Are Novus Ordo Bishops becoming Catholic?

[johnhp]

Campbell and McFadden need to have a discussion and decide if they want to suckle from the teat of the state or not.

[Mornac]

Archbishop to U.S. Troops: Obamacare Reg ‘Is a Blow to a Freedom...for Which You Have Seen Your Buddies Fall in Battle’

By Terence P. Jeffrey
February 6, 2012

(CNSNews.com) - Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, wrote a letter to be read at all Sunday Masses for U.S. military personnel around the world that said that a regulation issued by the Obama Administration under the new federal health care law was “a blow” to a freedom that U.S. troops have not only fought to defend but for which some have recently died in battle.
 
“It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle,” the archbishop wrote.
 
Another line in his letter said: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”
 
The message from the archbishop touched off a controversy both in and outside the military when the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains told the service's senior chaplains that Catholic priests serving as Army chaplains should be told not to read the archbishop's letter from the pulpit.
 
The Archdiocese for the Military Services has described that move as a violation of the archbishop's First Amendment rights as well as the First Amendment rights of the Catholic chaplains involved and their congregations.
 
The regulation the archbishop spoke about was finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20. It mandates that all health-care plans in the United States cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions. A “religious” employer exemption included in the regulation only applies to organizations that primarily focus on inculcating the tenets of the church in question, primarily employ members of the church, primarily serve members of the church, and is organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code used by actual parishes.
 
Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions would not be exempt from the regulation, nor would Catholic individuals, business owners, or insurers.
 
Because the Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception, and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them, and because the Obamacare law requires that all individual purchase health insurance and that larger employers provide health insurance to their workers or face a penalty, the regulation would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith and against their consciences.
 
Archbishop Broglio’s letter opposing the regulation and describing it as a violation of the constitutional rights of Catholics was read verbatim at Masses served by Navy and Air Force chaplains around the world.
 
However, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains attempted to silence Catholic Army chaplains from reading it at their Masses—an effort rejected and resisted by Archbishop Broglio.
 
“On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels,” the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military said in a statement.
 
“The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution,” said the statement by the archdiocese.
 
“The Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop's letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit,” said the archdiocese’s statement. “The Chief's office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.”
 
On Saturday, Jan. 28, after the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains issued this directive, Archbishop Broglio spoke with Secretary of the Army John McHugh, a political appointee of President Barack Obama.
 
Archbishop Broglio’s position was that, in trying to stop Catholic Army chaplains from reading his pastoral letter, the Army was violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion and the First Amendment rights of Catholic chaplains and Catholic service members.
 
“Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants,” said the statement from the archdiocese.
 
In his Jan. 28 telephone conversation with Army Secretary McHugh, Archbishop Broglio was able to extract from the secretary an admission that it had been wrong for the secretary to try to silence the Catholic chaplains. The archbishop decided that the line in his letter that said Catholics cannot and will not comply with the “unjust law” of the HHS regulation would not be read aloud in Catholic Masses by the chaplains, but that the rest of the letter would.
 
The line stating "we will not ... comply with this unjust law" did remain, however, in the printed letter that was distributed at Masses said by Army chaplains and it remains in the copies of the letter posted on the website of the Archdiocese for the Military.

“Following a discussion between Archbishop Broglio and the Secretary of the Army, The Honorable John McHugh, it was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop's letter,” said the statement by the archdiocese.  “Additionally, the line: ‘We cannot--we will not--comply with this unjust law’ was removed [from the reading of the letter] by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.
 
“The AMS did not receive any objections to the reading of Archbishop Broglio's statement from the other branches of service,” said the archdiocese's statement.
 
Archbishop Broglio's letter minced no words in telling Catholics in the Armed Forces that the federal government was not only violating their constitutional rights through the new Obamacare regulation but was also violating the constitutional rights of all Catholics, while harming the freedom of religion generally.
 
“It is imperative that I call to your attention to an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith,” wrote the archbishop.
 
“The federal government, which claims to be ‘of, by, and for the people,’ has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population—and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faith,” wrote the archbishop.
 
“It is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle,” said Archbishop Broglio.
 
The archbishop made clear that the regulation seeks to force not only Catholic institutions but also individuals, employers and insurers to provide and/or purchase immoral services.
 
“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be  forced to offer their employees’ health coverage the includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception,” said Archbishop Broglio. “Almost all health insurers will be forced to include these immoral ‘services’ in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.”
 
Archbishop Broglio declared that the Administration’s regulation was an “unjust law” and warned that Catholics would resist it.
 
“In so ruling,” he wrote, “the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.
 
“And, as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to choose between violating our consciences or dropping health care coverage for our employees (and suffering the penalties for doing so),” said the archbishop.
 
“We cannot—and will not—comply with this unjust law,” he wrote.
 
When she finalized the regulation last month, HHS Secretary Sebelius said she would give religious non-profit organizations—such as Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions—until Aug. 1, 2013 to “adapt” to the new regulation and comply with it. For Catholic business owners, insurers and individuals the rule will take effect this Aug. 1.
 
In comments on the regulation submitted to HHS in September, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and urged the administration to completely rescind it. “The HHS mandate should be rescinded in its entirety,” the bishops said.
 
In November, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, personally made the Catholic Church’s case for rescinding the regulation to President Barack Obama.
 
Over the past week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has repeatedly defended the regulation, saying at one point that it did not raise any “constitutional issues.”
 
A spokesman for the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains told CNSNews.com that the office sent an email out to senior chaplains around the world a week ago Friday asking that Archbishop Broglio's letter not be read during Mass last Sunday but only be mentioned during Mass and then handed out afterwards.
 
A spokesman for the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains told CNSNews.com that the office sent an email out to senior chaplains around the world a week ago Friday asking that Archbishop Broglio's letter not be read during Mass last Sunday but only be mentioned during Mass and then handed out afterwards.
 
"The Army was concerned that the letter included language that could be misunderstood in a military environment," the spokesman said.
 
An Army spokesman told National Review Online on Friday that “the Army became aware of the Archbishop’s letter last Friday (Jan. 27) and was concerned that the letter contained language that might be misunderstood in a military setting. The Army asked that the letter not be read from the pulpit.  Instead, the letter would have been referenced in announcements and made available in the back of the chapel for the faithful, if they wished, as they departed after the Mass. The Army greatly appreciates the Archbishop’s consideration of the military’s perspective and is satisfied with the resolution upon which they agreed."

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/archbishop-us-troops-obamacare-reg-blow-freedomfor-which-you-have-seen-your-buddies

[Mornac]

Catholic politicians who attack Church should remember God’s judgment

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Feb 11, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).- Politicians who consider themselves Catholic but collaborate in “the assault against their faith” should remember they will one day have to give account for their acts before God, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois said Feb 10.   

“There is a last judgment. There is a particular judgment. May they change their minds and may God have mercy on them,” he told CNA during his visit to Rome. 

When asked specifically about recent actions of Democratic Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius Kathleen Sebelius and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Bishop Jenky replied “I am utterly scandalized.”

“The Lord once said ‘if you deny me at the end, I will deny you,’ this from our most merciful, good Savior. And so if it is a choice between Jesus Christ and political power or getting favorable editorials in leftist papers, well, that’s simply not a choice.”

Both Sebelius and Rep. Pelosi have been at the forefront of attempts to force Catholic institutions to cover contraception, sterilizations and abortifacients as part of their staff’s health insurance plans.

Bishop Jenky said there are too many Catholic politicians in the U.S. who “like to wear green sweaters on St. Patrick’s Day and march” or “have their pictures taken with the hierarchy” or “have conspicuous crosses on their forehead with ashes” but who then “not only do not live their faith they collaborate in the assault against their faith.”

The 64-year-old Chicago native is currently making his “ad limina” visit to Rome to discuss the state of his diocese with the Pope and the Vatican. He is part of a larger episcopal delegation from the states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Bishop Jenky said the issue of religious freedom in the United States has featured in all their meetings so far, including their audience with Pope Benedict XVI Feb. 9.

 “Determined secularists see the Catholic Church as the largest institutional block to a completely secularized society and not for the first, and probably not for the last time, we’re under assault,” he said drawing parallels with the anti-Catholic “Kulturkampf” in late 19th century Germany or the anti-clerical laws in France in the early 20th century.

“I am a Holy Cross religious and my own community had six colleges in France and they turned our mother house chapel into a stable,” he said. As for the United States in 2012, “it is always difficult to predict the future but the intensity of hatred against Catholic Christianity in elements of our culture is just astounding.”
 
He believes the present White House administration is also motivated by a “determined secularism,” while Communist dictator Joseph Stalin would “admire the uniformity of the American press, with some exceptions.”

In 2010 the Illinois legislature voted to legalize same-sex civil unions, a move which led to the closure of Catholic foster care services. This, said the bishop, took the Church “entirely out of the work that we started when the State of Illinois could not have cared less about beggar kids running up and down the streets.”

Bishop Jenky is very conscious of this patrimony of Catholic schools, hospitals and other social services “built by the sacrifice of Catholic believers” in previous generations of Illinois Catholics. “There weren’t a lot of multi-millionaires who built the churches, opened those orphanages or built those schools,” he said. 

The bishop fears that socially liberal elites ultimately want to secularize such institutions by stealth. “I assume that is the underlying goal,” he suggested, “so that is robbing Christ but it is also robbing the heritage of generations of believers. So we would try to resist this in every way possible. It would be an incredible injustice.”

In conversation, he quoted the stark 2010 prediction of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, “I will die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.” So is Bishop Jenky prepared for prison or worse?

“I hope I would always prefer Christ to anything so, if it came to it, yes but I would be one of the trembling martyrs.”

He recalled how in ancient Rome some Christians would run towards their martyrdom. He, on the other hand, would “probably be walking down the Forum with eyes downcast a little.”

“I think most of the bishops of our Church, though, would be faithful to Christ above anything, including our own personal freedom.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-politicians-who-attack-church-should-remember-gods-judgment

[Mornac]

Even in The Philippines	Small | Large

[Mornac]

...for provoking Novus ordo bishops inti finally standing up for their Faith:

Bishops Issue Statement on Religious Liberty
'An unjust law cannot be obeyed,' they state, in face of growing threats to freedom.
 
BY JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND
4/12/12
 
WASHINGTON — Marking a new era of intense church-state friction, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a hard-hitting statement today that defends the free exercise of religious institutions in the United States and abroad.
 
In doing so, they oppose any “accommodation” with “unjust” laws and outline plans for prayer and catechetical initiatives designed to strengthen an embattled constitutional right.
 
“Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty,” issued by the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is a manifesto that celebrates the central role of religious freedom in democratic society and governance and expresses alarm about political and legal attempts to redefine, and ultimately constrain, the “first freedom.”
 
In the document, the conference unveils plans for a “'fortnight for freedom,' in which bishops in their own dioceses might arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending our first freedom.”
 
The document proposes that “June 21 — the vigil of the feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More — to July 4, Independence Day, be dedicated to this ‘fortnight for freedom.’”
 
The statement injects a palpable note of urgency, clearly identifying immediate threats to religious liberty, and calling on Catholics to shake off their complacency and prepare to confront a new and daunting reality.
 
“It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices,” reads the conference document, in a reference to the federal contraception mandate, approved on Jan. 20, and President Obama’s subsequent “accommodation,” which the bishops rejected as “unacceptable.”
 
“If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith,” stated the document.
 
Asked whether the statement calls on U.S. Catholics to refuse to comply with the mandate, Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, the chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, noted during an interview that the statement’s forthright comments “do not mean that we go to civil disobedience in the first instance. But it means that we should exercise our rights and seek redress from all three branches of the government, as we are with the HHS mandate."
 
“But if a law is asking us to violate our conscience,” he acknowledged, “then we could be faced with a Thomas More choice.”
 
 
‘Long-Term Struggle’
 
The archbishop-designate said the new document looks beyond the current challenge of the HHS contraception mandate “to an array of challenges to religious liberty. We see this as a long-term struggle and something that will be a feature of our religious life for a long time to come.”
 
The document clarifies what is at issue in the HHS mandate dispute, citing Archbishop-designate Lori’s testimony before Congress this winter:
 
“This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs.”
 
During an interview, Archbishop-designate Lori also confirmed that the conference was organizing a response to the Obama administration’s latest initiative designed to address the concerns of self-insured religious institutions that could not benefit from the administration’s suggestion that objecting religious institutions could transfer the financial responsibility for providing co-pay-free contraception services to their insurance companies.
 
In the wake of President Obama’s Feb. 10 “accommodation,” opponents of the HHS mandate have expressed frustration with the lack of resolution to the conflict, and some question the value of sustaining a dialogue with the administration. But Archbishop-designate Lori said the bishops would continue to work on parallel tracks — communication with the administration while advancing legal and legislative remedies.
 
“We have to stay the course,” he said. “We can’t say, ‘We’ve already made our comments,’ nor can we say, ‘We made comments, and they didn't do any good.’ We must be charitable, civil, clear and persistent.”
 
The 12-page statement on religious liberty uses religious and secular arguments and sources to foster respect for religious freedom and foment public resistance to federal and state laws that suppress the free exercise of religious institutions and conscience rights.
 
“The bishops acknowledge that the Catholic Church has benefited greatly from the American system of religious liberty. They point out, correctly, that the Church’s teaching on religious freedom was highly influenced by American Catholics and by the protections afforded the American Catholic minority by the First Amendment,” said Thomas Farr, director of Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project.
 
“In part, out of gratitude for this legacy, but also speaking from the heart of the Church and from a sense of civic responsibility, the bishops now sound the alarm: Religious liberty is under attack in America today,” Farr added.
 
‘New Level of Candor’
 
In a break from conference statements that focused on the articulation of broad theological and moral principles, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty” specifies concrete threats to religious liberty, including the federal contraception mandate.
 
The statement’s authors call on the nation’s political establishment to uphold the Constitution and defend the role of religious witness as central to the common good.
 
“This ought not to be a partisan issue. The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is for all of us,” reads the statement. Here, the authors express frustration with election-year politics, which have led some Democrats to mischaracterize the Church’s opposition to the contraception mandate as a “war on women.”
 
The statement notes other less visible threats to religious freedom, including: attempts to limit the rights of Christian students on U.S. campuses; state immigration bills that penalize churches that serve illegal immigrants; state anti-discrimination and same-sex “marriage” laws that force Catholic adoption and foster-care agencies to close their doors; and the Obama administration’s decision not to renew federal contracts with Catholic humanitarian programs that bar contraception and abortion services to those in need.
 
“The statement brings a new level of candor to the way bishops speak about this issue. On matters of substance, and most especially on matters like religious freedom, we can't afford to be timid,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, a member of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty and the author of Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.
 
 
More Than Worship
 
In recent years, U.S. Catholic leaders and constitutional scholars have raised the alarm about attempts to redefine and reduce the first freedom to “freedom of worship” rather than a more robust understanding that embraces the full range of religious witness in the public square.
 
“In today's context, 'freedom of worship' is a kind of code language. It carries the following unstated message: Keep your religious idiosyncrasies inside the church building and out of the public square. That's utterly alien to the thinking of the Founders. It's hostile to the whole lived experience of American religious freedom,” Archbishop Chaput told the Register.
 
The statement affirms that “religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith?
 
“Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights and social services that religious Americans make every day, both here at home and overseas.”
 
When the Obama administration first unveiled the HHS contracepiton mandate last fall,  the U.S. bishops immediately protested the rule’s narrow definition of what constitutes a religious entity protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. Only churches and organizations that serve and employ coreligionists are exempted, while Catholic social agencies, hospitals and universities must comply.

“The bishops rightly say that the Church’s institutional ministries ought not to be put to the unjust choice between continuing to provide their services, and retention of their Catholic identity,” said Gerard Bradley, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame.  
 
 “The bishops could have even more strenuously made the point that these apostolates contribute to the common good not only by teaching, healing, and feeding, but also by integrating earthly service with the Gospel. Their chief value is a true and perspicuous witness to the Catholic faith,” Bradley suggested.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/bishops-issue-statement-on-religious-liberty/

[Mornac]

Obama taking 'similar path' as Hitler and Stalin: Illinois bishop

4/18/2012
By Patrick B. Craine -LifeSiteNews.com

In a stunning homily on the weekend, an Illinois bishop slammed President Obama for his "radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda" and said Catholics must line up against that agenda at the ballot box in November or else lose all her dearly-held institutions.

"This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries-only excepting our church buildings - could easily be shut down," said Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria at a gathering of Catholic men on Saturday.

"Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb," he continued.

The bishop warned that with the Obama administration's mandate for forcing religious employers to fund contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, America is on a path leading to the state of past dictatorships when Christians were forced to "huddle and hide," such as Bismarck's Kulturkampf, Hitler's Nazis, and Stalin's Communists.

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care," he said.

"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama - with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path," he added.

The bishop acknowledged that Christians could lose the battle against Obama's mandate, but insisted that "before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral."

"No Catholic ministry - and yes, Mr. President, for Catholics our schools and hospitals are ministries - can remain faithful to the Lordship of the Risen Christ and to his glorious Gospel of Life if they are forced to pay for abortions," he said.

The faithful, he said, "can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction."

http://www.catholiccitizens.org/views/contentview.asp?c=53794

[Mornac]

Catholic College Disinvites Pro-Abortion Rights Pol at Request of Bishop

 
For the second time this commencement season, a pro-abortion rights commencement speaker had their invitation rescinded at the request of the local bishop.
 
On Friday, State Representative Democrat Bob Hagan’s reported pro-abortion rights stand led the Youngstown campus of Mercy College of Ohio to rescind its invitation for him to speak at the school’s commencement ceremony on Tuesday at the public urging of Bishop George Murry, S.J..
 
Bishop Murry released a statement regarding his decision.
 
“It recently came to my attention, without any proper review by my office, that the Mercy School of Nursing, a Catholic institution, invited Representative Robert Hagan to be its commencement speaker at the Cathedral of St. Columba.
 
“While I respect and appreciate many of the social justice positions taken by Representative Hagan, it remains a fact that he also has consistently voted for pro-abortion legislation, policies and funding. Abortion extinguishes an unborn human life. It is an intrinsically evil action which the Catholic Church has condemned for centuries.
 
As Catholics, we must in good conscience oppose Representative Hagan’s position in support of abortion. Therefore, I asked the Mercy School of Nursing, a Catholic sponsored institution, to rescind their invitation to Representative Hagan to speak at the Nursing School graduation.
 
“I am most willing to meet with Representative Hagan to discuss his position and concerns, while, at the same time, speaking with him about the Church’s long standing teaching about the sacredness of human life in all its dimensions.”
 
According to news reports, Hagan posted a response to the bishop’s position on his Facebook page, declaring his commitment to social justice:

“I have fought for social justice my entire life and today, I am one disappointed Catholic. After being invited to give the commencement speech at Mercy Nursing School here in Youngstown, I got a call telling me that the Bishop has overruled their invite and they have rescinded the invitation because of some of the political positions I have taken. I am saddened that the work that I have done to feed the poor, clothe the naked, help cure the sick, and to bring an end to the death penalty has fallen on deaf ears.”
 
He later tweeted a less confrontational comment, “Let’s be clear, the bishop is just doing his job.”
 
Earlier this month, Anna Maria College in Massachusetts, at the request of Bishop Robert McManus, rescinded an invitation to Victoria Kennedy, widow of former Sen. Ted Kennedy, to give the school’s commencement address because of her support of abortion rights and gay marriage.

http://blog.cardinalnewmansociety.org/2012/04/30/catholic-college-disinvites-pro-abortion-rights-pol-at-request-of-bishop/

[Mornac]

Rebellious and Ignorant	Small | Large

[Mornac]

Bishops’ rule causes cancellation of Pope John Pinnacle Awards event

April 25, 2012
By Everett News

Pope John XXIII High School has had to cancel its largest and most prestigious fund-raising program of the year because the two congressmen, who were to be honored at the affair, support public positions that in the eyes of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are “inconsistent with church doctrine”.
 
The cancellation of the Pinnacle Awards program comes as a shock to the faculty and supporters of the school, especially since it comes just a week before the May 2, 2012 event.
 
Congressmen Edward Markey and Michael Capuano were slated to receive recognition for their public service and good works “on behalf of the community and many under-served populations”.
 
However, when it was brought to the attention of school officials that the Conference of Bishops has a rule that precludes honoring “individuals whose public positions are inconsistent with church doctrine”, Pope John principal Kay Donovan had no choice but pull the plug on the local fund-raising program.
 
The voting records of the two congressmen “in some aspects are contrary to Catholic teachings”, Ms. Donovan said in letters being sent to the fund-raising event’s sponsors.
 
Ms. Donovan explained that the policies and protocols of the bishops unfortunately “had not been consulted prior to the initial scheduling of this year’s Pinnacle Awards”.
 
The sponsors were thanked by Ms. Donovan for their support of Pope John XXIII High School and for their realization that “a Catholic education is the best investment we can make in a child’s future”.
 
She also is telling sponsors that “since we will not be moving forward with the event, I wish to offer you the opportunity of having your generous donation to the school returned”.
 
Ms. Donovan has disclosed that the third scheduled Pinnacle Award recipient, Daniel Doherty, will be honored at a dinner in the near future for his “unparalleled record of hard work and volunteerism for Pope John”.

http://everett.advocatenews.net/bishops-rule-causes-cancellation-of-pope-john-pinnacle-awards-event/