD staffers? Who’s minding the store? Everything in this article is easily available on the internet. If all the organizations funded by CCHD receive as little scrutiny as ACORN, the faithful should keep a tight grip on their wallets. Considering that 40% of ACORN’s budget comes from tax revenue, Catholic citizens’ pockets are being picked twice!
In conclusion, when the ushers pass the basket on November 22, faithful Catholics should drop in a note saying why they will never put a penny in the CCHD collection until it follows Catholic social justice teachings, instead of serving as a conduit for left-wing liberal extortionists. Then write a check to a local charity that truly serves the poor. What else can you do? Give this report to your bishop and your pastor. Telling people CCHD helps the poor while funding groups like ACORN borders on fraud.
Mary Ann Kreitzer is president of the Catholic Media Coalition, as well as president of Les Femmes (a lay Catholic media apostolate in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia), and editor of its quarterly newsletter, the Truth. The CMC is a nationwide organization of Catholic writers, webmasters, editors and others whose mission is to report truthfully about the Catholic Church and to defend, foster and spread authentic Catholic faith and culture. This article is adapted from an article originally published by the CMC (which includes endnotes) and featured here with its kind permission.
For more information on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and to participate in American Life League’s “No thank you!” card campaign, in response to the CCHD’s annual collection (Sunday, November 22 in parishes nationwide), visit www.all.org/cchd.
Another Scandal, what a mess!
Yes, I will be dropping a note when the ushers pass the basket on November 22 and praying.
Thank you for letting the truth be known.
Charity in Truth,
Patty
Patty Palmquist | November 10, 2009
Dear Judie:
I love the card campaign. I have decided to send these cards directly to my Bishops in a red envelope (I will use some of the wording from the "red envelope campaign"). I figure that dropping them in the collection basket is a good idea - but our Pastor will throw it in the trash. Our Bishops are responsible for this nonsense. I saw a video clip on u-tube that also suggested throwing an acorn in the collection basket with a note that we are "tired of giving our money to a bush of nuts." (Acorn). I like that idea as well. God Bless and thank you.
Leah | November 10, 2009
Dear Judie, once again you bring things into the light. I've heard about this before, but never from the pulpit. We seem to be without brave leadership in the Church militant. Tomorrow's first reading may be a warning, Wisdom 6:1-11, "..Because as servants of His kingdom you did not rule rightly, nor keep the law, nor walk according to the purpose of God, He will come upon you terribly and swiftly because severe judgement falls on those in high places.." For this reason we need to pray for our Church leaders more than ever. God bless you and thank you,
Mary Mary Kuhns | November 10, 2009
DAMNING PRACTICES EXPOSE TOTAL ERADICATION OF ETHICS Posted: Friday November 6, 2009 at 5:40 pm EST by Judie Brown
Once upon a time, there were professionals in the medical, scientific, research, legal and education fields who examined questions and practices based on a standard ethical framework, which is explained by Professor Dianne Irving in her article “Which Medical Ethics for the 21st Century?”:
The first ethical principle of the natural law, from which several other principles are drawn, is familiar to us all: “Do good and avoid evil.” Natural law also includes three (not one) general norms against which we determine what is right or wrong: (1) the subjective norm — not just “conscience,” but a well-formed conscience; (2) the objective proximate norm — right reason, a very rich understanding of reason which embraces the harmony, interrelationship and good within any single individual, as well as among individuals within a society. Here the “common goods” must flow back upon the backs of each and every member of that society, and the institutions are there to ensure that; and, (3) the ultimate norm — the Divine Nature itself, the ultimate measure of right and wrong, and of goodness. Of course, the Divine Nature is not the subject matter of natural law philosophical ethics, but of theology (which I will address in a moment).
In applying these general norms to concrete situations we decide what particular actions are right or wrong based on three (not one) conditions: the kind of action, the intention for doing the action and the circumstances under which the action is done.
It’s very helpful to keep this fundamentally rational principle in mind when considering what is happening currently in the areas of science and medicine that impact the question of when a human being exists and how that individual should be treated. For example, the State of California, which is, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt, has just awarded grants to entities claiming to be able to develop therapies for serious diseases by using technologies not involving human embryonic stem cell research (HESCR). The $230 million went to 14 projects, but news reports confirm that at least four of these will use HESCR, which means that preborn children will be killed, even though the grants are touted as supporting “projects in nonembryonic stem cells.”
The California grants also include a grant for research employing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are allegedly cells produced from a patient’s own cells and touted as having the same properties as HESCR. The problem with this is that such iPS cells are produced by unethical means. Theresa Deisher, Ph.D. has made this point many times.
The ability to transform adult cells into embryonic stem cells could be moral, however, a close inspection of the two published papers revealed that cells from an electively aborted fetus were used in the work, and therefore it cannot be considered moral.
In order to transform adult cells into embryonic cells, the researchers (Yamanaka, et al) introduced four genes essential for "embryonic stem cell character" into the adult cells. First, the researchers had to make the genes and virus materials needed to transform the adult cells. Both researchers used versions of the HEK 293 cell to do this. This is a cell, the Human Embryonic Kidney 293 cell, used commonly in biomedical research for DNA (gene) and virus production. I was informed quite recently that the 293 cells were produced from an electively aborted fetus. I was able to verify that easily. The term embryonic in the name is misleading.
Such projects fail to meet the natural law ethical criteria as defined above. It is apparent that those involved with such research—not to mention abortion, in vitro fertilization and political deconstruction of objective truth—have developed a new set of “ethics” which have no similarity whatsoever to natural law standards. This is why we are witnessing practices that totally violate the obligation to respect the integrity of the individual human person.
In another incident, scientists recently announced that they had developed a process for creating progenitor cells [fundamental cells] of human sperm and human ova by using material from HESCR. Some claim that this latest discovery could lead to the creation of human beings without men, women or sexual relations. This sounds a bit far-fetched, and one would have thought at least a quip would have been heard from the major media, but no such comment was reported.
The report, published in the journal Nature by Stanford University researchers, says that the primary aims of the researchers were to unlock the secrets of genetic malformation of ova and sperm by creating germ cells and eventually to treat infertility and genetic defects that are common in in vitro fertilization treatments. In the experiments, embryonic stem cells taken from “spare” IVF embryos were treated with proteins to stimulate the growth of germ cells….
[Renee] Reijo Pera of Stanford’s Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and the senior author of the new study, said, “Figuring out the genetic ‘recipe’ needed to develop human germ cells in the laboratory will give us the tools we need to trace what’s going wrong” for infertile couples.
The center’s research focuses on experimentation involving human embryos, germ cell development, gene manipulation and human cloning. A quick study of Pera’s background provokes the question of precisely how far this research will have to go before someone pays attention to its destructive ramifications.
In this age of science divorced from reason, perhaps it simply has not occurred to most people that such things are even possible. And perhaps this is exactly what some scientists are hoping.
Here, as in other such studies, the lives of preborn children are being taken for the purpose of experimentation in areas where, once upon a time, no ethical scientist would have dared to go. What can possibly be gained from such research and why pursue it? Clearly, the guiding principle, do good and avoid evil, has not only fallen into disuse, but has been buried once and for all by many scientists entrusted with research that should have, as its primary goal, service to the human person.
According to Fiona Macrae, of the UK’s Daily Mail, who wrote the original report on Pera's work,“The science also raises the possibility of ‘male eggs’ made from men’s skin and ‘female sperm’ from women’s skin. This would allow gay couples to have children genetically their own, although many scientists are skeptical about whether it is possible to create sperm from female cells, which lack the male Y chromosome.”
As noted in yesterday’s commentary, Dr. Irving reminds us that there are no depths too steeped in questionable practices for those involved in clinical research and reproductive technology these days. Whether it’s “pre-embryo splitting,” human cloning or the practice I have just described, nothing is taboo.
Once the fundamental language has been destroyed and recreated to suit the agendas of those bent on replacing God with themselves, there is nothing that cannot be attempted. Sadly, this applies even to some in Congress who claim to have pro-life concerns at the center of their efforts. In the proposed Stupak-Wamp human cloning “ban,” for example, not all methods of human cloning are addressed, and therefore, just as was the case eight years ago with the Brownback-Weldon “ban,” there actually is no ban. In fact, the bill is not worth the paper it is written on at the moment.
The wide variety of human cloning techniques currently of interest to researchers, including the creation of a human embryo without male/female involvement, is not even addressed! This in itself is shocking.
Are Stupak and Wamp misinformed? I cannot attest to that, one way or the other, but either or both of them could assign someone to do thorough investigation of current scientific practices and ask tough questions before authoring a bill that is allegedly addressing the abuses I have outlined in this article. Or perhaps for political reasons, such essential research is not in their best interests. If that’s the case, then they are guilty of misleading their peers and the public.
In today’s upside-down culture, anybody can define a word to mean what they want it to mean. And that includes the simple word “ban,” which used to mean forbid, period. Given that the average American’s attention span seems to be growing ever shorter, who is going to check up on these things?
This is why it is imperative to go back to basics. Each of us needs to understand the factual definition of words, whether we are talking about a ban or a banana. If we do that, we won’t get it wrong. But if we fail, all hell will break loose and these damning practices will continue to go unchecked.
Thank you again, Judie. All hell has broken loose. How long can the few righteous stem the tide of judgement that is about to break upon our nation? Jody Ward | November 7, 2009
It strikes me that the health care bill passed in the House, though it bans abortions does fund abortions via funding for contraceptives including the Pill, which is an abortifacient. The US Bishops office in DC now supports the bill. Am I correct in this? Bro Charles Madden Bro. Charles Madden, OFM Conv. | November 8, 2009
Judie, thank you for telling the truth. You are a breath of fresh air. I've been a pro-life activist for about 10 years now and over the years have found that you seem to be the only voice for the unborn that does not waiver or try to be politically correct. I know that the truth is the truth, even if no one believes it. I've received emails from other pro-life groups this morning basically saying we should celebrate the victory regarding protecting women and babies from federally funded abortion in healthcare reform. I do not see a reason to celebrate at this time. Right now you and ALL seem to be literally the ONLY group with the courage to speak the truth and the whole truth. Thank you so much and God bless you all at ALL. Mary | November 9, 2009
Dear Judie,
Is there a Bishop that consistently speaks and acts pro-life? I don't hear that much from Pope Benedict regarding protecting the unborn either. Where can I look to find out if there are any consistently pro-life leaders in our Church?
thank you so much,
Mary Mary Kuhns | November 9, 2009
Jody
Where two or more are gathered in His name, He hears us and He will never permit Satan to break down the walls of truth.
Judie Brown Judie Brown | November 10, 2009
Dear Brother Charles
The HOUSE BILL contains a flawed amendment (Stupak) that permits tax payer funding for some abortion, but the same bill also permits increased funding for birth control (early day abortion) and Planned Parenthood not to mention health care rationing. It is a disaster.
Why the USCCB lobbied for this is a mystery!
Judie Brown Judie Brown | November 10, 2009
Dear Mary
We have a website that addresses pro-abortion public figures and their Bishops. The best way to tell how strong and faithful a Catholic Bishop is is by his actions to defend Christ from sacrilege. To learn more visit www.canon915.org
God be with you. OH! I also believe strongly that the Holy Father is inundated with problems and there is only so much instruction he can give to Bishops; if they choose to ignore him, then that is between the Bishop and the Lord.
SCIENTIFIC FRAUD: RUMINATIONS ON DUPLICITY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Posted: Thursday November 5, 2009 at 3:45 pm EST by Judie Brown
Over the past nearly 16 years, I have learned an awful lot about certain subjects that were never high on my hit parade before getting involved in the pro-life movement. But since wonders never cease, this process of being educated and immediately horrified continues. To put this in the proper perspective, let’s just say that when I first learned that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had lied about how the birth control pill worked, way back in the mid-1970s, I was incredulous. It never occurred to me that a public official or government agency would deny the facts by simply not mentioning them. Boy, was I naïve!
At that time, the subject was the birth control pill and the fact, proven scientifically and repeatedly, that the chemical can and does kill preborn babies during their first week of life. The government never identified those chemicals as having the potential to abort a preborn baby early, and the government has stuck to its monstrous tale for all these years.
Not only that, but some national pro-life groups have adhered to the same bogus position. Why, you might ask? To my mind, these organizations have done so in order to excuse themselves from demanding the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their political friends who sit in positions of power and welcome them to the table, as long as they remain politically acceptable.
Now there is something else that is beginning to irritate me on a number of levels and for the same reasons.
There is a flurry of news regarding the possibility that reprogrammed cells, from umbilical cord blood, could be an ethical replacement for the research currently being done using human embryonic stem cells. Since a human embryo must die in order for his or her stem cells to be used, the use of those cells is totally unethical and immoral. So could the news about the reprogrammed cord blood cells be positive or simply another sham?
Based on the evidence from various scientific journals, published articles and analysis, we would have to conclude that a reprogrammed cord blood cell, which is really just an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell, is no more ethical than the previous “discoveries” reported by the mainstream media. For example, much earlier this year “stem cell pioneer” James Thomson claimed that his crew had used the “reprogramming method,” first pioneered by Shinya Yamanaka to take his research to a safer level, or so he claimed. As reported, Thomson accomplished this by “delivering the special genes with a plasmid, a small, very stable circle of DNA. The problematic genes were eventually diluted and what remained [was] cells that are like embryonic stem cells but that don’t require the destruction of human embryos to obtain.”
This sounded so good, but then the original report in Science was reviewed, and a different story emerged. As reported by Debi Vinnedge, “While Thomson hailed the process as much safer than past experiments (which is still highly debatable) in which he used lentiviruses to deliver the genes, what was not reported was his use of embryonic stem cells and aborted fetal cell lines as sources for the genes. ” In other words, the very basis for the reprogrammed cells would not have been available if not for the killing of preborn children. Thomson has never admitted this publicly and insists that his work is ethical. That would be my definition of fraud, but the picture gets worse.
The American Medical Association is persisting in its advocacy of human embryo destruction for scientific research. The latest venture is “pre-embryo-splitting.” The “pre-embryo” concept was debunked by real scientists long ago; yet the AMA persists in using this highly deceptive term. In an “Opinion” recently added to its Code of Medical Ethics, the AMA stated,
The technique of splitting in vitro fertilized pre-embryos may result in multiple genetically identical siblings.
The procedure of pre-embryo splitting should be available so long as both gamete providers agree. This procedure may greatly increase the chances of conception for an infertile couple or for a couple whose future reproductive capacity will likely be diminished. Pre-embryo splitting also can reduce the number of invasive procedures necessary for egg retrieval and the necessity for hormonal stimulants to generate multiple eggs. The use and disposition of any pre-embryos that are frozen for future use should be consistent with the Council’s opinion on frozen pre-embryos (Opinion 2.141, “Frozen Pre-embryos”).
In essence, the aforementioned quote is telling the reader is that there is nothing unethical about taking a preborn human being and splitting his body in two so that research can be conducted for the purpose of manufacturing more than one human being in a laboratory setting, even at the cost of killing the original human being.
And as long as the AMA is pleased with itself for denying the facts set forth in the Carnegie Stages of Human Development and basic human embryology by insisting that there really is no human embryo there, just something called a pre-embryo, all is considered well in the conference rooms occupied by AMA medical ethics professionals.
The language of death and destruction is clearly taking center stage and betrays the fact that there are no actual ethics involved any longer in the development of medical or clinical research policies, but rather a brand of lunacy that one should only use when developing a circus or a comedy routine.
This is the fundamental reason why Professor Dianne Irving, in her article entitled “American Medical Association’s ‘Narrow Definitions,’ Legal ‘Redefinitions’ … and Reproductive Cloning” made the following astute observation in her introduction:
Aside from the serious ethical issues of artificial reproductive technologies in general, not to mention the serious ethical issue of the destruction of living human embryos used in this and related research, isn’t a woman legally entitled to be provided with the truth, all the facts, including the accurate scientific facts, of such infertility treatments before giving her legally valid “informed consent”? Isn’t that her choice? Or are informed consent forms just supposed to be rather “selective” with their “information”, and leave out all that messy “science”?
But with all the “fudging” of critical scientific facts, how can a woman really be certain of exactly what is being implanted into her womb, and therefore exercise her choice? Is it “just a bunch of cells,” just a “pre-embryo,” maybe a frog? And how did it get here - by “fertilization,” or genetic engineering, or maybe magic? If it is “genetic engineering,” shouldn’t they call this “therapeutic research” in “reproductive genetic engineering” rather than just infertility “treatments”? If this is really research, rather than standard medical treatment, then how are these IVF and ART facilities conforming to the international ethical imperatives such as the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, etc.? To whom are they accountable? Where’s the regulation of such medical procedures? ....... Well, lots of dumb questions.
Besides, if the good doctors at the American Medical Association tell me that what they are implanting in my body is just a “pre-embryo” and that it was simply reproduced by just a silly kind of “splitting,” then why shouldn’t I trust and believe them? And besides, they assure me that it definitely isn’t “reproductive cloning.” Wishful thinking?
How comforting.
Indeed, but that is where we are at the moment. Reproductive technology has opened wide the door to all sorts of deadly procedures, tests, experiments and research. And as Professor Irving suggests, the patients are merely part of the experiment. They are not told the facts; they are only given superficial promises and insincere assurances.
Sounds like politicians, not doctors and respected clinical researchers, right? Well, think again. We are living in the age of pseudo-science, in which money is god and the federal grant the apple on the tree of good and evil. As Dr. Irving points out in her latest, very well researched analysis, there is really nothing accurate, honest or respectable about what is going on in this milieu.
Mankind is in for a very rude awakening one of these days, because for too long, those in charge of policy and public opinion have been aligned with perfidious duplicity, which does indeed have consequences.
I plan to deal with Dr. Irving’s findings in a second commentary because there is just too much information there to digest at a single sitting. But before we close, let us take our hats off to the good professor for providing us with a sage quote from C.S. Lewis, right at the start, to whet our appetite for the wisdom she imparts: “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”—C.S. Lewis
All of this duplicitous science is firmly rooted in evolutionary philosophy. That is why it is so important to expose the bankruptcy of the evolutionary hypothesis. Please promote the conference at St. Pius V University in Rome entitled ??The Scientific Impossibility of Evolution" which will take place this Monday, November 9. If you google the title of the conference, you will find some of the articles and blogs that have covered it as well as the conference website.
Let us pray for each other!
Yours in Christ,
Hugh Owen Hugh Owen | November 6, 2009
Dear Hugh
Thank you for your amazing work on exposing the evolution lie as well. For our web visitors, here is your site (KOLBE CENTER) and the site you refer to in your comment:
I'D RATHER HAVE WRINKLES THAN KILL BABIES, NEOCUTIS Posted: Wednesday November 4, 2009 at 1:14 pm EST by Judie Brown
(The following is a media release issued on November 3, 2009, by Debra Vinnedge, founder and executive director of Children of God for Life, an American Life League Associate group. It is reprinted here with her kind permission.)
Last week, the pro-life organization Children of God for Life made news when it issued a media release saying that Neocutis, a San Francisco-based cosmetics company, was using aborted fetal material to produce its anti-wrinkle skin cream. Since then, thousands of angry consumers have begun taking action. Many have called or written Neocutis to complain, and unfortunately, they are receiving jaded, if not patently false responses from the company president, Mark Lemko.
For starters, Neocutis responded to one inquiry by claiming there was only one abortion involved when, in fact, its own web site states, “The Laboratoire de Médecine Foetale at the Medical School of the University Hospital of Lausanne has worked extensively with fetal cells since 1995 and resulted in several patent applications.”
Neocutis further says it was formed in 2002 as a spin-off of the university’s medical school team and began working to protect “the intellectual property of their proprietary technology defining a business strategy, setting up a business plan and hiring the pioneers in order to establish the skin cell bank.”
Yet the abortion used to provide the fetal material for their products was done in 2004. Clearly, if they had to protect their "proprietary technology," multiple sources of aborted fetal material had to have been used for years, prior to perfecting the final cell line that they ultimately used in 2004.
In what can only be called suspect at best, Neocutis stated that the 2004 abortion was done because the “pregnancy could not come to term” and that “the mother’s life was in danger.” Yet what is reported in Experimental Gerontology (Vol. 44, Issue 3, March 2009, pp. 208-218) about its research makes no mention of this at all.
What the research paper states is that the fetal material was obtained from a 14-weeks gestation male baby “after pregnancy termination” in which they “obtained informed and written consent.” Considering that the report dedicated an entire section to the “ethical aspects of working with human fetal cells,” in which they attempted to sanitize what they were doing, it is certain that if the abortion was somehow classified as medically necessary, it would have been documented as such. And of course, Neocutis does not mention why all those other abortions were done prior to 2004. Apparently, that is something it was not counting on the public finding out.
And while Neocutis promises “no further fetal biopsies will be needed,” the University of Lausanne states, “We have seen that cells frozen in this manner are capable of being stored for at least 15 years in our laboratory.” So what happens after 15 years? The cells will eventually lose their capacity to replicate and will need to be replaced.
Neocutis has desperately tried to minimize its notorious activity by noting that only a four-centimeter section of skin was used to produce its cell line. But taken into perspective, based on the size of a baby at 14 weeks gestation, that’s about the size of the entire baby’s back.
Even more appalling was its attempt to justify using aborted fetal material. Mr. Lemko told another letter writer that he “felt comfortable with his decision” after studying the 2005 statement by the Pontifical Academy for Life, "Moral Reflection on Vaccines Prepared From Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses." He cites this statement in his letter:
[A]s the same vaccines are prepared from viruses taken from the tissues of fetuses that had been infected and voluntarily aborted, and the viruses were subsequently attenuated and cultivated from human cell lines which come likewise from procured abortions, they do not cease to pose ethical problems. If someone rejects every form of voluntary abortion of human fetuses, would such a person not contradict himself/herself by allowing the use of these vaccines of live attenuated viruses on their children? Would it not be a matter of true (and illicit) cooperation in evil, a problem which arises every time that a moral agent perceives the existence of a link between his own acts and a morally evil action carried out by others?
It is unconscionable that Mr. Lemko would use the Vatican statement to defend his actions. Not only are we talking apples and oranges here—health vs. vanity—he must have missed the part of that document where it stated,
Therefore, whoever—regardless of the category to which he belongs—cooperates in some way, sharing its intention, to the performance of a voluntary abortion with the aim of producing the above-mentioned vaccines, participates, in actuality, in the same moral evil as the person who has performed that abortion.
The Pontifical Academy for Life rightly puts no weight on the intention of the mother, as it is inconsequential when multiple parties are involved in an act of evil. Neocutis is directly complicit because it was its intention to use aborted fetal material in order to produce its skin creams.
Interestingly, both the Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005 and Pope Benedict XVI in his December 2008 encyclical, Dignitas Personae, condemned the use of these "illicit biological materials," but Pope Benedict took it even further, stating,
Therefore, it needs to be stated that there is a duty to refuse to use such “biological material” even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place. This duty springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one’s own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life (35).
Additionally, both Vatican statements commented on users of the end products from these aborted fetal cell lines, cautiously noting that parents could use the vaccines in question "on a temporary basis" and in situations of "grave inconvenience" or "considerable danger" to the health of their children and society.
Hmm. Now, what do you suppose the Vatican would say about using these cosmetic creams?
Children of God for Life is urging the public to take action by "sounding off" on its web site or by contacting Neocutis directly. It is also calling for a full boycott of all Neocutis products and any companies distributing them. Further information is available at the Children of God for Life web site.
Editor's note: Also see the story in yesterday’s Washington Times.
YOU DON’T SAY! Posted: Tuesday November 3, 2009 at 11:17 am EST by Judie Brown
Hyperactivity has taken on new meaning as many of those who pander to the abortion lobby are becoming apoplectic due to the growing strength of the pro-life personhood movement at the state and national levels. You can tell by simply reading the reports that flood the internet daily. Some of them are downright humorous, but we dare not laugh for these commentators are serious — dead serious.
Newsweek senior reporter Sarah Kliff penned a “web exclusive” titled “I Am Zygote, Hear Me Roar.” Kliff works hard at dehumanizing the earliest human person in our midst … the human individual. The problem is that she uses inaccurate language to achieve her goal. This is not really due to her ignorance but rather her zeal to convince the reader that preborn children are not really anywhere near as valuable or as human as those of us who survived the womb.
She writes that Colorado’s first personhood effort in 2008 “would have revised Colorado's state constitution to define a fertilized egg as a person, thereby outlawing abortion.” Kliff is wrong. We don’t say that. In fact, “fertilized egg” is a scientifically inaccurate term that is used by pro-abortion forces to relegate the preborn child during his first days of life to a non-human status. Average citizens who hear the term “fertilized egg” have a mental idea of the same sort of egg one finds in a chicken coop or the refrigerator and automatically, as the pro-aborts hope, the citizen is put off by such a silly idea, saying things such as “who would ever argue that an egg is a person!”
Kliff also tells the reader that the “idea” regarding when a human life begins has always been at the center of “anti-abortion-rights ideology.” In other words, she relegates the actual scientific facts regarding human development to nothing more than an “idea,” and the defense of those facts as theory. By carefully choosing her words, Kliff obfuscates, but that too is intended.
We don’t say “idea” and we don’t say “ideology” because both are inaccurate, which is precisely why our opponents do.
Freelance writer Wendy Norris recently created a blog entitled “Financial Issues Dog Second Colorado Egg-as-Person Campaign.” In case you missed it, she too cleverly gets that little old “egg” into her headline. Just a coincidence? I don’t think so.
Norris is a bit more jaundiced in her remarks, focusing on the absence of adequate funding for Personhood Colorado’s activities. She focuses on the most recent campaign finance report in terms of what she defines as the organizational leadership’s “vow of poverty.” By suggesting that the group has little funding, she avers that in their lack of income, one can see their downfall. In fact, Norris was so worried about where the group got the money to fund a mailing that might have cost a thousand dollars that she desperately tried to call the leadership for an explanation.
Claiming “The peculiarities on Personhood Colorado campaign's recent financial disclosure form may very well be an oversight by fledgling activists. Or it could point to a much more cynical attempt to thwart public accountability by a well-oiled theocratic political machine,” she misses the whole point. When grassroots pro-lifers are committed to a cause, they frequently use their own personal resources to finance a campaign until such time as there is a thriving fundraising effort. I have known people who worked a regular job and poured all their excess income into a pro-life program and, the last time I looked, that was not a crime!
Where has this woman been? Or is she simply making an attempt to destroy Personhood Colorado by tossing innuendo the way a Southerner tosses pancakes?
By using phrases such as “shadowy activities” and “reporting snafus” it would seem that Norris is hell-bent on doing whatever she can to bring down Personhood Colorado based on nothing but her personal opinion. Norris is apparently not adept at arguing articulately about her reasons why personhood is not necessary. Perhaps this is because she knows there are no intellectual, logical arguments to support her pro-death tendencies. So character assassination appears to be her main course.
We don’t say such things because we don’t have to; we have the facts which speak for themselves … if given a chance to be born, of course.
USA Today has joined this linguistic circus as well, recently blogging about the reasons why aborting a child prior to birth is really what health insurance reform should be about. In an opinion piece subtitled “It’s a legal medical procedure—and insurance should cover it,” the editors posit the dubious claim that aborting a child is in the same category as removing an infected tooth. But what is most egregious about this blather is the following:
Since the mid-1970s, abortion opponents have managed to cut off insurance coverage for the procedure for a larger and larger number of Americans. With exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, federally funded abortions are banned for women covered by military insurance, Medicaid, the health benefits program for federal employees, and the Indian Health Service.
This is, of course, the result of deep religious conviction. For those who believe that life begins at conception, pursuing such policies is a moral obligation. But it is simultaneously an intrusion into the private lives of millions of American women of other beliefs in a nation where the government is supposed to be religiously neutral. Now, the same forces are pushing for more.
Note that the writer equates a “ban” with the funding of at least some, if not more than a few child killings. I never knew that banning something was the same as permitting it. I wonder where we find that definition.
The blogger further suggests that the reason for curtailing federal funding is some “deep religious conviction.” Well, pardon me, but again we are dealing with human embryology, which is a science, not a church. We are further dealing with logical analysis of scientific facts, which is not a dogma but a function of the intellect if one cares to use it. Apparently, in the world of abortion advocacy, there isn’t much desire for cerebral exercise these days. Overstatements and misstatements appear to be favored fare when writing about preborn human beings.
Finally, there is this idea that one’s position on abortion is based on a personal belief. Such assertions are loaded with deliberately inaccurate terminology designed to continue the grand scheme that has been in play for nearly forty years. The culture of death architects devised a long range plan which has always been to convince an unthinking public that abortion is not killing anyone but rather a surgery like any other. The tragedy of this strategy is that children die, mothers are wounded, families are destroyed and death persists unabated because ignorance rules.
This is why we don’t say “belief,” we say “fact.” We don’t say “I think,” we say “I know.” We don’t say “that’s my opinion,” we say “look at the truth,” the 4-D ultrasound, the images so beautifully presented by eminent photographers like Lennart Nilsson.
We don’t lie, we tell the truth.
For this very reason, every now and then, someone from the dark side’s inner sanctum sees the light. Abby Johnson of Bryan [Texas] Planned Parenthood just had her encounter with the truth and now she tells the media, "I feel so pure in heart (since leaving). I don't have this guilt, I don't have this burden on me anymore that's how I know this conversion was a spiritual conversion."
Judie, You're of course right that "fertilized egg is inaccurate terminology I don't speak of zygotes much, since that phase is evanescent. The second division starts immediately after fertilization is complete, and the with that the embryo is formed. So I say "human organism, human individual, human embryo, human being," etc.
Good idea regarding the word "belief", since that's not the language of embryological Science. Belief applies to the things we can't observe directly. Karen Brauer | November 4, 2009
ABSOLUTE OPPOSITION TO NATIONAL HEALTH CARE REFORM A MUST Posted: Monday November 2, 2009 at 10:49 am EST by Judie Brown
A couple of recent news items from South America have reminded me once again why the United States government — or any government, for that matter — must never be entrusted with the health care of its population. Political arrangements or authoritarian actions are always just the stroke of a pen away from oppression of religious liberty.
It is the rare country these days that can boast of a politician who actually stands up for truth, life and the ethics of honest government. When I first read of the actions of the president of the Constitutional Court of Peru, I was in total disbelief and had to immediately check sources to make sure that the news I had read was accurate. The president, Juan Vergara, has asked Peru’s minister of health, Oscar Ugarte, to prohibit the sale of the morning-after pill in pharmacies, due to the fact that the pill can cause an abortion.
This announcement came almost three years to the day after Chile’s feminist president, Michelle Bachelet, fought to liberalize the nation’s policies regarding the availability of contraception by making this very pill, the morning-after pill, available free at state-run hospitals.
The most recent news report on the court’s decision explains,
The court's ruling bans the free distribution of the morning-after pill in public health care facilities; however the drug can still be sold in pharmacies as long as consumers are provided with information on the drug’s potential abortifacient nature.
According to Carlos Polo, director of the Office for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, the court “has acted correctly because it put things into proper perspective. The promoters and sellers of the pill needed to show that the anti-implantation effect did not exist and they could not do so.”
Only time will tell whether or not the proponents of abortion will rise up and challenge the ruling by appealing to international courts, but the fact is that there is at least one judge in Peru whose confidence in scientific fact supersedes his desire for political popularity. A rarity indeed, as was recently confirmed by events in Colombia, where quite a different scenario is playing out.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court recently ruled against freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom from oppressive, anti-life policies. In 2006, the Court ruled that there were certain circumstances in which an abortion could be performed. Thus, for the first time in Colombia’s history, abortion became available “when a pregnancy threatens a woman's life or health, in cases of rape, incest and in cases where the fetus has malformations incompatible with life outside the womb.”
In plain English, that would mean that surgical abortion is available in all cases. The word “health” is so elastic that it can apply in nearly any situation. All one need do is consult the U.S. Supreme Court’s Doe. v. Bolton ruling to discern just how meaningless the word “health” truly is these days.
As if that 2006 ruling were not bad enough, a few days ago that Colombian court extended its reach into the practice of medicine by ruling that all hospitals and/or health centers whether public or private, secular or religious, must provide training for staff to perform abortions. In essence, this decision forces Catholic hospitals to teach and practice murder. Thank God for Auxiliary Bishop Juan Cordoba Villota, who declared in response to this egregious ruling, “We Catholic educators are not going to teach this; we're going to teach respect for life. We emphatically reject this pronouncement. We will not disobey any orders, but... they cannot obligate us to do this."
The decision is now under examination because a formal request has been made that this recent court ruling be overturned. The decision to challenge this ruling has not pleased pro-abortion forces. In fact, one commentator wrote,
[I] understand that a majority of Colombians may well be inflexible anti-abortionists, who believe that a woman never has a right to end her pregnancy even under the most extreme of circumstances. After all, Colombia still is a parochial, largely conservative society: the first legal abortion in Colombia, performed on an 11 year-old who had been raped by her stepfather, did not fail to outrage many people. It is very likely that if Colombians were to decide this issue by referendum, the pro-choice side would lose miserably.
It is my opinion that these two events, which occurred in fundamentally Catholic countries with strong religious leadership from the bishops, should be of particular interest to American bishops right now. For contrary to what is happening in Peru and Colombia, the United States is not an overwhelmingly Catholic nation but one composed of people of many faiths. Further, as has been reported in survey after survey, a majority of American Catholics don’t object to abortion or contraception, even though the Church teaches that abortion is an act of murder and contraception is intrinsically evil.
Based on this fact alone, the Catholic bishops should be up in arms, sounding the alarm, running up the flag and telling the government, through the united activation of faithful American Catholics in America, that the Church will not tolerate any usurpation of its freedom to reject all anti-life aspects of health care reform in any form, under any guise, for any reason.
It is obvious that the debacle known as national health care reform is moving closer to becoming a reality. Many of us who have studied the various bills understand that what these proposals really represent is an imposed authoritarian government-controlled program that could have ominous overtones for Catholic health care facilities in the United States.
There could come a time in the not-too-distant future when the federal government will do what the court is attempting to do in Colombia, by imposing its anti-life will on the Church and her facilities. What then?
How effective will the current “abortion neutrality” statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops be when the U.S. government is in charge of health care?
A government that wishes to impose its will on one and all is a government that should not be interfering with the ethical practice of medicine. And yet by acquiescing to the idea of nationalized health care and stipulating only that such a program be “abortion neutral,” the USCCB is playing right into the hands of those in charge of alleged health care reform.
The U.S. government has a track record to prove the veracity of my statements. The history of our government’s involvement in abortion alone, not to mention contraception, human embryonic stem cell research and other practices that violate the dignity of the human person, provides ample documentation on this question.
If there is suspicion that the above statement is an overreaction to the current proposal that has just come from the House of Representatives, examine the facts as set forth in Michael Hichborn’s study of the bill.
Contrast the Hichborn study with the USCCB action alert, which does not address euthanasia, health care rationing, contraception, human embryonic stem cell research or sterilization. There is no question that these anti-life activities, in addition to sex education, special privileges for groups such as Planned Parenthood and more that were included in the House version, were included in the Senate version and so far have not gone anywhere. Even Senator Chuck Grassley, one of the Senate leaders in health care reform negotiations at the time, is concerned:
"I don't have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family," he said. "We should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma."
While we are eternally grateful to the bishops for sounding an alarm, the current situation deserves stronger action on a much broader scale. We would hope that USCCB bureaucrats would be scouring these proposals for the very same dreadful indications of promoting the culture of death that we have found and shared.
Hichborn assured America,
American Life League will continue shining the spotlight on the culture of death’s attempt to promote its agenda and expand its reach through Obama-style "health care reform." As changes are made and provisions are introduced or removed from current federal legislation, you can count on American Life League to keep you updated on these developments.
We call on the USCCB to do likewise. There is too much at stake; the lives of far too many of our fellow human beings are at risk.
We are not living in a nation with a government or a judicial system that respects the natural law. We are not living in a Catholic country that puts Christ and His truth first.
On the contrary, we are living in a nation wherein a government has literally presided over the murders of millions of innocents as it denies that a human being exists prior to birth. Such a governing authority can never be entrusted with the health care of the people of this nation, regardless of their religious persuasion, immigration status, income or any other qualifier one might choose to list.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” I would suggest to the Catholic bishops, as individual shepherds and as a united force for good, that the price of preserving the integrity of all that the Church teaches regarding respect for the dignity of the human person is their absolute opposition to government-controlled health care reform.
It is undoubtedly right to call attention to the need for stronger leadership on the part of the American hierarchy in the debate on health care legislation. The bishops should be opposing, explicitly and vocally, not only the funding of abortion (both surgical and chemical), but also the funding of euthanasia, assisted suicide, *in vitro* fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, sterilization, and contraception. No national health system in any nation should pay for any of those, or any other, mortally sinful procedures.
It is *not* necessary, however, to maintain that the bishops must denounce government-sponsored medical care *per se*, even in a country such as the United States, where committed Catholics are only a minority, and where, largely owing to our own fault, we lack enough political influence to block many evils. Even in our nation, all people, including Catholics, have the right to health care--a right that logically flows from the very right to life--and there are strong arguments in favor of our country???s adopting a single-payer national health insurance system as the best practical means of providing that care. We should fight relentlessly for such a system as well as for its absolute exclusion of all sinful payments.
If Catholics who refuse to reject a government health plan *per se* are wrong, then they are in the good company of all the modern Popes who failed to condemn the national health systems that have arisen in Western Europe and Canada. Please note, too, that when Pope John Paul II advocated inexpensive or even free medical care for workers in section 19 of his encyclical *Laborem exercens*, it is a reasonable conclusion that he accepted state-run health care systems. Are we to say that John Paul II was mistaken about this?
Stephen M. O'Brien | November 3, 2009
Judie,
Where were the Catholic bishops at election time? Why were so few clergy (including my pastor) concerned enough to warn parishioners of the evil of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic cronies. He was pro-abortion then and continues to be now, and if given the chance, he will gladly destroy the Catholic Church in the United States.
Now that our country has reached a crisis point, the bishops are finally willing to speak out. Shame on all of them for waiting so long. sharon w | November 4, 2009
Dear Mr. O'Brien
Thank you for your comments, but I think it is quite a stretch to suggest that pope John Paul II was approving government-controlled health care in his encyclical "Laboren exercens," #19, whih deals with the worker and his or her employer, not the government. In that section the Holy Father teaches
"Besides wages, various social benefits intended to ensure the life and health of workers and their families play a part here. The expenses involved in health care, especially in the case of accidents at work, demand that medical assistance should be easily available for workers, and that as far as possible it should be cheap or even free of charge."
At no point does the Holy Father reference a government controlled health care system.
Judie Brown
Judie Brown | November 5, 2009
Sharon
I hate to say it, but I must. The Bishops are clearly in the pocket of the Democratic party. Their actions (USCCB, et al)on health care reform are shameful.
HALLOWEEN: SPOOKY TALES OF A CATHOLIC KIND Posted: Friday October 30, 2009 at 11:26 am EST by Judie Brown
Sometimes the facts are scary enough to double for imaginary witches, goblins and monsters from Count Dracula’s basement all in one fell swoop. These past few days have proven that not all that is bloodcurdling is going to be trick or treating tomorrow, that’s for sure.
There’s the whole rigmarole with Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins. Even though he defied Catholic teaching, and never responded to the expressed concerns of more than 80 Catholic bishops, as he carried on with his plan to host pro-abortion U.S. president Barack Obama, he was still elected by the Notre Dame trustees to serve a second term as president of the prestigious University of Notre Dame.
As the Cardinal Newman Society pointed out in a press release, even though Jenkins abused the Catholic identity of Notre Dame by rolling out the red carpet for Obama, it didn’t seem to ruffle the feathers of the trustees one tiny bit. What a scary tale this is, as Patrick J. Reilly of CNS makes clear:
The Board of Trustees has once again neglected their responsibility to uphold Notre Dame’s Catholic mission by reelecting a president who has displayed public disrespect for the bishops and has permitted repeated scandals including the honors to President Obama and performances of The Vagina Monologues.
But then again, as Jill Stanek exposed during the original ruckus, there’s not a whole lot Catholic about that board of trustees anyway.
On top of this, we find that Jenkins announced publicly that he would be coming to the March for Life in 2010. Well, frankly, that should have been expected. So why is it newsworthy? Aren’t Catholic priests supposed to set a good example for their flock? Oops, I think that lets Jenkins off the hook after his shenanigans, which might be why his public announcement received coverage. The National Catholic Register reported in a huge story covering Jenkins’ namby-pamby announcement:
The controversy over the University of Notre Dame’s honors to pro-abortion President Obama at its May 17 commencement has led some pro-life advocates to question whether the university is pro-life — or even Catholic.
But it appears Notre Dame is trying to take the high ground.
Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, announced in a Sept. 16 e-mail to the university community that he plans to attend the March for Life in Washington next January and hopes to offer a Mass.
If that isn’t a tale from the crypt, I don’t know what is. First of all, Jenkins is not the University; he is the president and none of us question whether or not the “university is pro-life,” but rather why Bishop D’Arcy didn’t suspend Jenkins, whose pro-life credentials are questionable regardless of how many public pronouncements he makes about attending the March for Life.
Why any upstanding Catholic newspaper would give ink to Jenkins’ announcement after the debacles of these past months is a mystery. But then again, I have been known to see hobgoblins where others suggest there are daisies and buttercups.
So perhaps the next item is also a figment of my imagination. It seems that “Sister” Donna Quinn, a Dominican nun, is working as a volunteer at a local abortion mill in the Archdiocese of Chicago. No, she is not volunteering for the local pro-life pregnancy care center in an effort to prayerfully talk expectant mothers out of entering the place to pay someone to kill their own babies. Sr. Quinn is a death-scort. She escorts expectant mothers inside so they can kill their babies. Oh, and Sister has been doing this for at least six years according to one pro-lifer.
Horrors! And get this:
Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, OP, Quinn's Prioress at the Sinsinawa Dominican community, said in an e-mail response to LSN that the nun sees her volunteer activity as "accompanying women who are verbally abused by protestors. Her stance is that if the protestors were not abusive, she would not be there."
Though Sr. Mulcahey claimed that her sisters "support the teachings of the Catholic Church," she declined to comment on Quinn's public protest of Catholic Church teaching.
Finally, and perhaps the scariest tale of all, is that the latest Senate version of Obama’s health care reform package should have provoked some sort of comment from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. So far, that organization has been eerily silent.
Many, including yours truly, are convinced that Section 1803 of the Senate bill will make Planned Parenthood a quasi-government agency, as if they weren’t really one already. In a public statement, we explained:
The Senate version of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 may transform the nation’s largest abortion chain into a quasi-government entity for sex education.
Section 1803, page 503, creates a National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center and states:
The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose and activities described in clause (iii). (emphasis added)
According to the requirements found in clause (ii):
The organization has demonstrated experience working with and providing assistance to a broad range of individuals and entities to reduce teen pregnancy. The organization is research-based and has comprehensive knowledge and data about teen pregnancy prevention strategies.
According to Rita Diller, national director for STOP Planned Parenthood, there is only one “nationally recognized” organization that fits the bill — Planned Parenthood.
“This dangerous provision to the Senate health care bill could give Planned Parenthood, already under investigation for tax fraud and concealing child rape, quasi-government status and even more influence over our kids,” Diller said.
Section 1803 also creates a “Personal Responsibility Education for Adulthood Training” program (i.e. sex education), which grants at least $250,000 to each state to educate adolescents on "both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and STDs."
We scoured the internet for some late-breaking news, hoping to find a united voice of absolute opposition to this provision from the USCCB, but, so far, such a statement has either been eaten by a ghost or it doesn’t exist. Either way, this too is more than a bit frightening when one considers the power that a forceful statement from the USCCB could have in a matter as egregious as this one.
Even if Planned Parenthood is not the organization the Senate has in mind (which we highly doubt), the sort of “tricks” and “treats” the government has in store for us should generate some sort of comment from the bishops, don’t you think?
All in all, these events add up to some pretty spooky stuff when one considers that, in every situation, the Catholic Church and her leadership should be standing tall, defending truth, exposing evil and dealing with those who make a mockery of her teachings. Until that happens, the treacherous tricks will commence unabated.
Also, yesterday, the USCCB Pro-Life Secretariat contacted the pro-life coordinator of every diocese, informing them of a bulletin insert/flyer campaign this weekend and next.
More information at: http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/
Also take a look at the following articles at the American Papist blog:
http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/10/how-many-bishops-support-current-health.html Stephen Pandolfo | October 31, 2009
Judie,
So many great points in this, but I have to comment on 1 in particular "Sister" Donna Quinn, her Superior & the way they are betraying Venerable Fr. Samuel Mazzuchelli who started the motherhouse.
Sadly, she is a good example of what almost all the "sisters" are like over there. (I live in DBQ across the river) Several of us are sounding the alarm arround here.
They are a prime example of the need for the Vatican visitation. Al | October 31, 2009
Pro-Life Story: pro-life for sure! Posted By Samantha Rozzell on Jan, 25 2007 My mom is a single mother and I have been raised by her since the day I was born. My mom's boyfriend walked out on her the minute he found out that she was pregent. I was about 12 ... Read
