Thomas Sowell fed up with theatrics:
No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.
A call to action delivered by Cardinal Francis George:
As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.”
Full text follows:
“Hello. I am Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I’d like to take a moment to speak about two principles or ideas that have been basic to life in our country: religious liberty and the freedom of personal conscience.
On Friday afternoon, February 27, the Obama Administration placed on a federal website the news that it intends to remove a conscience protection rule for the Department of Health and Human Services. That rule is one part of the range of legal protections for health care workers–for doctors, nurses and others–who have objections in conscience to being involved in abortion and other killing procedures that are against how they live their faith I God.
As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government’s part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism. Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God–that’s what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion–including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves.
Conscientious objection against many actions is a part of our life. We have a conscientious objection against war for those who cannot fight, even though it’s good to defend your country. We have a conscientious objection for doctors against being involved in administering the death penalty. Why shouldn’t our government and our legal system permit conscientious objection to a morally bad action, the killing of babies in their mother’s womb? People understand what really happens in an abortion and in related procedures–a living member of the human family is killed–that’s what it’s all about–and no one should be forced by the government to act as though he or she were blind to this reality.
I ask you please to let the government know that you want conscience protections to remain strongly in place. In particular, let the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington know that you stand for the protection of conscience, especially now for those who provide the health care services so necessary for a good society. Thank you and God bless you.”
acertainslantoflight writing in Catholics in the Public Square reports the meeting of President Obama with Cardinal Francis George. “The statement from the USCCB said: “The meeting was private. Cardinal George and President Obama discussed the Catholic Church in the United States and its relation to the new administration. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes.”
Private, yes, but one can guess that Obama’s attack on conscience issues in health related fields had to be in mind and mouth. The meeting followed by one day Cardinal George’s warnings of emerging “depotism” with the removal of conscience protection.
EWTN report here
What’s in a word? Archbishop Chaput will tell you:
Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput delivered a speech on Saturday reflecting on the significance of the November 2008 election. Warning that media “narratives” should not obscure truth, he blamed the indifference and complacency of many U.S. Catholics for the country’s failures on abortion, poverty and immigration issues.
He also advised Catholics to “master the language of popular culture” and to refuse to be afraid, saying “fear is the disease of our age.”
Does the Mainstream Media feel any guilt for the media basis that is now part and parcel of its product and its legacy? Do their heavy-hitters feel any compunction for putting Barak Hussein Obama, a relative unknown with little experience and a shady past into the White House as President of the greatest Nation on this earth. The answer is “No!” and “Hell, no! respectively. Perspectively, they have no perspective!
Bernard Goldberg of “A Slobbering Love Affair” fame, reminds us of the “bubble” in which these guys live. A “Vast Left-wing Conspiracy” has not been organized, but they live and move and have their being
as though there were one. According to Goldberg, “The problem, in a word, is group-think.” An “institutional bias,” that is insidious because it is “too comfortable” and “dulls the senses,” is turning “even well-
educated journalists into narrow-minded provincial rubes.”
In a time of national crisis, those the 1st amendment intended to protect the Nation by
manning the watchtowers, are in denial and worse. They are in lockstep, much as the spaced-out fictional
Borg, zombies acting, but not thinking critically.
Michelle Malkin covers the comedic to the hysterical:
” ….the curtains have opened on the most elaborate farce of the year. Welcome, taxpayers, to the Kabuki Theater of AIG Outrage — where D.C.’s histrionic enablers of taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts compete for Best Performance of Hypocritical Indignation.”
If Washington’s new-found opponents of rewarding failure want to do taxpayers a favor, how about giving back their automatic pay raises? How about returning all their AIG donations? How about taking back all the bailout money to all the failed enterprises, from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to AIG, the automakers, and the big banks? Barry? Harry? Nancy? John? Chris? Bueller? ‘Bueller?
Meanwhile the Anchoress calls these antics more than Kabuki:
This is a full-on assault on reality by the office of the Most Powerful Person in the World, fully supported by the pretend-press, and it is alternately tedious and terrifying.
If only there was some one off-stage with cajones and a hook.
Pope Bededict XVI touched down yesterday in Cameroon. According to the AP, this is the Pope’s first trip as pontiff to Africa. “For Benedict, whose only previous stop in Africa was in Kinshasa in 1987 as a cardinal, the continent presents major challenges and opportunities. He is expected to address them in meetings with Muslim representatives, bishops, health workers and women’s advocacy groups.”
This is the first day in his seven day pilgrimage. The Roman Catholic Church is booming and blooming in Africa. “Africa produces priests at a higher rate than anywhere in the world but finds itself in competition with Islam in Cameroon..”
“Benedict said he wants to invigorate the growing church in Africa. ‘I intend to confirm Catholics in their faith,” he said, and ‘proclaim the peace entrusted to the Church” by Jesus. Benedict said that as he sets out for Africa, he has in mind ‘the victims of hunger, disease, injustice, fratricidal conflicts and every form of violence which unfortunately continue to afflict adults and children, without sparing missionaries’ and volunteers working on the continent.”
“The Catholic Church has been one body that has been consistent in the development of the African continent not only spiritually, but in the provision of quality education, health care, caring for the neglected and victims of natural and man made disasters. It has also spoken up against corrupt and inept leaders in a fearless and constructive manner. The Church is only fulfilling its mandate to bring light to a darkened world and needs to continue this mission unceasingly. Africa definitely needs the Church. Osayawe Ogieva, Nigeria”
Be Holy! 