Why don't Catholic bishops care about healthcare?
source: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/24/healthcare/
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- atomiclegion
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Catholics believe in two kinds of sin -- sins of commission and sins of omission. On healthcare, church leadership is committing the sin of omission. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is just not working hard enough on behalf of the most important and desperately needed healthcare reform -- the public option.
For decades the bishops have advocated for universal healthcare -- in fact, for a single-payer system with a strong emphasis on covering the uninsured, the poor and immigrants. The best shot at reform is now. But the bishops are squandering every ounce of moral capital they have, not on the public option, but on ensuring that in any reform bill not one penny of federal funds is used for abortion.
This strategy has put them in the extremist camp among those opposed to abortion. Moderate evangelicals and antiabortion Catholics bit the bullet on abortion four years ago and decided that other issues like ending wars, reducing global warming, and fighting poverty meant it was time to move on from attempting to outlaw abortion. While one can quibble with their strategy, working to prevent the need for abortion was a step forward from working to make it illegal.
On healthcare reform, religious groups opposed to and supportive of legal abortion have adopted an awkward but workable frame for containing the abortion issue. All agree to support the "status quo" and to not use healthcare to advance their abortion agendas; and they agree to disagree about what the status quo is and move on. Not the bishops; they are the only religious group that is holding support for healthcare reform hostage to a complete ban on any form of federal funds being spent on abortion coverage.
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boywhocould
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this one is quite easy. . .
If the people you wish to lead / use / save are suffering you must say you advocate what will relieve them. even though you may or may not have any intention of assisting the deliverance of said relief.
Of course the state of things currently serve a morbid purpose. The status keeps people beholding to the dominant ideologies. that's why no one is making actual steps for change. too many have too much to loose, and this is in effect on both sides of the aisle. - 2 years ago
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boywhocould
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unclecharlie
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If you have no respect for our society's smallest members, then all your blathering about "All agree to not use healthcare to advance their abortion agenda" is meaningless. That is EXACTLY what Obama is doing. Of course, the Bishops are always "the bad guys trying to impede progress." If you only knew of the racist, eugenicist roots of the abortion industry. "Anti-abortion catholics bit the bullet"........AHEM! There is a reason why they are called "anti-abortion"- they oppose abortion. Period. One of Margaret Sanger's greatest enemies in her attempts to wipe Black Americans off the face of the earth was Msgr. John Ryan, a Catholic priest, who exposed her for what she was- a racist eugenicist who admired Hitler's (specifically, Ernst Rudin's) beliefs on forced sterilization, ridding the world of "the unfit" and eugenics. They are not willing to "shake hands with the devil", as you pretty much claim. One of Sanger's favorite slogans was "Birth Control- To Create a Race of Thoroughbreds". To you, we would be a whole lot better off if we just adopted a humanist world view, and discarded our morals, values, and beliefs founded in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Those who willingly discard their moral values for the sake of being "politically correct" are not Catholics, as you would claim them to be- one cannot reject and ridicule every teaching of the Church and claim "I'm a catholic!" I am glad at least some of us are speaking out in defense of protecting life at ALL stages.
- 2 years ago
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unclecharlie
