As The New Pope Is Revealed Let’s Ask The Question: Why Does The Catholic Church Have A Man Who Stands Between Christ And Mankind???

I’ll probably find out who the next pope is by the time I finish this.  I am literally writing it close to a television as the news cover the development of “white smoke.”

Why did the Catholic Church go with “popes”?

The “Catholic Church” itself did not exist as an organization in anything close to its modern form until the fourth century, AD.  Yes, they claim that Peter was the first “pope.”  They do so because Jesus says “And I tell you, you are Peter [which means “a rock”], and on this rock I will build My Church” (Matthew 16:19).  Catholics argue that Jesus established Peter as the first pope and that “the rock upon which Christ built His Church” was Peter himself and NOT on Peter’s testimony, which is simply incorrect.  I would submit that God literally did give Peter a unique opportunity to have the Church built on his testimony and even on his preaching as he preached the Gospel that won the first Jewish converts AND the first Gentile converts.  It was Peter who preached the very first Gospel message at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2  It was Peter who preached the gospel to the very first Gentile converts at Caesarea in Acts chapter 10.  And Billy Graham and every single evangelist who has ever lived to this very day preach on that same “rock” upon which Christ built His Church that Peter preached.  Christ fulfilled His prophecy of Peter in Peter’s life.  There is no reason to believe that Christ additionally established a permanent political office through Peter that would be otherwise known as “the Catholic Church.”  And Catholics also claim Jesus appointed Peter as the first pope because of Peter’s authority over the early Church. But it was clearly not Peter alone, but Jesus’ half brother James, who TOGETHER were the leaders of the early Church.  It is impossible to argue that one was clearly superior to the other in authority when you examine the authority of both men – and I point to a Catholic article to document that fact.

I would submit that there is no reason to believe that neither Matchew 16:9 or John 21:15-19 created a temoral political organization that would uniquely represent Christ on earth.  And I would submit that the life of Peter itself bears that out.  Peter was without question AN early leader of the Church.  But he was never “THE” leader of the Church.  Peter allowed James to lead the Church that began in Jerusalem through HIS preaching at Pentecost.  And it wasn’t long before Peter handed off much of the leadership of the early Church in the Gentile world off to Paul even though it had been Peter’s preaching that had started the Gentile Church.  In fact I would submit that Peter’s experience of personal moral collapse in denying Jesus was the reason that he was such a pivotal figure: he had the humility to share leadership with James, and he had the humility to hand over his ministry to the Gentiles to Paul.  Peter was a man who handed power over to others and empowering them; the Catholic Church is the very opposite in that it constantly seeks to aquire more power over all others.  That has been its central failing through the centuries to this day as they covered up the sex scandal of homosexual priests in order to save the organization.

Who was the second pope?  Well, Catholics say it was St. Linus:

Pope St. Linus was the second pope of the Holy Catholic Church from c. 68 – c. 79 AD.  St. Irenaeus says, “After the Holy Apostles founded and set the Church in order (in Rome) they gave over the exercise of the episcopal office to Linus. The same Linus is mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy [II Tim 4:21]. His successor was Anacletus.”

And I completely agree with the historical facts presented in that paragraph.  What I don’t agree with is the fact that being the bishop of Rome was in any way, shape or form the same thing as being a modern “pope” who rules over all Christendom.

The early Church was centered in JERUSALEM, not in Rome.  That is why James was such an important early figure; it was James who led the Church in Jerusalem.  The half brother of Jesus led the Church in Jerusalem.  And when St. Paul sought to confirm his ministry, he did not see Peter, but JAMES (see Galatians 1:18).  And it was JAMES who confirmed Paul.

There is no historical evidence whatsoever to believe that St. Linus assumed any office in which he assumed the title “the Vicar of Christ on earth.”  The above article clearly states that very little is known about the man (and let me directly quote the Catholic source: “Not much is known as certain concerning his life” in the same boldface type the article says it in) whom Catholics rather strangely claim assumed the full power and station and literal authority over the gates of hell of St. Peter himself.  Do you see how self-refuting that ends up being?  All we really have is a statement by St. Irenaeus, writing in the latter second century, stating that a man named Linus had been the episcopal office over the Christian Church in Rome.  That certainly didn’t make him “pope” except by a later act of historical revisionism on the part of the Catholic Church.  It amounts to an orgnization centuries later asking, “Who was the next bishop of Rome after Peter?  Yeah, THAT GUY nobody otherwise remembers was the next man to hold the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Apparently he dropped them somewhere and spent the remainder of his life futilely searching for them.  I know the feeling with some of the things I’ve misplaced, so I don’t judge too harshly here.  And apparently the next guy misplaced the keys to the kingdom of heaven soon after he had them in his hands, too, because what was the name of the third pope who was “the Vicar of Christ on earth”?  Yeah, I don’t remember either – and I just looked at the list of names a few minutes ago.

Instead, Peter held the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  He opened the gates at Pentecost for Jews with the rock of his testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  And then he opened the gates again for the Gentiles at Caesarea with the rock of the same testimony.  And Jesus declared that once opened, no one on earth would be able to close those gates.  That’s what Jesus declared in John 21, and it is what happened in history.  Peter didn’t hand his set of keys off to anybody else because he’d already opened the gates that could never be closed again.

My point is that if Peter was the first Pope, and these guys actually held the same divine office that Peter held, we’d know who the heck they were, wouldn’t we?  But what we find is that these first men who came to be called “popes” and thus unique bearers of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the role of Mediator between man and Christ were not those things; they were just bishops over the Church of Rome.  They weren’t popes.  And none of the popes who followed true successors of Peter, either.

I find it fascinating how history shapes the world and how the world in term shapes history.  Events, i.e. “history” shape those who take power, and then those who took power get to write the history.  History certainly shaped the Catholic Church even as the Catholic Church shaped history, I submit.  How did we get to popes and to papal succession and to Rome emerging as the centerpiece of Christianity and ordaining itself as the centerpiece for all time?  I believe that the Catholic Church was a victim of history in that the Roman Empire was beginning to collapse (primarily due to the effects of global cooling that forced massive migrations of wave after wave of barbarians into their realm).  As an example of this history:

The Roman Empire was crumbling into ruins. Invasion succeeded invasion, defeat followed defeat. In 378 the German people known as Visigoths overwhelmed an imperial army at Adrianople; and in 408 they invaded Italy and marched south upon Rome under their leader Alaric, a nobleman by birth who had once commanded the Gothic troops in the Roman army. When  the Visigoths first appeared before the Aurelian walls, which had recently been strengthened and raised to almost twice their original height, they were kept at bay with payments of monies. But in 410 when they reappeared, the gates were opened by traitors within the city, and for the first time in eight hundred years a foreign force occupied Rome.

Rome politically collapsed as the generals constantly schemed to become emperor, weakening the office of emperor to the point that you held the office by killing somebody until somebody else killed you and seized the crown for himself.

And the ONLY other institution in the West capable of stepping in and just running the cities and governing was the Catholic Church.  Herein is the danger of the Catholic practice of elevating “tradition” above the Word of God.  The Catholic Church began to transform from a religious institution to a very political one from which popes ruled like kings in the absence of any other strong leader in the realm.  And flawed understandings of flawed traditions became inflexibly entrenched because the Catholic dogma revered them as beyond question.

The Catholic Church began to reinterpret itself as a political entity accordingly.  And that massively shaped their theology of themselves.  Which is why they looked back in history and interpreted themselves into early Church history that actually had litle to do with what the Catholic Church had become entering the fourth and fifth centuries.

There is no place in Scripture where God tells me that He appointed some human being to stand between myself and Christ.  There is no place in Scripture where a human office is described that has ANYTHING to do with a “Supreme Pontiff” representing “the Vicar of Christ on earth.”  Jesus needs no one to stand between Himself and His people, and neither do His people – as indwelt by the Holy Spirit – need to have any pope stand between them and their Savior.  There is no place in Scripture where God tells me that some infallible human being speaking “ex Cathedra” can literally pronounce the words of Christ and theoretically even supersede the Bible with his own personal authority to declare the will of God.

As the organization of the Catholic Church flows down the organizatonal chart, the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood flies in the face of the priesthood of all believers found repeatedly in the Bible and continues a fundamental error.  That error is basing themselves on being the successors to the authority of St. Peter rather than basing themselves on the testimony OF St. Peter that was at the heart of Jesus’ statement in John 21.  They are thus quintessentially an organization with a human being and an entire human hierarchy at its head when the real Body of Christ is an organism that is sustained and led directly by Christ.  And thus Catholics will go to any lengths to protect the organization.

Do you know how the Catholic priesthood started in terms of the modern theology of celibacy?  It was because in the Middle Ages priests were essentially assuming enormous Church wealth for themselves and passing that wealth on to their children by the nepotistic practice of having their sons succeed them.  The Church ordained that all priests be celibate in order to keep its wealth.

It hasn’t worked out well.  Because now it’s all those “celibate” priests who are costing the Catholic Church BILLIONS in wealth.  The deeply flawed Catholic understanding of the priesthood has borne bad and bitter fruit, indeed.

Because of that doctrine, the Bible itself has historically been deprived from rank and file Catholics.  The Protestant Reformation was born out of Christians reading the Word of God and realizing that many of the traditions that were being presented by the Catholic Church were in direct contradiction of Scripture.  And even to this day, most Catholics have little to do with the Bible.

The concept of prayer to the saints stems from this: it was almost as if Catholics said, “Jesus is GOD!  Wow!  I need somebody I trust to stand between me and Jesus and intercede for me.”  And so they chose Mary, mother of Jesus.  But then it was like, “Mary is the Mother of God!  Wow!  That’s scary!  I need somebody to stand between me and Mary and intercede for me.  And now they have thousands of saints that they can pray to lest they directly pray to Christ – which Scripture tells us that we are able to do.

We don’t need priests to magically transform the elements into the actual body and blood of Christ.  We are each of us priests as true believers in Jesus.  And we don’t need to pray to saints to intercede to us before God.  God hears our prayers as our Father and Jesus hears our prayers as our Savior Redeemer.

And, yes, the Catholic Church seized the ordinances that the Lord commanded – such as baptism and the Lord’s Supper and priesthood – and ritualizing them into things that had power in and of themselves (but only if administered by the Catholic Church).  Tom McMahon explains this (unfortunate) development:

  I was always fascinated by that after I became an evangelical, because I just figured the Catholic Church was all there was and ever was. But as an evangelical, you know, I tried to read some things with regard to the early church and how certain things developed into the Roman Catholic Church, and from my understanding, it really had to do with taking the ordinances that Jesus commanded us to do: baptism, celebration of the Lord’s Table, or the Lord’s Supper, and turning those into something more than He intended—ritualizing them, making them efficacious—and over a period of time, the first couple of centuries, until, what would it be—the fourth century—those things developed to the point where there needed to be a priesthood, there needed to be a certain group of people who could, through their power or through their position, whatever it might be, these would be the only individuals who could preside over these events, but far and away removed from what we find in the Scriptures.

Please note that the usurpation of the ordinances into “Catholic rituals” developed at the same time as the Roman Empire had weakened to the point of complete collapse without the Catholic Church to step in.

What is sad is that tradition is held on the same level as the Word of God.  That’s fine, as long as the traditions COME FROM the Word of God.  But they often haven’t.

The result is a pope who was given more power than ANY other Christian leader of any other Christian sect who has so little real power and influence even over his own flock that 98% of Catholic women use birth control even though pope after pope after pope have declared it to be not only sinful but grounds for excommunication.

I won’t go on.  The Catholic Church has many flaws and has failed many times.  But the same Lord who restored Peter will restore the Catholic Church if it comes to Him in the appropriate spirit of humility.  Ours is a God who rejoices at restoring the broken and blessing the humble.

I’m sure that more than a few Catholics are rather angry at me by now.  But before you go away angry or say something too harsh, I hope you stick around long enough the following:

We just heard the announcement of the next Pope.  His name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  From what little I know of him, he is a good man.  He opposed liberation theology just as did Benedict before him.  He seems to be in the conservative tradition rather than the liberal one that is destroying the world like cancer all around us.

I hear that this man, Bergoglio, is a humble and simple man who seeks to meekly bring others together and who once kissed the feet of AIDS patients.  He took the bus to his job as Cardinal and was known to carry his own baggage.  He chose as his papal name the name “Francis” in signification that humility will be the hallmark of his ministry.  He came out without all the vestments and asked the people to bless him as he assumes this duty, rather than thinking that he was a man who had the power to bless others.  And he got on his hands and knees to receive those prayers.  I will pray for such a man who seeks prayer, whether I agree with all of his theological positions or not.  Jesus said we should pray even for our enemies; and we should pray even MORE for my friends.

I think all Christians need to pray for the Catholic Church and for the Pope.  There are 1.2 billion Catholic souls – and they can do a great deal of good if they are properly shepherded.  Pray that the Lord work through the Catholic Church and the Pope in these last days with the same spirit we pray for our own churches.

All who rejoice in the salvation of Jesus Christ can have many things in common, even be we Catholics versus Protestants.

As a Christian, I will join those who pray for this pope and for his ministry in these last days before the beast.

Notre Dame Faculty Responds To Obama: ‘This Is a Grave Violation of Religious Freedom and Cannot Stand’

Let us simply call this what it is: it is a new front in a culture war for purely political reasons that Obama started on religion, religious freedom and the right to individual conscience.  It is the imposition of excessive and burdensome regulation from a government that has already repeatedly demonstrated that it is way out of control:

Notre Dame Faculty to Obama: ‘This Is a Grave Violation of Religious Freedom and Cannot Stand’
By Terence P. Jeffrey
February 12, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – Twenty-five Notre Dame faculty members–led by the university’s top ethics expert, and including some of the school’s most eminent scholars–have signed a statement declaring that President Barack Obama’s latest version of his administration’s mandate that all health insurance plans in the United States must cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions, is “a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.”

The statement—put out on the letterhead of the University of Notre Dame Law School–is also signed by leading scholars from other major American colleges and universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Brigham Young, Yeshiva and Wheaton College.

Prof. Carter Snead, a professor of law at Notre Dame, was one of the lead organizers of the statement, which was published on his official law school letterhead. Notre Dame’s top ethics expert, Snead serves as director of the university’s Center for Ethics and Culture, a position to which he was appointed by Father John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame.

In 2009, Father Jenkins awarded President Barack Obama an honorary Notre Dame law degree.

Some of the other distinguished Notre Dame faculty who signed the statement condemning Obama’s mandate are Prof. Patrick Griffin, chairman of Notre Dame’s History Department; Prof. Richard Garnett, an associate dean; John Cavadini, director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life; Christian Smith, director of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society; Prof. Paolo Carozza, director of Notre Dame’s Center for Civil and Human Rights; Prof. Philip Bess, Notre Dame’s Director of Graduate Studies; and Father Wilson Miscamble, a professor of history.

Other leading organizers of the letter included Prof. Robert George of Princeton and Prof. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School.

When Obama received his honorary degree at Notre Dame’s May 17, 2009, commencement, he vowed to respect the conscience rights of those who believe abortion is wrong.

“Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women,” said Obama. “Those are things we can do.”

Many Catholic bishops and lay leaders had criticized Notre Dame’s decision to grant Obama an honorary degree–pointing to his long-standing position in favor of legalized abortion on demand, which included going so far as to oppose a law in the Illinois state senate that would have simply said that a baby born alive in that state was entitled to the same rights under the U.S. Constitution as any other born “person.”

In their statement released late Friday, the 25 Notre Dame faculty members and the many other prominent scholars from other institutions who joined them said that Obama’s sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate–even with Obama’s proposed adjustments on Friday–remains an “assault on religious liberty and rights of conscience.”

“The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (‘cost free’) these same products and services,” said the scholars. “Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that the terms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.

“This so-called ‘accommodation’ changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy,” they said. “It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.”

The statement also said that Obama’s latest iteration of the regulation is “an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims” and “cannot stand.”

“The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization,” the scholars said. “This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept an assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.”

When you’ve got Harvard, Princeton and Standford agreeing with Catholic Notre Dame, it is rather glaringly obvious that Obama is just WRONG.

Let me provide a couple of illustrations as to “what an insult to the intelligence” of all concerned this truly is:

1) the Catholic League – very obviously a Catholic organization – is one such organization that will be required to purchase insurance coverage to provide “free” birth control, abortifacients and sterilizations.  Obama says the Catholic League won’t have to pay anything for this; rather the insurance company that represents them will.  But what insurance company is that?  It turns out that the health insurer of the Catholic League is Christian Brothers.  But guess what?  That is ALSO a Catholic organization.  So Catholics are STILL being forced to violate their consciences as Obama tramples all over their religious freedom.  But it won’t just be Christian Brothers who pays for this “:care”; Christian Brothers and the Catholic League share costs such that each pay a percentage of the burden.  So the Catholic League will STILL be compelled to pay for treatment it morally objects to on religious grounds that the Catholic Church has held for one thousand five hundred years.

Many religious – and particularly many CATHOLIC – organizations are self-insured.  So Obama is still demanding that the Catholic Church must pay for “care” it has never had to pay for before.  It’s just a bait-and-switch tactic for fools who love nothing more than having “their intelligence insulted” to make it appear that the Church isn’t under attack when in fact it clearly IS under attack.

2) Take the garden variety situation in which a Catholic organization is not self-insured or insured through another Catholic organization.  In this case, Obama is STILL a liar.  He claims:

“Religious organizations won’t have to pay for these services and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly.”

But they still have to pay for them INDIRECTLY.  And how is that anything other than a completely meaningless and arbitrary distinction???

Unless Obama is volunteering to take over the premiums of all the religious organization that he is imposing his new policy on, THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS REQUIREMENT.

Unlimited and unrestricted access to Birth control, abortifacients and sterilizations isn’t free just because Obama declares it by fiat.  Somebody still has to pay for it.  And it is beyond “magical thinking” to believe that the insurance companies won’t increase their premiums to reflect this new level of “care.”

This “accommodation” simply reveals that Obama is a truly dishonest weasel.

One last thing.  If you look at the way the mainstream media propaganda continually depicts this story, it is all about “preventative health care for women.”  This whole boondoggle is being imposed and packaged under the guise of “preventative health care.”  Well, it’s one thing to require an insurer to provide “preventative care” for issues such as the deadly disease of diabetes.  But when you use the same language to describe a human baby as you do a deadly disease, you have crossed the line into being genuinely morally sick.  That is NOT mainstream thinking; that is the thinking of the far radical feminist left that is being deceitfully repackaged into something that masquerades as mainstream thinking.

The other thing that is just beyond nauseating is that the left and their mainstream media allies continually depict this issue as a “birth control” issue as if this is the first time in the entire history of the republic that woman have ever had “access to birth control.”  That is obviously a red herring; rather, this is the first time ever that Catholics have been put in a position in which they had to sacrifice their religious beliefs and violate their consciences to provide something that has obviously been “widely available” for decades if not centuries in America.  It is a false facade, pure and simple.

I am not a Catholic.  I do not believe that providing birth control is evil (although I most certainly DO oppose abortion-inducing drugs as evil).  But the Catholic Church has consistently maintained their belief regarding birth control for 1,500 years.  It is simply stunning that a theology which has endured for a millennium and a half cannot survive the wickedness of one Barack Obama term of office.

How Barack Obama Made Me A Catholic

[Note: I began to write this the evening of February 9 but did not finish it.  By February 10 Obama had issued an incredibly deceitful “accommodation.”  I write about that here.]

When Ronald Reagan was shot and very nearly killed, he joked with the surgeons who saved his life, “I hope your all Republicans.”  And one surgeon responded, “Mr. President, today we’re ALL Republicans.”

Well, today I’m a Catholic.

Ordinarily I’m not.  I believe the Catholics have flaws in numerous aspects of their theology – with their theology on contraception being one of those flaws.

That said, I’ll fight to the death for the Catholics right to be wrong, and to hold on to beliefs which they have held for five hundred years.

Catholics believe it is a sin to use birth control.  It is one of their deeply held religious beliefs (did I mention they’ve held that for five hundred years?).  And Barack Obama wants to say to Catholics, “You do not have any religious freedom that I cannot trample upon; you WILL violate your religious beliefs or I will come after you.  Anything that disagrees with secular liberals and our ideology will simply not be tolerated.”

Why should I care if I’m not a Catholic?  Let’s ask Martin Niemöller:

“In Germany, they first came for the communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist,” said the Rev. Martin Niemöller. “Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics. I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up.”

The Rev. Niemöller spent time in one of the concentration camps.

Now they’re coming for the Catholics in America.  And all of a sudden I am one fired-up Catholic.  I am a Crusader ready to take the cross to defeat the worst infidel who has ever inhabited the White House.

Obama is going after the Catholics.  He’s already gone after any pro-life Christian who sought to use the conscientious objector clause to avoid being FORCED to perform abortions against his or her most deeply held religious beliefs.

A New York Post article from a couple of weeks ago begins:

Friday’s ruling by the Department of Health and Human Services proved yet again that ObamaCare’s critics are right. It’s a breathtaking attack not only on the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, but also on the separation of church and state.
 
Kathleen Sebelius, the nominally Catholic HHS chief, bluntly informed religious medical institutions that offer services to the general public that she will indeed compel them to offer free birth control, sterilization and “morning after” pills as part of their employees’ health-care plans. They have exactly one year to get with the program or suffer the consequences.

That’s all their vehement objections to her August “guidelines” got them: “This additional year will allow these organizations more time and flexibility to adapt to this new rule,” read a department statement defending HHS’ insistence on what it euphemistically calls “preventive services.”

In other words, they have a year to figure out how to violate their religious beliefs and contravene church teaching. And if they choose to cancel their health-care plans rather than submit, they’ll incur a hefty annual fine under the tender mercies of ObamaCare.
 
Added bonus: This contemptuous slap at Catholicism and for mainstream Christianity in general comes wrapped in the guise of “compassion.”
 
Never mind that the administration just got its head handed to it by the Supreme Court over religious freedom. In a slam-dunk 9-0 vote, the justices this month slapped down Team Obama’s claim that it, not religious institutions, has the right to decide who qualifies for the “ministerial exception” to employment-discrimination laws.

Liberal and conservative justices alike rejected the Justice Department’s ludicrous argument that religious teachers are no different than, say, soda jerks.

And yet it’s right there in the first words of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” had Attorney General Eric Holder’s ideologues bothered to look.
 
Now Sebelius follows up with more of the same. Conservatives have been howling for years about the left’s war on traditional faith, and now here it is in all its naked, unabashed glory.

Barack Obama is like a political Jason Voorhees who just keeps attacking decent people and religious values.  Knock him down and think you’ve taken him out of the fight and he will suddenly get right back up and start waging his evil war on religious and individual freedom all over again.

Liberals are trying to depict this as being all about “women’s health.”  As if taking all the hormones in birth control pills and losing the ability to have a period and increasing the likelihood of developing cancer are somehow “healthy.”

This isn’t about “women’s health.”  Unless the hateful liberal feminist notion that “pregnancy” is identical to a “disease” that must be cured at all costs is swallowed.

And just exactly WHOSE definition of “women’s health” are we talking about here, anyway?  Certainly not the Catholic Church’s.  And at this point I should state for the factual record that the Catholic Church was concerned about women’s health for about 1,500 years before American feminists were giving a damn about it.  To this day, 90 percent of the homeless shelters and facilities for the poor that we have in this country are religious in nature – and the Catholic Church runs a significant percentage of those facilities.  Why doesn’t their definition count one iota???

Other than the rabid intolerance of the left???

Again, this has nothing to do with “women’s health,” unless only radical liberal feminists abortionists are the only ones who get to “define” what “women’s health” means.

Jehmu Greene took that radical liberal feminist abortion ideology to entirely new levels of warped Thursday night on the Sean Hannity program when she actually lectured Andrea Tantaros that “If it wasnt for Birth Control, you wouldnt be sitting in that chair.”  As if somehow the only reason Andrea’s mother was able to conceive her was because she was taking something that was supposed to prevent Andrea from being conceived. 

Now, some might interpret Jehmu Greene’s “If it wasn’t for birth control you wouldn’t be here” remark to mean that if Andrea had gotten pregnant and had a baby that she couldn’t work.  But that is every bit as stupid as the above interpretation; most of the women who work at Fox News are MOTHERS.  Which is to say that, if anything, Andrea would be even MORE likely to be working for Fox News if she were a mother rather than less.

You’ve usurped enough of our freedoms Obama, you tyrant.  I stand for religious freedom; therefore I stand against you.

Let me provide an analogy of what the left is doing here.

Since only the left is able to define “women’s health,” let’s assume that the right acts with as much intolerance.

Numerous studies have indicated that religion makes people healthier.  So right wing conservatives will have the same justifications to ram religion down the nation’s throat that left wing liberals have used to ram secular humanism down the nation’s throat.  To wit, since religion is a “health issue,” Americans will be required to attend weekly religious services or pay a substantial fine (some Catholic institutions would be hit with fines in excess of $10 million, so that’s a good number to start with).

Of course, people can’t make their own choices regarding which religions or denominations they can attend.  Apart from the choice to kill babies, liberals despise choice.  Rather, the ObamaCare model shall be rigorously followed: Americans can choose from a list of approved Christian denominations provided by the Republican administration.

Oh, liberals are talking about the 1st Amendment and religious liberty?  Not to worry; Obama already crapped all over that.  Like liberals and abortion, that 1st Amendment baby is already dead.

Furthermore, did you know that there is inadequate access to Bibles?  And again, this is a health care issue, so the Republican government can regulate it.

Liberals shall henceforth be required to provide funding for Bibles so that every single American can have “access” to one.

What’s that?  Liberals say that Americans already have access to Bibles?  Well, of course they do – unless we think the same way liberals are thinking about birth control.  Of COURSE every American has easy access to birth control now.  GO TO A DRUG STORE OR A GROCERY STORE OR A WAL MART, ETC. ETC. ETC. THAT DOESN’T HAVE BIRTH CONTROL!!!!  But that clearly isn’t the issue; rather, the issue is about forcing people on the other side to pay for something they don’t want to subsidize.  And by that exact same standard liberals need to be forced to pay for Bibles so that everyone on the planet can have one in their hands.

See you in church.  Or I’ll see your check for $10 million.

That is what would happen if the right were anywhere even close as rabidly intolerant of individual freedom and constitutional guarantees as is the left.

Decent Americans who believe in their freedom as guaranteed by their Constitution are going to join devout Catholics and fight this evil.

Obama In Truly Deep Doggy-Do Following His Hateful Attack On Religious Freedom As Even LIBERAL Catholics Recognize He Is A Truly Evil Man

a religious tradition and moral value system that has endured for five hundred years be trampled upon at Barack Obama’s whim?  Should the First Amendment be thrown out along with the rest of our Constitution that liberal judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg believe is completely obsolete?  Should anyone have the freedom of conscience in America?

Should being slammed by the Supreme Court 9-0 for yet another Obama attack against religion stop a truly demon-possessed man from continuing his war on religion and moral values???  This is now the fourth time Barack Obama has fundamentally attacked religion and religious freedom in America.

If you are a Catholic or ANY person of any religious belief whose belief has ever run afoul of the State, Barack Obama is graciously giving you the “freedom” to shut up and comply.

I post this from a “liberal” “Democrat” Catholic who says there is no way he can vote for Obama in good conscience again:

J’ACCUSE! Why Obama is wrong on the HHS conscience regulations
by Michael Sean Winters on Jan. 21, 2012 Distinctly Catholic

President Barack Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.

I do not come at this issue as a Catholic special pleader, who wants only to protect my own, although it was a little bracing to realize that the president’s decision yesterday essentially told us, as Catholics, that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our Church has built over the years to be Catholic in ways that are important to us. Nor, frankly, do I come at the issue as an anti-contraception zealot: I understand that many people, and good Catholics too, reach different conclusions on the matter although I must say that Humanae Vitae in its entirety reads better, and more presciently, every year.

No, I come at this issue as a liberal and a Democrat and as someone who, until yesterday, generally supported the President, as someone who saw in his vision of America a greater concern for each other, a less mean-spirited culture, someone who could, and did, remind the nation that we are our brothers’ keeper, that liberalism has a long vocation in this country of promoting freedom and protecting the interests of the average person against the combined power of the rich, and that we should learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. I defended the University of Notre Dame for honoring this man, and my heart was warmed when President Obama said at Notre Dame: “we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity — diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.”

To borrow from Emile Zola: J’Accuse!

I accuse you, Mr. President, of dishonoring your own vision by this shameful decision.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to live out the respect for diversity that you so properly and beautifully proclaimed as a cardinal virtue at Notre Dame. Or, are we to believe that diversity is only to be lauded when it advances the interests of those with whom we agree? That’s not diversity. That’s misuse of a noble principle for ignoble ends.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of betraying philosophic liberalism, which began, lest we forget, as a defense of the rights of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be honest and admit that, three hundred years ago, the defense of conscience was not high on the agenda of Holy Mother Church. But, we Catholics learned to embrace the idea that the coercion of conscience is a violation of human dignity. This is a lesson, Mr. President, that you and too many of your fellow liberals have apparently unlearned.

I accuse you, Mr. President, who argued that your experience as a constitutional scholar commended you for the high office you hold, of ignoring the Constitution. Perhaps you were busy last week, but the Supreme Court, on a 9-0 vote, said that the First Amendment still means something and that it trumps even desirable governmental objectives when the two come into conflict. Did you miss the concurring opinion, joined by your own most recent appointment to the court, Justice Kagan, which stated:

“Throughout our Nation’s history, religious bodies have been the preeminent example of private associations that have ‘act[ed] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.’ Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 619 (1984). In a case like the one now before us—where the goal of the civil law in question, the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities, is so worthy—it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws. To safeguard this crucial autonomy, we have long recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to govern themselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies ‘independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.’ Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 116 (1952).”

Pray, do tell, Mr. President, what part of that paragraph did you consider when making this decision? Or, do you like having your Justice Department having its hat handed to it at the Supreme Court?

I accuse you, Mr. President, as leader of the Democratic Party, the primary vehicle for historic political liberalism in this country, of risking all the many achievements of political liberalism, from environmental protection to Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid, by committing a politically stupid act. Do you really think your friends at Planned Parenthood and NARAL were going to support the candidacy of Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich? How does this decision affect the prospects of Democrats winning back the House in districts like Pennsylvania’s Third or Ohio’s First or Virginia’s Fifth districts? How do your chances look today among Catholic swing voters in Scranton and the suburbs of Cincinnati and along the I-4 corridor in Florida? I suppose that there are campaign contributions to consider, but really, sacrificing one’s conscience, or the conscience rights of others, was not worth Wales, was it worth a few extra dollars in your campaign coffers?

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to know your history. In 1978, the IRS proposed a rule change affecting the tax exempt status of private Christian schools. The rule would change the way school verified their desegregation policies, putting the burden of proof on the school, not the IRS. By 1978, many of those schools were already desegregated, even though they had first been founded as a means to avoid desegregation of the public schools. But evangelical Christians did not look kindly on the government’s interference in schools they had built themselves and, even though the IRS rescinded the rule change, the original decision was the straw the broke the camel’s back for those who wished to separate themselves from mainstream culture. They formed the Moral Majority, entered that mainstream culture, and helped the Republican Party win the next three presidential elections. You, Mr. President, have struck that same nerve. Catholics built their colleges and universities and hospitals. They did so out of religious conviction and, as often as not, because mainstream institutions did not welcome Catholics. It is one thing to support a policy with which the Catholic Church disagrees but it is quite another to start telling Catholics how to run their own institutions.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of treating shamefully those Catholics who went out on a limb to support you. Do tell, Mr. President, how many bullets have the people at Planned Parenthood taken for you? Sr. Carol Keehan, Father Larry Snyder, Father John Jenkins, these people have scars to show for their willingness to work with you, to support you on your tough political fights. Is this the way you treat people who went to the mat for you?

Zola, of course, wrote his famous essay in response to the Dreyfuss affair. Then, the source of injustice was anti-Semitic bigotry. Today, while I cannot believe that the President himself is an anti-Catholic bigot, he has caved to those who are. In politics, as in life, we are often known by the company we keep. Hmmmm. Sr. Carol Keehan, a woman who has dedicated her life and her ministry to help the ill and the aged or the fundraisers and the lobbyists at NARAL? Is that really a tough call? I have not joined the chorus of those who believe that this administration is “at war” with the Catholic Church. Yet, I must confess, when I first learned the new yesterday, an image came into my head, of Glenn Close and John Malkovich in “Dangerous Liaisons” when Ms. Close looks at Mr. Malkovich and says, “War!” That said, while not wishing to detract one iota from the gravity of this decision, the bishops are well advised not to read more into this than is there. It is a shameful decision to be sure, but it is not the end of the world and war is a thing to be avoided whenever and however possible.

Some Catholics have sought to defend the President, to hope that there might be some silver lining in the decision, to argue that because many Catholics use contraception, or because some states already mandate this kind of coverage, this decision is really no big deal. The fact that there is much to defend in the President’s record does not mean that anyone need defend everything in that record, especially something as indefensible as this decision. And, it is a mistake of analysis to see this as a decision about contraception. The issue here is conscience.

Some commentators, including those in the comment section on my post yesterday, have charged that people like me, Catholics who have been generally supportive of the President, were duped, that we should confess our sins of political apostasy, and go rushing into the arms of a waiting GOP. I respectfully decline the indictment and, even more, the remedy. Nothing that happened yesterday made the contemporary GOP less mean-spirited, or more inclined to support the rights of our immigrant brothers and sisters, or less bellicose in their approach to foreign affairs, or more concerned about the how the government can and should alleviate poverty. It is also worth noting that the night before the decision, Mr. Gingrich said that he would halt the U.S. Justice Department’s suit against the State of Alabama regarding that state’s new anti-immigration law, a law that raises exactly the same kind of issues of religious liberty and the rights of conscience as are raised by the HHS decision. Religious liberty cuts both ways. Nor, is religious liberty the only issue. Voters should still consider how candidates for the presidency are likely to address a host of issues. As for myself, I could not, in good conscience, vote for any of the current Republicans seeking the presidency.

But, yesterday, as soon as I learned of this decision, I knew instantly that I also could not, in good conscience, ever vote for Mr. Obama again. I once had great faith in Mr. Obama’s judgment and leadership. I do not retract a single word I have written supporting him on issues like health care reform, or bringing the troops home from Iraq, or taking aggressive steps to halt the recession and turn the economy around. I will continue to advocate for those policies. But, I can never convince myself that a person capable of making such a dreadful decision is worthy of my respect or my vote.

Even if Obama manages to squirm out of this one, you need to realize that all it will take is an election to enable him to impose his attack on religious values once again.

Catholics represent one out of every four voters in America; they have voted for the winner in every single presidential election going back decades.  And nothing would be more appropriate for Obama to be thrown out of office as an intolerant religious bigot and an enemy of the American Constitution that he has so often trampled upon.

Obama says, “You have the right to believe whatever I tell you is right to believe and you have the right to do whatever I force you to do.”

This is the religious variation of taxes: In regard to religion, Obama believes that the State triumphs over ALL religious institutions and ALL individual moral conscience, and it is right for you to do whatever the State dictates.  In regard to taxes, Obama believes the State owns you and owns everything you earn, and you are allowed to keep only that which the State allows you to keep.

I have been saying it ever since I first heard the vile and incredibly evil revelations from Obama’s “reverend” and “spiritual leader” for over twenty years: Barack Obama is a truly evil man.

This is God damn America.  And it will continue to remain God damn America until this disgrace to decency is thrown out of office.

The beast is coming.  And Barack Hussein Obama has done everything he possibly could do to prepare the way for his master the Antichrist.

Obama Imposes Abortion Agenda On Catholic Church Hospitals And Charities To Drive Them Out Of Business

Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Let’s celebrate the milestone by driving the Catholic Church out of its mission of caring for the sick and the poor by forcing them to either do something that is anathema to their theology or forcing them to abandon their hospital and charity work:

[Important Updates] Obama Admin Decides to Require Religious Institutions to Cover Free Contraception & Sterilization
by Thomas Peters
January 20, 2012

Liberals are crowing about what they see as a huge victory for them — and they are right — because this victory comes at the expense of religious liberty.

Welcome to the Obama 2012 reelection plan: ignore and marginalize people of faith, pander to the far-left’s sexual-political priorities.

This via the far-left site ThinkProgress:

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.

Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.

Liberals always complain when the Church acts in the public square, tossing out the red herring “separation of church and state!”

But they are perfectly happy to have the state compel the church to do what they want the church (and people of faith) to do.

More from me soon, but there you have it.

UPDATE: Michael Sean Winters, who I have deeply disagreed with in the past, posts his reaction to the news — calling it much more than a disaster:

One sentence in the statement from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stands out: “The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good.”

What can those words “fully committed” possibly mean? They have punched Sr. Carol Keehan and Fr. Jenkins and many other Catholics who have taken shots for this Administration in the nose. They have jumped over the First Amendment to coerce religious organizations to do something we find morally objectionable. They have given people who loved the Affordable Care Act reason for pause, great pause. They have given the Republicans a huge battering ram with which to beat swing voting Catholics over the head.

I say “they,” but the full responsibility for this decision rests with the President. NCR has learned that the President called Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, this morning to tell him the news. Wouldn’t you have liked to be on an extension to listen in on that conversation. The president looked Dolan in the eye in November and said he would be pleased with his decision. I am guessing that Dolan is not pleased. He is not alone.

Winters is right that this decision is a huge blow to liberal Catholics who have tried to cover for Obama. But Winters is wrong that the President’s decision comes as any sort of surprise. Of course Obama would throw his liberal Catholics supporters under the bus to please his leftist secular supporters. Obama’s wedding with liberal Catholics has always been one of convenience and he just filed the divorce papers. I therefore find it hard to sympathize with liberal Catholics who are shocked by this decision, because I’ve been warning for years that their relationship with Obama was bound to end in heartbreak.

I do, however, respect Winters for being right to stand up for religious liberty and criticize a President he supported as a candidate. For that I applaud him and I hope that more liberal Catholics acknowledge how foolish they have been to support Obama’s anti-Catholic policies. I urge them to join me and other Catholics in common cause to begin to address this deplorable state of affairs.

UPDATE 2: Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, in a video posted (on the right side) of the USCCB website, calls on Catholics to contact the Administration and demand they rescind this anti-religious liberty, anti-first amendment mandate. Read the full press release just sent out by the USCCB here.

UPDATE 3: Grace-Marie Turner writes at NRO’s The Corner blog:

This is another assault on the Constitution and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called the federal regulation an “unprecedented threat to individual and institutional religious freedom.”

The Obamacare regulation gives faith-based institutions, like Catholic universities and hospitals, the choice of violating the fundamental tenets of their faith by covering the federally mandated coverage in their employee health plans, or of dropping health insurance for their employees — in which case they would be fined for violating the employer mandate.

…As I told Kathryn Lopez for a recent article, there is a war on religion from the Left, and it is very dangerous to the institutions that make our civil society function.

The Catholic Church historically has been a vital part of the safety net — providing aid for the poor, care for the sick, shelter and food for the homeless, and care for mothers in need, as a few examples.

The health-care law threatens to tear gaping holes in that safety net by forcing Catholic health plans to cover contraception, by denying funds to Catholic adoption agencies, and ultimately by forcing taxpayers — including Catholics — to fund abortion.

This is dangerous to the very fabric of our society. It’s a crucial reason why the whole health law, with its centralized control over health-care decisions, must not stand.

For the record, I am not a Catholic.  I believe that life begins at conception, rather than being present in the male “seed,” and I do not have any issues with birth control that merely prevent a birth rather than actually killing a child (such as RU 486 – which also can kill the mother).

But the Catholic Church has consistently held over the centuries that any form of birth control is tantamount to abortion.

Barack Obama, I have said over and over again, is a genuinely evil man.  This is God damn America and it will continue to be God damn America until the American people wise up and utterly reject him.

This is Barack Obama’s version of Sophie’s Choice: He is trying for force the Catholic Church to either begin performing what it considers murder or to stop helping the poor and the sick.

How on earth is it going to help society to drive the Catholic Church out of helping people???

Obama doesn’t give a damn about the sick and the poor; in fact, he hopes there will be more sick and poor desperate people who must come groveling to him and bow down to his toxic agenda.

This is the most cynical form of naked partisan politik I have ever seen: Obama wants to destroy all forms of health care that he can’t directly control so that there will be nothing left but his precious ObamaCare.