DO YOU KNOW? Series Article #19
WILL THIS BE ANOTHER CASE WHERE, AS BISHOP FARRELL SAID AFTER THE ELECTION ABOUT OUR CHURCH, “WE DIDN’T DO ENOUGH,” AND, ONCE AGAIN, WILL WE LOSE MORE MORAL GROUND?
1. Why Is There No Effort By Our Church Leadership To Rescind The Invitation To President Obama?
As Bishop D’Arcy points out in his letter, the U.S. Catholic Bishops did, in fact, cover this precise contingency in 2004 when they established the regulation, referred to in Article #18 above, that: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” With that policy in place when this happened, it doubles the damage in the eyes of the public to say nothing about the eyes of our Almighty Father. Shouldn’t the Bishop require that Father Jenkins withdraw the invitation in obedience to this previously stated policy and apologize to the President for his error that resulted in the University issuing the invitation without clearing it with the Bishop of their diocese?
Wouldn’t this strategy minimize the damage and regain the moral initiative, much better than the potential drastic consequences to the Church as a standard bearer of a pandering Obama speech, as only he can deliver one, at the citadel of Catholic education in this country? Isn’t the magnitude of the University’s error just begining and still unknown? If the firestorm already is beyond all expectations, what will it be after Obama gives his speech if he is allowed to do it? Will it be another instance of the moral weakness of the Catholic Church and a blow to restoring our Catholic identity that the Pope charged us to do last year?
He will say all the right things necessary to maximize public relations for his position in consort with Planned Parenthood while convincing his Catholic audience that he is at least pro-life enough to want to find common ground with our desire to reduce abortions in this country. It will all be misrepresentations or cover up about his true desires and the true goals he has in store for his anti-life agenda and he will say it in nuances and phrases that will have the audience cheering and clapping by the end of his speech.
2. Does Cardinal George Prefer That The Invitation & Honorary Degree To Obama Be Rescinded?
I believe the Cardinal is one of the few relatively conservative Bishops in our Church leadership based on his strong position on the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). His statement about the Notre Dame fiasco said: “…it is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation.” But, most of the rest of his statement sounded like he was making excuses for why he wasn’t calling for a rescindment based on the 2004 U.S. Bishops’ statement which says: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
He prefaced his remarks by noting that even though he is president of the USCCB, he doesn’t have jurisdiction or authority over other bishops. Then he says his role has “some moral authority, without any kind of jurisdiction or any sort of real authority.” And then he said; “As president of the U.S. Bishops’ conference I have to precisely speak for the bishops and not in my own name, as I could as Archbishop of Chicago.” Well, why can’t he precisely speak in his own name as Archbishop of Chicago in addition to giving the consensus of the USCCB administrative committee? Barrack Obama, after all, although non-Catholic, is still one of his Chicago archdiocesan citizens. The hidden agenda here probably is that rescindment was discussed, Cardinal George is for it, but the liberal democrats on the committee who voted for Obama are carrying the day to just issuing a politically correct statement.
The Cardinal explained that he had contacted both Father Jenkins and his administrative committee several times. He said; “That conversation will continue…whether or not it will have some kind of consequence that will bring (perhaps rescindment), I think, the University to its understanding of what it means to be Catholic. That is, when you are Catholic, everything you do changes the life of everybody elese who calls himself a personal Catholic–it’s a network of relationships.”
As Bishops Farrell & Vann said in their joint statement last October before the election; “To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or ‘abortion rights’ when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil–and, therefore, morally impermissible.” Doesn’t the action of Father Jenkins and the ND Board support the intrinsic evil of abortion and, therefore, is just as morally impermissible? Certainly this action is much more detrimental as a public example of Catholic values than someone casting a secret ballot in a voting booth.
The conduct of the clergy in charge of the Notre Dame fiasco is atrocious for its lack of courage to fight back against the snares of the devil. Both Cardinal George and Bishop D’Archy immediately rejected any consideration, let alone action, to rescind this horrific mistake by Father Jenkins and his board committee at Notre Dame. And now, Father Jenkins is responding to the uproar of our Catholic laity over this by compounding his error with the suggestion that the 2004 U.S. Bishops’ statement above was meant to apply only to Catholic invitees. When we ask them to “fight back” we aren’t asking them to take up arms to do it, we simply want them to show some backbone for the moral prerogatives of our faith over the sin of political correctness when dealing with our post-Christian moral relativist society.
In his statement, Cardinal George finds it necessary to provide us the disclaimer that the U.S. presidency “is an office that deserves some respect,” and that Notre Dame would not disinvite the president, since “you just don’t do that (disinvite the president of the United States).” Why not? Because it’s politically incorrect? I wonder if the Cardinal bothered to ask himself if Jesus would have done it. After all, Christ used physical force to throw the reprobates out of the Temple in Jerusalem and He’s still the embodiment in our world of an All-Loving God. All that “disinvite” or “rescind” means is that Father Jenkins sends the White House an Email or other communication withdrawing the invitation because of the president’s positions on the life issues with which the Catholic Church disagrees, or something similar. Also, shouldn’t the Cardinal be telling Obama that he shouldn’t be accepting this invitation because “you just don’t do that (speak at the citadel of Catholicism when you are pro-choice)?”
What the Cardinal seems to overlook is that we are in a battle as serious as any arms-bearing war of “Us versus Them.“ And, right now, we’re losing. God sent us that message when Barrack Obama and his cabal, including our country’s main stream media, won the 2008 American election. Since then, he has declared WAR on the youngest members of our family! If we want to change that, we have to stop and change what we’ve been doing or we’ll get more of the same in 2010, 2012, and beyond. That means our liberal bishops who supported Obama in the election and continue to practice political correctness to Obama’s benefit must stop. For one thing, isn’t that sinful in the eyes of God when it supports a president who promotes the murder of babies, born and unborn.
Bishop D’Arcy also has his own disclaimer: “I wish no disrespect to our president, I pray for him and wish him well. I have always revered the Office of the Presidency. But a bishop must teach the Catholic faith ‘in season and out of season,’ and he teaches not only by his words — but by his actions.” Well, why hasn’t he acted to rescind the invitation and remove Father Jenkins from his job or explained the reasons for not doing that?
I have to ask Cardinal George, Bishop D’Arcy, and Father Jenkins why and how they can respect Obama or his distorted and criminal use of the Office of President? Do you also respect the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, North Korea, etc., and their offices as they are using them to kill and suppress thousands of their people. One can respect the office of president as it was established by our Constitution, but can you separate respect for the office from respect for the holder of it as if they both are in a vacuum? It’s like suggesting you can separate one’s religion from one’s politics. Obama has used his office to:
1) Rescind Bush’s Mexico City policy banning the use of our tax dollars to fund international abortions…
2) Introduce legislation to eliminate the conscience clause allowing medical professionals to reject doing abortions…
3) Promise to sign bills containing the other freedom of choice clauses that would reverse every state pro-life law restricting abortions…
4) Renew funding for the United Nations that enabled China’s one-child and abortion laws…
5) Increase funding of destructive embryonic stem cell research… and,
6) Of course, his legislative history shows that he would support infanticide if such a bill ever showed up on his desk.
Haven’t we come to a time now when clergy in our church who make mistakes like this must be held accountable with real consequences that reverse the damage to our Church’s moral standing. Will anyone ever believe that Cardinal George and Bishop D’Arcy are unable to arrange for the rescindment of that invitation to Obama? Of course not. Doesn’t Bishop D’Arcy have the authority to remove Father Jenkins from his position since Notre Dame is a Catholic institution? Don’t he or Cardinal George understand what a Saul Alinsky trained community organizer does to achieve his/her political agenda that has more to do with instigating public unrest for political ends than with the welfare of the people? Now, as it pertains to his political agenda on the Freedom of Choice clauses, Obama knows exactly what he’s doing and he knows he has his feared dissidence from the Catholic Church on those issues above firmly under control if the Church doesn’t find a way to rescind Notre Dame’s invitation.
It appears the Catholic laity must take the action that our clergy should be taking. Thank God for Randall Terry and Operation Rescue. His interview with Archbishop Raymond Burke at the Vatican last month is a clarion call to our U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that the Vatican will no longer be silent to the lack of moral fortitude, pluck, and guts among our Church leadership in America who put their liberal political worldview and lifestyle ahead of their vows to save souls in the service of their Almighty God. Aren’t those who don’t just as responsible if they aren’t following the Lord’s message about the wicked man in Ezekiel 33:7-9? As the booklet, “Faithful Citizenship,” revealed to us, their political correctness not only was used against us by the Obama campaign, but it also undermined the effectiveness of the truth with which we were educating our own laity. Result, 54% of Catholic voters voted for Obama, 6% more than voted democrat in 2004.
Ten years ago, Father Matthew Habiger, as Director of Human Life International instructed us: “Our task within the household of faith is clear and daunting, my brothers and sisters. It must be made abundantly clear in pulpits, in classrooms, in the lecture halls of our colleges and universities, in the Catholic press, in the way we vote, that to be Catholic is to be unconditionally pro-life.” In addition, I would ask now in the 2009 world, can a real authentic Catholic be a democrat?
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