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What strange bedfellows were kept by the USCCB during the Leadership Council on Civil Rights dinners in 2007 and 2008? Click on the links to see.
It cost the USCCB a minimum of $1000.00 to join this group. They didn't just mistakenly sign up. Membership was a deliberate act and I'd bet they knew exactly what they were joining. All they had to do was look at the LCCR website or read this press release from 2004 to know exactly where our money was going.
If that wasn't enough, the Bishops could have read this review of the 108th Congress published by LCCR and they would have seen just how far to the left this organization tilts.
Read this article by Deal Hudson for more information.
"A two-man Washington, D.C. panel has preferred to advance same-sex “marriage” at the cost of religious liberty, the Archdiocese of Washington has charged. The panel ruled that a referendum on a city council bill recognizing same-sex marriage would violate the District’s human rights law.
Opponents of the D.C. City Council’s decision, including the archdiocese, have sought a referendum to try to overturn the action.
However, two members of the Board of Elections and Ethics ruled the referendum would thwart the Council’s efforts to “eradicate unlawful discrimination” and would violate the District’s Human Rights Act (HRA).
“The Civil Marriage Equality Act represents the Council’s effort to eliminate the discriminatory exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. The Referendum seeks to frustrate this effort, and would, if successful, have the effect of authorizing discrimination in contravention of the HRA,” the board stated.
The ruling was issued by Errol R. Arthur, Chairman of the Board of Elections and Ethics, and board member Charles R. Lowery, Jr.
The Archdiocese of Washington in a Friday statement said it was “extremely disappointing” that the two-person panel forbade the referendum without addressing religious liberty concerns."
CNA
I think that the Church should be upset about these pro gay rights bills being passed. Of course, I might be just a bit happier if the United States Council of Catholic Bishops didn't support the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a group which promotes abortion, gay rights and same sex marriage.
I realize that the USCCB is not an official Church organization; it's more of a trade association for the Bishops. However, if the Church wants the secular world to follow Gods rules might I suggest that it ask the Bishops not to belong to the at least schismatic, if not heretical, USCCB?
If you go to the website linked above you can find out who your CCHD money has supported. Here is the description of the organization they have posted on their website:
"Civilrights.org is a collaboration of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition, consisting of nearly 200 national organizations, representing persons of color, women, children, labor unions, individuals with disabilities, older Americans, major religious groups, gays and lesbians and civil liberties and human rights groups. LCCR was founded in 1950 and has coordinated national lobbying efforts on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957. LCCR is a 501(c)(4) organization that engages in legislative advocacy.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) was founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of LCCR. LCCREF produces educational materials such as special reports, email newsletters, the Civilrights.org website, and the Civil Rights Monitor. In addition, LCCREF tracks legislation, court decisions, and the enforcement of civil rights laws. LCCREF is a 501(c)(3) organization and contributions are tax-deductible."
So on the one hand the Church is spending money and other resources to fight same sex marriage while on the other hand it is allowing the USCCB to take donations from the parishioners and send them to this group and others like it which are fighting to legalize it.
Click on this link (LCCR Coalition Members) to see who else belongs to this coalition along with the USCCB. You'll find the usual cast of Progressives; the same ones our President surrounds himself with. Groups like SEIU and the ACLU. In other words, the usual suspects.
Hey Rome, who's the ring master in this circus? Can't you exert at least some control on the Church in America? Don't the Bishops answer to you?
Is it a wonder that the Church in America is in decline?
So while our President is giving a speech today once again promising to ram health care through we get the stories below. Besides the obvious Constitutional problems with the government providing health care, let's just focus on the strategic problem. China just about owns us now and WILL use the power they have gained to control America as surely as if they had conquered us in war. Yet, our President and his Progressive friends in Congress intend to borrow even more money to gives us the health care we have repeatedly told them we don't want.
They aren't this stupid. America is being destroyed from within by the very people that we elected. This is being done purposely; I cannot come to any other conclusion. We are on the brink of becoming a Chinese satellite state or a hollow shell, without a single shot being fired.
If we don't get our act together now we are going to lose our country and the greatest experiment in freedom ever carried out on this earth will have failed. I'm afraid that we are going to be left with very few options; none of them good.
Somebody tell me how in the hell we're going to save ourselves. The push is on in Washington to to close the deal on health care. I heard part of Obama's speech today and he said that if the doesn't get the appointments he wants he will put them in during the Congressional recess. In the speech last week he mentioned using executive orders to implement programs the Congress refused to pass. We are seeing the Executive Branch elevated to a level of power not seen since the Lincoln Administration. Obama will surpass FDR in control of the Congress and the country. And, he will see it destroyed. No one in the government will stand up to him. It is the responsibility of the Congress to push back when the Executive Branch tries to take power it wasn't intended to have. But they won't do it. Not even the Republicans seem capable of anything more than a half-assed effort.
The Chinese are rattling their sword and the EU is starting to crumble. Central and South America are powder kegs. And Iran is threatening to do something on Thursday that they promise will amaze and frighten the West. And once again our elected leaders are focusing on health care. Is it a distraction? I don't know. Nothing makes sense anymore.
Pray, pray, pray. And prepare. We are on the verge of cataclysmic disruptions in our lives. No one can predict what, when or how but I feel confident that something is coming. Chaos cannot create order, it can only collapse into deeper and more intense chaos.
"By their carelessness Congress and the Obama administration are steadily handing over control of America's economic and financial future to a handful of Chinese officials and generals in Beijing. Those who think the Chinese won't use that control if they feel they have to are ignoring history -- and the Chinese.
The ancient military strategist Sun Tzu said that the best strategy was to render an opponent's army helpless even before the battle began. America may still have the biggest and best military in the world.
But many at the Pentagon are starting to realize that, thanks to our growing fiscal irresponsibility, we may be surrendering control of America's destiny to a rival superpower -- and all without a shot being fired."
The Burning Platform
"Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.
The calls for broad retaliation over the planned U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island came from officers at China's National Defence University and Academy of Military Sciences, interviewed by Outlook Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published by the official Xinhua news agency.
The interviews with Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan and Senior Colonel Ke Chunqiao appeared in the issue published on Monday.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) plays no role in setting policy for China's foreign exchange holdings. Officials in charge of that area have given no sign of any moves to sell U.S. Treasury bonds over the weapons sales, a move that could alarm markets and damage the value of China's own holdings.
While far from representing fixed government policy, the open demands for retaliation by the PLA officers underscored the domestic pressures on Beijing to deliver on its threats to punish the Obama administration over the arms sales.
"Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease," said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences."
Reuters
As Catholics we know that our faith contains the fullness of truth. However, we've lost an awful lot of ground to the Protestants when it comes to proclaiming it. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees we follow the law (if we feel like it) but we don't live the faith.
"This past weekend I again had the opportunity to attend a local Pentecostal church, and my experience there may prove fruitful for others. This place is called the Brookfield Church of God. Its pastor is Rev. Timothy Cowan and its Choir Director Judy Carver. Both of these individuals deserve public recognition for the work they did this Sunday, I can only hope and pray that we Catholics follow suit in proclaiming the Gospel of repentance and conversion. Again, as I have repeatedly said here at this forum and elsewhere, if we Catholics with the fullness of grace and all seven of the Holy Sacraments don’t start practicing and preaching and teaching the Gospel, then God Almighty will raise up from the very stones themselves sons to Abraham to carry out His holy work. If Pentecostals can do this, then what excuse shall we have on Judgment Day?"
Commentarius de Prognosticis
I read an interesting article today on the CNA website. It talks about true and sustainable free market activity versus the bastardized version we Americans have been conditioned to accept.
"The international controller for the Vatican’s Prefecture of Economic Affairs, Thomas Hong-Soon Han, said last week that Christians must go beyond the logic of “the greatest benefit at the lowest cost possible” and that the demands of justice and charity must not be sacrificed in economic activity, as the Pope has explained in his encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”
"The greatest benefit at the lowest possible cost" sounds as though, with a little bit of work, it could be the slogan of almost any retailer in America. This is the lie we are sold every day. The question is, who benefits? Maybe it's the workers in third world countries that sew our clothes for pennies a day. Maybe it's the consumer that buys those clothes with the wages that have been reduced by competition from third world slave labor, if they have a job at all. Or, maybe the true beneficiaries are the owners of the corporation, profiting from the pain caused by their "profit at any cost" business practices.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the Korean expert explained what a Christian perspective should be in the case of a building project, for example, noting that economic convenience must not be the sole factor in determining which company to contract. “The proposals of a given company need to be considered as well as the working conditions, the salary levels, in sum, how justice is concretely carried out in the organization.”
If a company engages in worker exploitation, the Church must reject this behavior because it would otherwise be indirectly complicit in the evil, Han said.
The same can be said of the consumer that supports the corporation that exploits workers in the name of a "deal". I'm as guilty of this as the next guy. I've not had much work lately so I try to find the best price on everything I buy. But I find myself asking, "What is the true cost of my decision to shop where I do?" I wonder if I would pay a bit more would I be making a more morally acceptable choice? Would the extra money I spend go to improve the lives of the workers or would it just be applied to the bottom line? In todays profit at any expense version of the free market my guess would be the latter.
He went on to warn that it is easy to give in to the temptation to place a priority on achieving favorable conditions from an economic point of view, and that this is sometimes justified in the name of the demands of charity. “The alleviating of one sector—it is said—can mean greater availability for other social and humanitarian activities. But in any case what is forgotten is that ‘charity demands justice,’ as the Pope writes in 'Caritas in Veritate.'”
The argument, one that I used to buy into, is always made that if it weren't for these slave wage jobs people in the third world would have no employment at all. I suppose that depends on your definition of employment. Many of the people that work in the factories that provide us with our cheap consumer goods have moved to cities for these jobs. Before they moved, many lived in rural areas, farming at a sustenance level. They may have barely managed to maintain their own lives but at least they could live independently. Now they live in cities, dependent on a barely functioning infrastructure to support their most basic needs. As the world economy contracts and their jobs disappear what will these people do? The infrastructure will disappear quickly, leaving them without means for their own survival, destitute and dependent on the state. America, the bastion of rugged individualism and free market independence has created, through our incessant demand for "the greatest benefit at the lowest possible cost", slavery and despair, starvation and hopelessness. Hardly the Jeffersonian ideals we preach to the world.
"Referring to the current global economic crisis, Han said its origins stem from a “moral deficit.” “Capitalism does not work without an ethical foundation. Things fall apart when their foundation is not based on moral principles. On the dollar bill it says, ‘In God We Trust.’ For this reason if the market is based solely on selfish interest and not on ‘trusting in God’ it fails.”
While the Church does not condemn capitalism as such, he noted, she also asserts that the market economy must have at its center the human person and his dignity. “'Caritas in Veritate' is very clear about this,” he said."
Capitalism, functioning within the bounds of morality and ethical behavior is good. Capitalism as practiced in most of America today, bound only to the pretext that the corporation exists to make a profit, is evil. Capitalism is capable of raising the standard of living of more people than any other system ever developed by man. I wouldn't want to live any other way. The greed that is so evident today is not real capitalism, it is self interest at the expense of all else writ large. Real capitalism requires that all parties involved benefit from the activity. This isn't to say that all benefit equally. The more risk one takes the greater the rewards should be. And this isn't to say that failure isn't an option. Even failure, when honest and not the result of some sort of immoral or unethical activity, will cause a benefit because we can learn from it. Basically, I'm talking about good sportsmanship.
In America we've taken the game of capitalism and tried to cheat our way to the top. We've bought off the referees and rewritten the rules. We've changed the playing field to suit our needs. We have played a take no prisoners game and our lack of sportsmanship has changed the game so radically it is hardly recognizable. We are no longer capitalists; we are opportunists. And, we've given capitalism a bad name.
"After underscoring that ultimately individual persons are responsible for economic structures, Han called for “a formation of consciences in the gospel values. This is the principle task of the Church’s social teaching and this is pointed out in the new encyclical by Benedict XVI.”
Han stressed that the Church “is not an NGO or a charitable entity. The action of Christians is based on charity, but stems from the truth: Caritas in veritate. We cannot overlook the incarnation of a God who became man for love of men. This is perfect charity. The truth of our faith acquires more credibility if it bears witness to love.”
Until we begin to apply the same rules to our business practices that we expect our children to obey at home we will not return to a truly free market. Corporate profit does not erase the need for civility and personal responsibility nor does it remove the strictures that bind us in all other human activity. As Christians we are called to love one another first and let all other decisions and actions flow from this basic command. American capitalism has abandoned this principle and thus has abandoned God. We must turn back or we will suffer the consequences.
Finally, a news story that doesn't try to spin the words of the Pope into some sort of backhanded endorsement of socialism. I find it interesting that the Pope uses the phrase "social responsibility" instead of the more fashionable and politically loaded phrase "social justice". Think of the difference. "Social justice" is used to avoid responsibility for ones own actions, generally calling for one group to have access to the wealth of another, usually through coercive measures. "Social responsibility" on the other hand calls for the individual to choose charity towards his fellow man through an act of free will. "Justice" requires draconian force on the part of the government while "responsibility" requires deliberate action on the part of individuals. One focuses on the "rights" of the worker while the other focuses on the needs of all.
Which system would you rather live under?
"On Saturday at the Apostolic Palace, Pope Benedict met in audience with a group from a local Italian municipal agency. Speaking with them, but also to the international community, Holy Father stressed the importance of "social responsibility" in the business environment “to promote the good of all.”
Meeting with directors and personnel of the Roman branch of ACEA, a company that specializes in providing energy and water services to Italy, the Holy Father expressed his hope that the development model that has brought the world to its present economic crisis would be rethought so that man with his “capacity to produce, innovate, think and build the future” is placed at the center.
It’s important, he continued, to increase consciousness for “the necessity of a broader ‘social responsibility’ in business, that strives to hold in just consideration the expectations and needs of workers, clients, producers and the entire community, and to pay special attention to the environment.”
“In this way,” added Pope Benedict, “the production of goods and services will not be tied exclusively to the search for economic profits, but also to the promotion of the good for all.”
The Holy Father praised ACEA for measures it has taken to protect and reduce the negative impact of their business activities on the environment. “But it is equally important to promote a human ecology that is intended to bring about work environments and interpersonal relations deserving of man.”
Pope Benedict XVI summed up his message by saying that “the protection of creation… implies also the protection of those sentiments of kindness, generosity, correctness and honesty that God has put in the heart of every human being, created in his ‘image and likeness.’”
He concluded by saying that it is through the example of Christ that we should act “to be able to grow in humanity and so realize a City with an always human face, in which each is considered a person, a spiritual being in relation with others.”
Catholic News Agency
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