Ryan’s “Catholic problem”?! What about Obama’s?

The Daily Beast sees fit to call Ryan’s budget a “problem” for those pesky Catholics. Bring it on:

Indeed, the choice between these two types of Catholic politicians could not be any more plain.

Biden is a “social justice” Catholic who claims to know how to connect with blue-collar Democratic Catholics, like those in his hometown of Scranton, Pa. During four of his last five years in the Senate, he received a 100 percent rating from NARAL. As vice president he supported federal funding for abortion, despite voicing opposition to it in 2008, and the Health and Human Services mandate requiring Catholic institutions serving the public to provide insurance coverage for contraception, including abortifacients and sterilization.

Oh, that. Let’s rephrase the headline: Paul Ryan exposes the hypocritical liberal Catholics who cling to their social justice bona fides while ignoring church teaching on life. You know, that it begins at conception. That abortion is not only murder, but a great moral evil. And now Catholics are forced to pay for that evil via Obama’s HHS mandate regardless of whether they disagree or not.

Yeah, that. Religious liberty and abortion. That’s a “Catholic problem, too.”

More:

While the choice of Ryan will please the Tea Party as well as fiscal  and social conservatives, it creates an opening for the Catholic supporters of Obama: Paul Ryan’s 2012 GOP budget has already been the subject of official criticism by some Catholic bishops for failing to meet certain “moral criteria” and cutting programs that “serve poor and vulnerable people.” The media coverage failed to note that the four letters to Congress in April came from two bishops: Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, each speaking on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their respective roles.

[…]

“Those [Catholic] principles are very, very important,” Ryan said. “And the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life; help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”

Emphasis my own. We are the party of lifting folks out of poverty, not keeping them tethered to it for votes. What an inconvenient truth in the age of Obama, where millions more find themselves on food stamps.

Some point to Ryan’s flirtation with Ayn Rand, but neglect his ultimate rejection of her philosophy in favor of real Catholic teaching:

“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan told the National Review in April. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. …Don’t give me Ayn Rand.”

Enough said.

Read also Pundette, GOP: the Party of Math?

UPDATE: Many thanks to Pundette for the link!

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It’s not just religious freedom under attack

It seems ever more important to reflect upon the loss of liberties in the past week. First, King Barack announced he ignored Congress (and that pesky Constitution) and granted amnesty-by-fiat to young illegals. Yesterday he invoked–falsely, at that–Executive Privilege to cover the illegal activities of his Justice Department. See Pundette for more.

Tonight the Catholic Church kicked off its Fortnight for Freedom with Mass at the Basilica in Baltimore.

It seems like more than religious freedom we’re fighting for, doesn’t it?

Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty

O God our Creator,

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.

We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.

Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be “one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

 

“My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”

So argued Obama while shamelessly drawing comparisons between himself and Romney during a commencement speech in Joplin. Never let a crisis go to waste. Or a speech, apparently.

But this idea of “I govern everyone” isn’t how liberals govern, and especially not Obama. He surely isn’t the president of Catholics, of supporters of traditional marriage, of Gulf state oil workers sitting idly at home because of specific action taken by the Obama administration.

At least the Catholics aren’t taking this lightly. Alleluia.

Bring on the jokes (because abortion is just soooo funny)

The abortion jokes, that is. For some reason liberals happen to think it’s such a laughing matter. Pat Archibold at NCRegister writes:

“Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead, Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.”

That’s the joke that Jimmy Kimmel was going to tell at The White House Correspondent’s Dinner. He didn’t, but only because an ABC News reporter told him that it could “cause the room to turn against him.”

Yup. Jimmy Kimmel thinks dead babies are funny. It’s a ghastly ghoulish joke in which I see no possibility of humor. None. But that’s why I wish he would’ve told it.

I can’t help but wonder if Jake Tapper were the voice of common sense and reason since Kimmel apparently has none. Like Archibold, I wish the joke had been told:

I don’t want this topic of the sacredness of life to be whispered about. I want to see and hear what people actually think about things like 50 million dead babies. I want to hear where pro-aborts find humor in that. I think the more punchlines people hear, the more people will see the truth. And the truth is that many people don’t have any problem whatsoever with the destruction of human beings.

Kimmel’s former girlfriend Sarah Silverman recently tweeted a picture of her stomach after she had a big meal and again later when it wasn’t sticking out so far – like a before and after pic. She tweeted that she had a “quicky aborsh” or something like that. many were reasonably outraged that anyone would make so light of that topic. But I say, keep those “aborsh” jokes coming because in humor there’s truth. And the truth is that many pro-abortion rights folks don’t really think ripping babies apart in the womb is that big of a deal. In fact, they laugh at folks who do.

You know all the creased brows and thoughtful looks that pro-abortion rights folks give when they say their cliched favorite lines like “safe, legal and rare” or “I’m personally pro-life?” That’s the real joke. And you’re the punchline.

When the second generation of bioethicists recently proposed after-birth abortions, it caused  a furor even though the suggestion has been proposed for decades a la Peter Singer. Logically, the young bioethicists had a point: if it is legal to commit infanticide in utero, then why not after birth? They argued an infant is no more capable of self-actualization or care than a fetus, therefore it, too, should be equally abortable. According to that logic, they’re correct. The more liberals expose the truth and humor of their core beliefs, the more likely we are to win the argument.

H/t: Creative Minority Report

Obamacare mandate forces first Catholic college to drop insurance coverage

What happened to “if you like your coverage you can keep it,” eh? Oh, the ramifications. Gotta pass that bill to know what’s in it.

Steven Ertelt has the skinny:

Franciscan University appears to be the first casualty of the new Obama HHS mandate that requires Catholic colleges, groups and businesses to pay for drugs that may cause abortions and birth control for their employees.

Although President Barack Obama declared “If you like your health care coverage you can keep it,” when it came to passing Obamacare, a Catholic college in Ohio has determined it will no longer offer a student health insurance plan.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover “women’s health services” including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” the university says in a new post on its website. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”

Thank God there are institutions willing to stand up to this administration. Praying more will follow.

UPDATE: via the Examiner, for those who worry the students won’t have access to care:

The school notes on its website that even if it had kept its insurance policy available to students, Obamacare’s other requirements would have caused students’ premiums to double. The school will continue to provide cheap basic medical care for students at the low cost of $5 per visit, but they are on their own for more expensive treatments.

The pagentry of The Passion

How lovely to be able to celebrate one’s faith openly in public with others. In some places, it still happens. Via a friend’s email, witness the pagentry and spectacle of Good Friday in Malta as captured by photographer Meg Pier:

Pier writes:

The emotion was evoked by the occasion — this display was in commemoration of Good Friday. Joe Pisani, one of several friends I made while on Malta, explained:

This is a unique exhibition which has been a Maltese tradition for many years. In such processions, they mingle characters and events of when Jesus was among the Jews and his exploits during his 33 years on Earth. The Good Friday procession depicts the last day of Christ, and symbolizes Jesus and the apostles greeted by the crowd when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. They carry palms and olive tree branches to symbolize Jesus’ prayers in the garden of Gethsemane.

All these events are depicted with the statues carried in the procession by volunteers, who pay the church to carry them.  There are also people in chains and carrying heavy loads as penitence or to achieve a blessing from God, as they may have problems in life or sickness in the family.” Despite being only 17 miles by 9 miles, Malta has more than 365 churches — the majority of the country’s population is Catholic and it’s said that four out of five Maltese regularly attend Mass. A lapsed Catholic myself, I had been drawn here by the prospect of photographing a spectacle. In the process, I had found myself humbled by the strong faith in evidence here — not just in grand, symbolic expressions but woven in the fabric of day-to-day life.

Emphasis mine. How beautiful, in myraid ways.

INRI.

The sky is blue, the NYT publishes more prejudice against Catholics

Except this time, the brushstrokes are broad. In trying to figure out how on earth Rick Santorum has captured the evangelical vote, we receive yet another intolerant gift from the NYT:

After more than a century of widespread antipathy between Catholics and evangelical Christians, a Catholic with Italian immigrant roots from the industrial Northeast has emerged as the favored presidential candidate among evangelicals, even in states he lost over all, like Ohio and Illinois. On the eve of Louisiana’s primary on Saturday, Mr. Santorum had won a plurality of the evangelical vote in 9 of 16 states, according to exit polls by Edison Research.

“Santorum represents a game-changer,” said D. Michael Lindsay, the president of Gordon College, a Christian school near Boston, and an expert in evangelical voting patterns. “His candidacy has the potential to reshape conservative political alignment, securing once and for all evangelical support for a conservative Catholic in public life.”

Mr. Santorum has, in fact, performed far better with evangelical Christians than with Catholics, who have preferred Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in virtually every state. Through a critical reading of the data, Mr. Santorum’s base of evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics could be seen by cynics as a coalition of zealots, held together by intolerance.

Seriously? In order not to appear too prejudiced, here’s the follow-on:

By another way of thinking, however, his candidacy offers proof of a growing tolerance on the part of evangelical Christians, a willingness to shed ancestral religious prejudices.

Hmm. Which one’s first, the chicken or the egg? What’s funny is the “zealot” reference is never negated. Oh, those evangelicals are more tolerant of the other zealots now. Not that they’re not zealots, y’all, because they are. Papists!

Fabulousity.

How disengenous can you get, NYT? This isn’t a battle for *access* to birth control.

From today’s paper, with the ominous headline, Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment with Republicans (emphasis my own):

As baby showers go, the party Mary Russell attended to celebrate her niece’s first child was sweet, with about a dozen women offering congratulations over ice cream and cake.

But somewhere between the baby name game and the gifts, what had been light conversation took a sharp turn toward the personal and political — specifically, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues that have sprung to life on the Republican campaign trail in recent weeks.

“We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago,” said Ms. Russell, 57, a retired teacher from Iowa City who describes herself as an evangelical Christian and “old school” Republican of the moderate mold.

Until the baby shower, just two weeks ago, she had favored Mitt Romney for president.

Not anymore. She said she might vote for President Obama now. “I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations,” Ms. Russell said. As for the Republican presidential candidates, she added: “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”

Dear Mary Russell,

This isn’t a battle over access to birth control. You can head on over to Target and pay $5 for the prescription. No one’s stopping ya, honey. Go buy it for all your friends, too, and then you won’t even have to go to any more baby showers.

But please don’t tell me that you now fear Republican candidates because they want to “decide on women’s reproductive issues.”

I don’t care what you do. But don’t force me to pay for it. Don’t force the Church to pay for it. Pay for it out of your own damn purse at the Target check out line rather than looking to Big Brother Government to take care of you (and how patriarchal is that?!)

This isn’t a battle for access.

This is a war over who will pay. And if you’re not willing to fund your own sex life, then you have no business telling me that I have to.

H/t: Althouse, who adds:

Man, I loathe this pandering to women! Don’t treat us like we’re stupid. Don’t act like we need your special protection. Don’t buy us things.

UPDATE: a “Recommended Read” at Pundit & Pundette. Thanks!

A little Friday night fun, Fluke edition

I’ve long been a fan of Remy, and though I prefer his singing voice to the rapping variety, this is fun:

A little Mark Steyn to reinforce the idiocy of Sandra Fluke’s demands:

All of us are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty and a lifetime supply of premium ribbed silky-smooth, ultrasensitive, spermicidal, lubricant condoms. No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world and all that.

[…]

Ask the Greeks how easy it is for insolvent nations to wean the populace off unaffordable nanny-state lollipops: When even casual sex requires a state welfare program, you’re pretty much done for.

No, the most basic issue here is not religious morality, individual liberty or fiscal responsibility. It’s that a society in which middle-age children of privilege testify before the most powerful figures in the land to demand state-enforced funding for their sex lives at a time when their government owes more money than anyone has ever owed in the history of the planet is quite simply nuts.

At least Remy’s just asking for cough drops. And I do hope Mr. Steyn doesn’t mind the pairing with a rapper.

UPDATE: linked by Pundette as a “Recommended Read,” (with a much better title, btw). Thanks!

“And so obsessed with maintaining their choice, many people are content to remove the choice from others in order to serve their choice”

So writes Matthew Archibold of CMR at the National Catholic Register. It’s the little ironies, isn’t it?

He observes (correctly, I might add):

I know a guy who married the wrong woman because for the first time in his  life he was having sex. And he was fooled into thinking he was in love—for a  while.

I know a girl who was smarter than seven colleges. She dropped out of high  school when she got pregnant.

I know a guy who’s haunted by the abortion of a casual hook up.

I know a young woman who’s confused and angry because she never had a  father.

I know a man who has a venereal disease and after a few dates with women he  has to explain it to them and watch them recoil.

I knew a man who died of AIDS.

I don’t know who came up with the idea that sex was consequence free; whether  it was the genius advertisers pushing The Pill, or Hugh Hefner, or just some  kind of agreed upon cultural delusion, it doesn’t really matter. The reality is  that we’re all stuck with the consequences of the myth of consequence free sex.  In fact, we’ve promulgated the myth for so long we have generations for whom the  thought of consequences to sexual relations is an oddity. Abstinence has become  a cultural punchline.

Now, not only do we have an expectation of consequence free sex but we have a  right. And this supposed “right” has left generations pursuing an unnatural myth  with calamitous consequences for our culture. The myth has fostered the “right” to abortion and now the “right” to contraception, even at the expense of  religious institutions.

I was always taught that one’s “rights” ended where another’s begin. But I guess the Chicago-school doesn’t support that view after witnessing the “rights” to birth control literally trump the Constitutionally protected right to worship.

But that’s just me, I guess.

Read the rest.