Priorities
I’m glad to know they’ve got their priorities straight here:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city’s long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.
So, the tax-exempt, non-profit Catholic Church has been flexing its political muscle quite a bit lately: funding the “Yes on 1” campaign in Maine (successfully removing the right to marry from same sex couples), strong-arming pro-life Democrats into passing the Stupak-Pitts amendment and now trying to defeat a same sex marriage rights bill in Washington D.C. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the church is not stopping its activities in Texas to protest the state’s use of the death penalty or putting pressure on pro-war legislators.
Obviously the best way to influence people is to stop charitable works and become a political organization. I think it is really important for the Catholic Church to do this because everyone in the U.S. is Catholic, there is no Constitutional separation of church and state and we all believe that an organization of never-been-married, abstinent mostly older men knows what’s best for the rest of us.
Tax them.
Your moral point is correct but your legal point is not. The law allows a church to advocate for issues, but not candidates.
…ahh..advocating for issues but not for people – why else pump the money into those causes but not set it aside for the victims of priest abuse – but instead filing for bancruptcy.
This is the seamy underside of all those Republican calls for “private charity” to replace the social safety net. When we’ve placed our most vulnerable population under the ‘protection” of religious organizations, with their own agendas, we have abandoned them. Then we have all this “Well, don’t know if we can help anyone…” business when they’re confronted with their interference in the religious liberties of OTHER people.
Just another corporation.
The Archdiocese of Washington is picking a fight it cannot win. The Council will not give in to their pressure and will call their bluff. And who are the homeless, the hungry, and the uninsured going to blame – the Church, not the Council. I’m glad I’m not living there anymore – I was in the heart of Brookland, 6 blocks from Catholic U and the Archdiocese’s HQ. I probably would have had crosses burned on my lawn as I would have had a huge sign out front reading “Stop the Church!”
The Vatican had no right contacting Nancy Pelosi while this issue was being debated. Pelosi is a Catholic and she invited the Bishops to DC….its a violation of church and state absolutely. In fact look at the IRS Code which forbids any candidate running for office to use the bully pulpit to press your views. This Sunday at St. Helena’s the Priest spent 5 minutes giving directions to the congregation to stop this health care plan because “it will fund abortions”. That was a flat out lie. The Priests and Bishops are putting out false information because they want to turn the health care issue into an abortion issue. Pelosi should be censured for taking the call from the Vatican while a vote was taking place. Pelosi is responsible for taking single payer off the table, then she allowed Stupid Stupak to outwit her into thinking he and the 40 would vote for the bill, when all he wanted was to keep his amendment, and then he and the 39 voted against the bill. It was C Street trickery and Pelosi fell for it. Progressive women are having hizzy fits. They state they will no longer work in the campaigns of democrats, nor give any money to democrats or incumbents. The women are speaking out loud and clear.
A thought (I have already denounced the AD of DC for this whole thing): should churches be allowed to benefit from State-controlled business arrangements (ie become a series of interlocking corporations)?
I don’t think so, because those business arrangements were essentially created for three purposes: amassing capital, facilitating commercial competition, and insulating their owners from personal liability.
Having used all of those mechanisms for centuries (not just in America) the Catholic Church has arguably become the world’s largest and wealthiest–take your pick–(a) transnational corporation; (b) non-governmental organization; or (c) an actual sovereign country whose members all have dual citizenship.
So I am not quite sure (and this is speaking as a Catholic) why our government continues to support ecclesiastical abuse of the secular political system.
I was not particularly proud to be a Catholic when I read this story. Blackmail is not one of the values I learned in Catholic school. The local and global church occasionally takes a beating on DL, much of it unwarranted, uninformed and unfair, but not this time.
BTW, at my parish last weekend (which for various reasons I cannot name), our priest spent exactly zero minutes urging us to rally against health care reform. Either he was unmoved by the USCCB or he saw a greater good.
Brooke is right — and there’s a flip side for Catholics, as well: why are they taking money from the government when they know the government will have strings attached?
This whole “faith-based initiative” business has winks and nods in both directions. The government pretends the churches aren’t using its money for prostiletizing (sp?) and the churches pretend that they aren’t in bed with the devil.
The fallout from Pelosi’s actions is coming quickly: every interest group is now threatening to work against healthcare reform of any kind if they don’t get their way. Progressives, big Pharma and the women’s movement are threatening to work against passage — all because Pelosi bent over once, so she might as well do it for them.
BTW, here in western NY, the only words on healthcare from the Catholic church has been to call and urge passage of reform, excluding abortion and INCLUDING all immigrants, regardless of status.
So much for one, universal church!
I’m ashamed of what is being done and said in Washington DC. I’m pretty sure the beatitude doesn’t say “Blessed are they who feed the hungry and clothe the naked, under certain conditions for certain populations.”
disgusting. Things like this make me proud to be a Jew. just remember … Who Would Jesus Hate?
You guys would have been great in ancient Rome, cheering in the Colosseum as Christians were thrown to the lions for refusing to obey the “Burn Incense To Caesar Act”.
I can hear you now — “Why can’t they set aside their religious principles and follow the law like good Romans?”
If I were in ancient Rome I would have been all, “Lo! I am from the future. Behold the iphone, and my AK-47. Bow down to my aps you Roman bitches!!” And the Romans would have been all, “In truth, he is a god. The iphone has a built in level.”