Corporations Flee Right-Wing ALEC

Comment:  The expanse of the ColorofChange.org campaign has produced dramatic results as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Intuit, Inc., and Kraft Foods dropped their affiliation in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).   ALEC's known initiatives include support of discriminatory voter ID laws.  The target is now WalMart and the Kock brothers.  We have a lot to learn about this type of activism when it comes to bringing about systemic change in the marketplace. dd

http://www.alternet.org/story/154895/corporations_flee_right-wing_alec%3A_yet_another_win_for_progressives?page=entire

Is This a Global Shot Heard Round the World?

Is This a Global Shot Heard Round the World? 
WORLD BRIEFS  In 21 hours time.....From  1:33PM EST to 10:39 PM EST
Posted by Bridget Mary at 7:39 PMThursday, April 5, 2012

Pope reaffirms ban on women priests
ABC Online - ‎21 minutes ago‎
Pope Benedict XVI leads a ceremony at the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome. Pope Benedict has reasserted the Roman Catholic Church's ban on women priests during a sermon at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. The Pope warned he would not tolerate...
Newsday - ‎40 minutes ago‎
World Newsday > News > World Print Aa WORLD BRIEFS Published: April 5, 2012 10:18 PM VATICAN CITY: Pope warns defiant priests Pope Benedict XVI, in his Holy Thursday homily, denounced priests who question church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women ...

Pope reaffirms ban on women priests, assails disobedience
Reuters India - ‎47 minutes ago‎
By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Thursday restated the Roman Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate disobedience by clerics on fundamental teachings. Benedict, who for decades before ...

'Liberal' priest under Vatican investigation
Irish Examiner - ‎1 hour ago‎
By Claire O'Sullivan The founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, Fr Tony Flannery, is being investigated by the Vatican because of his liberal views. For the past 14 years, Fr Flannery has written in the Redemptorist Order's Reality magazine, ...

Pope denounces priests who question celibacy, ordaining women
Chicago Sun-Times - ‎2 hours ago‎
AP April 5, 2012 7:54PM Pope Benedict XVI, foreground, is photographed by the faithful as he tours St. Peter's square during the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope ...
Pope denounces dissident priests on celibacy
CBS News - ‎2 hours ago‎
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying Thursday they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church. Benedict made the rare and ...

Vatican moves to quell internal dissenting voices
Irish Times - ‎3 hours ago‎
The Vatican has moved to suppress dissent in the Irish Catholic Church by clamping down on two well-known liberal Redemptorist priests as well as the congregation's monthly magazine, Reality. Restrictions have been placed on Fr Tony Flannery, ...
Assailing 'Disobedience,' Pope Says Women Will Not Be Ordained
NPR (blog) - ‎4 hours ago‎
by Eyder Peralta Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves at the end of the Chrismal mass in the morning of Holy Thursday on Thursday. Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves at the end of the Chrismal mass in the morning of Holy Thursday on Thursday.

Pope slams reformists' calls to ordain women
Kansas City Star - ‎5 hours ago‎
By PETER MAYER VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday marked the first of a series of traditional Easter rituals with a Mass during which he criticized a group of Austrian clerics championing the ordination of women as priests in the Catholic ...

Pope Benedict XVI says church reform won't come through open dissent
Washington Post (blog) - ‎6 hours ago‎
VATICAN CITY — In a rare public rebuke, Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (April 5) denounced a call for optional celibacy and women's ordination that was issued by a group of Austrian priests, saying true reform will not come as a result of open dissent.

Pope denounces rebel clergy who question church teaching on celibacy and ...
Daily Mail - ‎7 hours ago‎
By Daily Mail Reporter The Pope has denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women. In a rare and explicit criticism, Benedict XVI said yesterday that they were being selfish in disobeying his authority.
Pope denounces dissidents on celibacy, ordaining women
Salt Lake Tribune - ‎9 hours ago‎
Benedict XVI » The pontiff's strong call to priests to staunchly embrace church teaching on celibacy challenges the perception of his weakness. By NICOLE WINFIELD | The Associated Press VATICAN CITY • Pope Benedict XVI has denounced priests who have ...


Vatican investigating Irish priest over liberal views
RTE.ie - ‎9 hours ago‎

A founder of the Association of Catholic Priests, Fr Tony Flannery, has confirmed that he is being investigated by the Vatican for his liberal views. Today's Irish Catholic newspaper reports that the Vatican intervened directly to stop the Redemptorist ...
Pope rips into dissident priests on celibacy
Zee News - ‎9 hours ago‎
Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI has issued a rare and explicit denunciation of priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying they were being selfish in disobeying his authority. Benedict made the criticism in his ...

Pope Slams Austrian Priests
Daily Beast - ‎10 hours ago‎
Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday condemned a group of Austrian dissident priests who have called for “long-needed reforms” on priestly celibacy and female clergy. About 15 percent of Austria's priests signed an initiative to call for disobedience in June ...

Pope slams call for women priests
News24 - ‎11 hours ago‎
Be an eyewitness to various religions and learn about the wheel of existance, Christ's Crucifixion... Now R80.95 Vatican City - Pope Benedict on Thursday re-stated the Roman Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he would not tolerate ...

Pope Condemns European Priests Calling for Disobedience
Voice of America - ‎11 hours ago‎
April 05, 2012 Pope Condemns European Priests Calling for Disobedience VOA News Pope Benedict has issued a rare condemnation of priests who have questioned church teachings on celibacy and ordaining women during a homily in St. Peter's Basilica on Holy ...

Pope Condemns Priests About Celibacy, Women Clerics
Voice of America (blog) - ‎12 hours ago‎
Pope Benedict has issued a rare condemnation of priests who have questioned church teachings on celibacy and ordaining women. Benedict issued the denunciation during his homily in St. Peter's Basilica on Holy Thursday, when priests recall the promises ...


Pope Benedict XVI slams priests who question church on celibacy
New York Daily News - ‎14 hours ago‎
AP Pope Benedict XVI waves after mass in the morning of Holy Thursday on April 5, 2012 at St Peter's basilica at The Vatican. VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI issued a blistering denunciation Thursday of priests who have questioned church teaching on ...

Pope Benedict XVI rebukes Austrian dissident priests
BBC News - ‎14 hours ago‎
Pope Benedict XVI has sharply condemned a group of dissident Austrian priests and laymen for questioning key teachings of the Catholic Church. The group, known as the Pfarrer Initiative, has challenged the church on topics such as priestly celibacy and ...

Pope slams rebels over celibacy and women priests
Inquirer.net (blog) - ‎14 hours ago‎
VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI issued a rare condemnation of disobedient priests on Thursday, saying those who questioned the Church over celibacy and the ordination of women were being self-serving. “Recently, a group of priests in a European country ...

Pope Benedict restates Catholic Church ban on women priests
RTE.ie - ‎15 hours ago‎
Pope Benedict has firmly restated the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and warned that he will not tolerate disobedience by his priests on essential teachings. Pope Benedict has firmly restated the Catholic Church's ban on women priests and ...

Pope tells dissident priests exactly what they can do with their anti-celibacy ...
NEWS.com.au - ‎15 hours ago‎
POPE Benedict XVI has issued a rare and explicit denunciation of priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women. Saying they were being selfish in disobeying his authority, the Pope made the criticism from the altar of St ...

Dissident priest: Pope just asking for reflection
Atlanta Journal Constitution - ‎16 hours ago‎
By NICOLE WINFIELD AP VATICAN CITY — The Austrian priest who founded a group of clergy who question church teaching on celibacy and women's ordination has downplayed Pope Benedict XVI's denunciation. Pope Benedict XVI, foreground, is photographed by ...
Pope Rebukes Priests Who Advocate Ordaining Women and Ending Celibacy
New York Times - ‎16 hours ago‎
ROME — Striking the tone that once earned him the nickname “God's Rottweiler,” Pope Benedict XVI in a stern Holy Thursday homily denounced “disobedience” in the Roman Catholic Church, chastising priests who sought the ordination of women and the ...

Pope Denounces Priests Who Question Catholic Teachings On Celibacy And Women ...
Huffington Post - ‎17 hours ago‎
By NICOLE WINFIELD 04/ 5/12 01:33 PM ET VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI has denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying Thursday they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on ...

Posted by Bridget Mary at 7:39 PMThursday, April 5, 2012

Roman Catholic Women Priests Denounce Pope Benedict XVI's Holy Thursday Message

Thursday, April 5, 2012
Roman Catholic Women Priests Denounce Pope Benedict XVI's Holy Thursday Message

Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA, Inc.
Suzanne Avison Thiel, President
Portland, Oregon USA  suzthiel@yahoo.com
romancatholicwomenpriests.org 
Janice Sevre-Duszynska, Media ARCWP
Lexington, KY. rhythmsofthedance@gmail.com
            859-684-4247
    
5 April 2012
This Holy Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI,  in another heavy-handed move,  denounced all priests who have questioned church teachings on celibacy and the ordination of women but he surely cannot denounce the millions of Catholics who no longer believe that such practices are what Jesus would want.  The Catholic people through the sensus fidelium have already accepted women priests.  We in this prophetic movement continue to experience the support of Catholics throughout the world who are in favor of a married priesthood and of women who are answering their call from God to be their priests.  For the pontiff to so boldly speak against the men and women who have taken the risk to question these teachings is simply a misused tactic and exercise of the sin of arrogance and sexism. His unwillingness to even participate in a dialogue with the so called "dissidents" is nothing but a  punitive, radical, authoritarian attempt to squelch any freedom of conscience and so-called disobedience. We call on all Catholic women to speak out for their equality and justice. Our Church must continue to evolve and be renewed in the signs of the times. Let us not forget that there were married men and women participating in the events of Holy Week- holy women that Jesus knew and loved and trusted with priestly ministry. 

Vatican Announcement
(Correction-The Pope will turn 84 on April 27.  Perhaps we should send Birthday greetings)
Thursday, April 5, 2012

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy and ordaining women, saying Thursday they were disobeying his authority to try to impose their own ideas on the church.
Benedict made the rare and explicit criticism from the altar of St. Peter's Basilica in his homily on Holy Thursday, when priests recall the promises they made when ordained.
In 2006, a group of Austrian priests launched the Pfarrer Initiative, or pastor initiative, a call to disobedience aimed at abolishing priestly celibacy and opening the clergy to women to relieve the shortages of priests.
Last June, the group's members essentially threatened a schism, saying the Vatican's refusal to hear their complaints left them no choice but to "follow our conscience and act independently."
They issued a revised call to disobedience in which they said parishes would celebrate Eucharistic services without priests, that they would let women preach, and they pledged to speak out publicly and frequently for female and married priests.  Read more.......
  http://news.yahoo.com/pope-denounces-dissident-priests-church-teaching-celibacy-ordaining-203012009.html

Pink Smoke Over Santa Barbara

Comment: “You can’t be empowered and then disempower yourself,” Dunn said.   How true How true.  And their final response hits a target for all of us....“We waited and waited and waited for the Church to invite us in,” explained Dunn. “Now we’re saying, ‘Here we are.’”

Congratulations to the Church of the Beatitudes, and the community of Santa Barbara.  Wonderful congratulations to Jeanette and Suzanne who are carrying out thier mission in truth, guided by faith and love.

Cover Story front page http://www.independent.com/news/in-print/
ON THE COVER: Roman Catholic Womenpriests Jeannette Love (left) and Suzanne Dunn.

Pink Smoke over S.B.: Women Priests Defy Vatican (Nick Welsh)

Article:
http://www.independent.com/news/2012/apr/05/women-priests-sb/
"Dunn and Love cut their teeth theologically when Pope John XXIII (above) was ushering in the groundbreaking reforms of Vatican II 49 years ago. Since then, they contend, successive popes have beaten a steady retreat from Vatican II. “You can’t be empowered and then disempower yourself,” Dunn said."

8,000 instances of abuse alleged in Archdiocese bankruptcy hearing

Comment: On March 29, 2012 at St. Francs Cabrini Church in West Bend,WI, Archbishop Listecki had a Mass of Atonement for those suffering from sexual abuse at the hands of priests and their hierarchical conspirators.  In the next few weeks, the Archbishop's lawyers will be in court trying to suppress new testamony that would shed light on the 75 priest offenders that have not been named in the abuse of over 8.000 victims.  To me, this is just another form of malfeasance-institutional abuse.  It is hierarchical bullying that says, I will say I am sorry in in the light to let the people know I am following the code of culture that says we need to be sorry.....but after that we can continue to do as we please.  Diane Dougherty


 http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/archdiocese-bankruptcy-judge-allows-two-claims-to-stand-me44pue-139044534.html
Sealed documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy identify at least 8,000 instances of child sexual abuse and 100 alleged offenders - 75 of them priests - who have not previously been named by the archdiocese, a victims' attorney said Thursday.

Comment:  It is annoying and disheartening to read more and more about these hierarchical leaders and their corrupt practices.  But light must be shed and Jason Barry is a lighthouse in the darkness, as are those faithful men who have never kept their quiet....The Catholic Church can never let this go until we all come to terms with this reality and deal with it....Thanks you Jason and those faithful that have not let this travesty gather dust. Diane Dougherty 

 

 

 

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/ratzinger-altered-canon-law-soften-maciel-punishment-book-argues

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Ratzinger altered canon law to soften Maciel punishment, book argues

Mar. 24, 2012

By Jason Berry [1]

Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado greets Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in this 2000 file photo. (CNS)

On Saturday, as Pope Benedict XVI makes the first appearance on his March 23-28 trip to Mexico and Cuba, three authors will hold a news conference in the same city, Leon, Mexico, discussing a book that quotes Vatican files on the pedophilia and drug abuse accusations that trailed Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, for decades until his death in 2008.
Maciel, a native of Mexico who died at 88, was a subject of long-running concern at the Vatican congregation that governs religious orders, according to La Voluntad de No Saber – “The Will Not To Know,” published by a Mexico City imprint of Random House international.
The authors are Alberto Athié, a former priest who directed a Mexican bishops’ charity; José Barba, a retired college professor and former Legion seminarian who filed a 1998 canon law request in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith tribunal, seeking Maciel’s excommunication; and Fernando M. González, a scholar in Mexico City and the author of a biography of Maciel.
In late 2004, with Pope John Paul II in failing health, Ratzinger finally ordered an investigation of Maciel. In 2006, Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, banished him from active ministry to a life of prayer and repentance. That stopped short of excommunication as Barba and seven other victims wanted. The Legion continued defending Maciel until 2009 when its leaders abruptly reversed course, revealing that he had sired several out of wedlock children, now grown.
NCR received a PDF of the book. Grijalbo, the publisher, is posting selected excerpts on a website www.lavoluntaddenosaber.com [2], the AP reported.
In the book’s most striking accusation, Barba, who holds a doctorate from Harvard in Latin American studies, writes that in 2001 Cardinal Ratzinger and his chief canon lawyer, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, modified the statute of limitations in church law regarding sex with minors “retroactively in favor of the Legionary founder, and injuring the human rights and legitimate interests of us, his victims.”
Bertone subsequently left the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to become Archbishop of Genoa. In that capacity he wrote a glowing preface to the Italian edition of an oral memoir by Maciel in 2003, Christ Is My Life, that denied the accusations still pending from the 1998 case. Bertone became Secretary of State under Benedict in 2006. He has never explained why he promoted Maciel’s sagging reputation as he stood accused in Bertone’s old office.
Athié, who championed the Maciel victims in correspondence with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, left the priesthood in disgust at the failure to prosecute Maciel. Athié blames John Paul II for “a moral double standard.”
The Vatican failure to punish Maciel over many decades was examined by this reporter and Gerald Renner in Vows of Silence (2004). The documents cited by González spotlight harsh internal criticism by investigators of Maciel, from the 1940s through the 1980s, that higher Vatican officials chose to ignore. A turning point came in 1956, when Maciel was hospitalized for abuse of a morphine painkiller. Cardinal Valerio Valeri, prefect of the Sacred Congregaton for Religious [orders] sent Carmelite priests to investigate Maciel of addiction and sexually abusing seminarians. One investigator notes: “I am going to give my personal opinion. It seems to me this is about a split personality.”
Referring to Maciel’s “double life,” González reveals that two Mexican bishops suggested Maciel was sexually dissolute; but time and again, when the time came for a forceful decision, no one made the hard call.
As NCR reported in 2009, Maciel gave $10,000 to Cardinal Clemente Micara, the vicar of Rome, in 1946, a huge sum in a city reeling from aftershocks of World War II. Micara signed the order reinstating him in 1959 after Pius XII’s death.
In 1962 Maciel got in trouble again, after a brush with Spanish police when he tried to procure drugs; but in another round of internal probing by the religious orders’ congregation, a priest complained of “the most unjust prosecution of the innocent Father Maciel,” a remark that in light of the abundant evidence of his addiction spotlights the tentative, hand-wringing way church officials treated a priest who had built a basilica in Rome and, we now know, doled out money like a potentate from Tammany Hall.
Gonzalez refers to the "omerta," or code of silence, culture that Maciel created in the Legion. He levels heavy criticism against Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the canon lawyer in Rome who functions as overseer of the beleaguered Legionaries. De Paolis guided the drafting of a new set of bylaws for the Legion to supplant the discredited constitution, which mandated expulsion for those who did not obey the secret vow never to criticize Maciel or any Legion superior, and to report on those who did.
De Paolis has stated that a full investigation of Maciel’s past would serve no purpose, a position that draws scorn from González in light of the ongoing investigation of Regnum Christi, the lay group whose members studied Maciel’s writings and fueled the fundraising operation.
Gonzalez calls De Paolis "complicit" with Legion superiors in concealing the truth about Maciel, as reflected in the secret documents. He further criticizes the cardinal for taking a "vow of charity" toward Maciel's inner circle, who remain in their positions.
La Voluntad de No Saber is nevertheless a strangely uneven book. The accusations against John Paul II, Ratzinger and Bertone are devastating in the implication of justice suborned. But the pope as supreme arbiter of canon law can do largely what he wishes. The international scandal that has stained Benedict’s papacy stems from an archaic justice system that gives cardinals and bishops a de facto immunity from prosecution.
The documents in the book, which are being posted to the book’s website, offer a fascinating look at the ambivalent nature of “Vatican investigations.” What the authors fail to do is link those flawed investigations with Maciel’s history of channeling large sums of money to favored Vatican officials, as reported in NCR in 2009.
The prefect of Congregation for Religious from 1976-1983 was the late Cardinal Eduardo Francisco Pironio, whose apartments in Rome were renovated at Legion expense. González includes documents that confirm the close link between Pironio and Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz, the private secretary and gatekeeper to John Paul II. Dziwisz, as reported previously in NCR, regularly received cash gifts as high as $50,000 at a time from Legion intermediaries to place their wealthy supporters in the tiny chapel where John Paul said Mass each morning. “An elegant way of giving a bribe,” is how a Legionary priest described it in those reports.
González expresses outrage at the way Pironio and Dziwisz arranged for John Paul to approve the Legion constitutions that upheld the notorious vow never to criticize Maciel. The financial favors to Pironio undoubtedly helped. His successor, Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo, ignored the mounting accusations against Maciel in the 1990s. He received a $90,000 gift in the late 1980s, according to a former Legion priest who said he put the envelope with cash in his hand. The cardinal rebuffed my interview requests in 2010.
[NCR contributor Jason Berry is author of Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church and producer of a film on Maciel, “Vows of Silence.”]
See more of Berry's reporting for NCR here:
Money paved way for Maciel's influence in the Vatican [3]
How Fr. Maciel built his empire [4]
More coverage of Benedict's trip to Mexico and Cuba:

• Cuban dissidents attend Mass, hold protest, day before pope's arrival [5], March 25
• Pope greets Mexicans affected by notorious crimes [6],March 25
• Trust in God to help change society, pope says in Mexico's heartland [7],March 25
• Book released as Pope arrives in Mexcio says: Ratzinger altered canon law to soften Maciel punishment [8], by Jason Berry March 24
• Pope arrives in Mexico as 'pilgrim of faith, of hope, and of love' [9],March 23
• Waiting for the pope: Vatican flags, human wall -- and hope for peace [10],March 23
• Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Cuba benefits both Vatican and the Castros [11], March 23
• Pope tells Cubans to look beyond Marxism [12], March 23
• The pope in Mexico and Cuba [13], John Allen's weekly column. March 23
• Pope to find mixed political messages in Mexico trip [14], March 22

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Source URL: http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/ratzinger-altered-canon-law-soften-maciel-punishment-book-argues

Links:
[1] http://ncronline.org/users/jason-berry
[2] http://www.lavoluntaddenosaber.com
[3] http://ncronline.org/node/17698
[4] http://ncronline.org/node/17700
[5] http://ncronline.org/node/29520
[6] http://ncronline.org/node/29519
[7] http://ncronline.org/node/29518
[8] http://ncronline.org/node/29511
[9] http://ncronline.org/node/29516
[10] http://ncronline.org/node/29515
[11] http://ncronline.org/node/29514
[12] http://ncronline.org/node/29513
[13] http://ncronline.org/node/29465
[14] http://ncronline.org/node/29512

Disrespect Women-They will Leave....

Comment:  Oh so true.....and we now have ARCWP and our small churches abound...
There are churches in America in which women aren’t allowed to speak out loud unless they get permission from a man first.

There are churches (many of them) in which women aren’t permitted to preach from the pulpit.

There are churches in America where a 13-year-old boy has more authority than his mother.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/churches-and-politicians-take-note-disrespect-women-and-they-will-leave/2012/03/07/gIQA9SwJzR_print.html

If Catholics Should Give Up Hospitals For Lent, Should We Also Give Up The Military?

Comment:A Marvelous piece of writing showing cafeteria Bishops at work....
"The bishops do not seem to have (much) of a problem with Catholics conforming their consciences to President Obama’s when it comes to matters of war and peace, why should it be any different with matters of health and disease?"


http://womenintheology.org/2012/03/30/if-catholics-should-give-up-hospitals-for-lent-should-we-also-give-up-the-military/

If Catholics Should Give Up Hospitals For Lent, Should We Also Give Up The Military?

March 30, 2012 by Katie Grimes

Several Catholic bishops have threatened that, if made to comply with the HHS ruling requiring Catholic hospitals to indirectly pay for their employees’ birth control, the Catholic church will have no choice but to “give up its health care institutions for Lent.”
As Cardinal George argues:

What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down.

In other words, the Catholic church would rather get out of the healthcare business altogether, even though it would mean sacrificing all the good that Catholic hospitals do, than be made to do something that it considers to be immoral. The moral philosophy guiding this conclusion would seem to be the following: it would be better to not do good in order to avoid doing evil than to do evil in order to keep doing good.
If this is true, then should we not also get out of the U.S. military business?
This statement probably seems like a huge non sequitur so let me explain.
As the bishops remind us in their 1983 document The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, when it comes to matters of war and peace, a Catholic has only two options: either pacifism or adherence to just war theory.

The meaning of pacifism is straightforward enough: it is the belief that all wars, of any kind and for any reason, are always wrong. But just war theory, precisely because it is not a form of moral absolutism, is much more easily misrepresented. It is not, as some seem to think, an excuse for war. Just war theory begins from the presumption that war is almost always wrong. This is why, in the Summa, Thomas Aquinas conducts his treatment of war by asking “whether it is always sinful to wage war?” For Thomas, war is the exception; not the rule. The benefit of the doubt is always given to peace.
In sum, a Catholic must either think that all wars are wrong or that most wars are wrong.
But the United States military does not allow for this. Currently, the military recognizes the rights only of conscientious objectors, those who think that all wars are immoral; it does not recognize the rights of selective conscientious objectors, those who think that one war in particular is immoral. If you are a Catholic in the U.S. military and you wish to follow Catholic teaching on war, you are not allowed to do so. While the military can be said to respect the religious freedom and freedom of conscience of pacifist Catholics, it cannot be said to respect the religious freedom and freedom of conscience of those Catholics who wish to adhere to just war theory.
With its refusal to recognize the rights of selective conscientious objectors, does not the U.S. military exhibit a hostility to the religious freedom of Catholics that is at least as egregious as that allegedly displayed in the HHS mandate?
It is not therefore true, as Cardinal George insists, that, prior to the HHS ruling, “the government has respected the freedom of individual conscience and institutional integrity of the many religious groups that shape society.” If Catholics in the military have long been deprived of the right to refuse to fight in wars that their conscience and church tells them are wrong, then what Cardinal George says here is clearly not true. Rather than being an unprecedented attack on religious freedom, the HHS mandate would seem to be business as usual.
And this is not merely a theoretical debate about hypothetical scenarios. Unlike the claim that birth control causes abortions, which is based on unverifiable speculation, we know for a fact that the U.S. military has waged unjust wars. Some, if not most, of the wars the U.S. military has waged have failed to fulfill the criteria set forth by Catholic just war theory. Very recently, Pope John Paul II categorized the Iraq War as an unjust war. How many Catholic soldiers were made to fight in this war? How many Catholic members of the military were made to violate their own church’s teaching and contribute, however indirectly, to the prosecution of this war?
And this is not just about Catholic individuals. The Catholic church’s involvement in the military is just as institutional as its involvement in the healthcare industry. The Catholic church has a military chaplaincy and it even has an archdiocese devoted exclusively to the U.S. military.
If being made to pay, even indirectly, for birth control is reason enough for the Catholic church to get out of the healthcare business, shouldn’t being made to participate, even indirectly, in the execution of unjust wars be reason enough for the the Catholic church to get out of the military business? When it comes to church teaching on women’s sexuality, there is no good good enough to justify even the slightest deviation from church teaching. With respect to church teaching on war, one must ask, is there any evil evil enough to compel the church to take its own teachings seriously and reconsider its institutional affiliation with the U.S. military?
The bishops do not seem to have (much) of a problem with Catholics conforming their consciences to President Obama’s when it comes to matters of war and peace, why should it be any different with matters of health and disease?

Not in our name-Declaration of concerned protestant and catholic clergy -powerful

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march282012/church-corruption.php

Mar-28-2012 13:59
Not In Our Name
Salem-News.com
A Declaration of Concerned Protestant and Catholic Clergy, with a Ten Point Program to Bring the Church to Justice and Protect the Innocent

(LONDON) - We are a group of Protestant and Catholic clergy who are compelled by our faith and conscience to speak out and act against the continuing reign of corruption, lies and criminality that predominates in the so-called Christian Church today.
This is a cry to all people of faith to awaken to the evil in which we are immersed.
The Church has betrayed Christ and humanity by committing unpardonable evil against countless children and “non-believers”, denying its victims justice, and absolving itself of any accountability for its crimes. The Pope himself is implicated in protecting known child rapists in his church, and presides over a system of massive, institutionalized child abuse and trafficking.
The Church is also responsible for a long history of brutality, theft, genocide and destruction committed over centuries on non-Christians and the innocent. This slaughter began over fifteen centuries ago, at the founding of the Church of Rome, and continues today.
The killing of millions of women and dissident Christians under Inquisitions, the Crusading ethic of Indulgence – which promised spiritual cleansing to anyone who killed Jews, Muslims and other “enemies of the faith” – and the eventual genocide of untold millions of indigenous people around the world with Christian blessing: all of this arose from the Church’s belief that it has the power to kill and conquer in the name of the same Christ who said, "Put away your swords".
The Vatican is responsible for the greatest slaughter of humanity in history because of two papal bulls (Romanus Pontifex, 1455, and Inter Catera, 1493) – proclaimed and still operative under so-called Canon Law – that sanctioned and encouraged the destruction and enslavement of all non-Christian peoples: the majority of humanity. The vast wealth of the Vatican today rests upon the stolen and unreturned lands of many of those nations.
Is it surprising, then, that for just as long, the Church has sanctioned the torture, rape and even murder of innocent children in its orphanages, sweatshops, and “residential schools” around the world?
Are we surprised that such a violent and wealthy organization places its own material survival ahead of justice for the innocents it has wronged, or for the world’s starving millions? Or, that under the canon law known as Crimen Solicitationas, every Catholic priest is expected to hide the evidence of the rape of children and allow this abomination to go unpunished, or face expulsion from the Church?

We are aware that Protestant churches as well are guilty of these crimes. The Anglican Church of England, the United Church of Canada, and Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist and other churches in America and around the world also caused the torture and death of children in their schools and orphanages. These churches continue to aid and abet child rapists, and shelter such criminals in their ranks. The example may be set by Catholic Rome, but it is actively copied by others.
These facts are irrefutable, and yet Christians continue to give their attendance, money and allegiance to the church corporations with such blood on their hands and lies on their lips.
We have all, by commission and omission, given our support to the anti-Christ in our midst and allowed ourselves to be used to commit the worst of all sins: violence against the sacred holy spirit of God and the innocent.
All of these desecrations against God and humanity have been done in our name. They must be undone. And yet before we can cleanse ourselves of this enormous wrong and apostasy, we must recognize that the true body of Christ could not have committed such evil - only a false Church could.
Since Christ is manifest in every man and woman, the kingdom of heaven being within us, then churches which claim to "represent" Christ and yet violate and harm with impunity human beings, and children, are a lie and a violation of God's law and human dignity.
We therefore name the Church and its denominations responsible for such wrong as apostate, anti-Christ and servants of the world rather than of God; and we declare ourselves spiritually and actively absolved from our allegiance to such a lie, and to these church organizations.
In faith, we seek instead to re-establish a genuine Christianity not tied to these crimes and to a history of genocide and institutionalized child abuse.
The present, false Church is the offspring of the murderous legacy of Christendom, which is an empire of conquest and violence arising from the adulterous union of church and state under the later Roman emperors. Yet Christendom still operates today through wealthy, state-protected church organizations which are a law unto themselves: legal corporations in league with the state, answerable neither to God nor to their own congregations of believers.
Christendom is a heresy and a denial of the supremacy of Christ and his sacrifice. For we owe our allegiance to God, not to church bodies deriving their power and legitimacy from government and financial institutions, and worldly wealth. For the kingdom of Christ is not of this world.
For this reason, to cleanse ourselves of this enormous sin and crime, and to help reinvent and re-establish a genuine Christian faith rooted in true discipleship to the non-violent poor one Jesus Christ, we are issuing the following Ten Point Program.
We believe that these measures are required for the church to be brought under public control so that it no longer operates as a secret, criminal body preying on the innocent. There can be no "apology" or healing of the crimes of Christendom without the enacting of these concrete measures to make justice a reality for the living and the dead. (note: We are referring to all churches responsible for these crimes, Protestant and Catholic, when we use the term "The Church")
The Church must issue full reparations to all of its victims according to their wishes and needs. The Church must pay for all of the costs incurred by their damage to these victims, including all medical, counseling and retraining costs, and all loss of income caused by their disability or grief and suffering.

The Church must return all land and property taken from its victims, and restore and return all of the wealth generated by their exploitation of their victims to them, including the wealth gained through forced, unpaid or low paid labor.

The Church must surrender for a proper burial, unconditionally and at its own expense, the remains of all those who died in their institutions or under their care.

The Church must surrender to secular authorities without conditions all the evidence, and all the perpetrators and their accessories, connected to such deaths and to any other crimes against children and others under church care. The Church must participate unconditionally in any legal or human rights inquiries into their crimes and freely disclose their records to such investigations.

Those responsible for crimes against children and others in church facilities, including the Pope, must be arrested and tried in civil or international courts of law, and cannot be shielded from prosecution by any form of immunity or by so-called “canon law”.

All clergy and church employees must be licensed and monitored as public servants, and be legally compelled to swear a public, binding oath to protect the rights and sanctity of children, and disclose any harm done to them, if need be against the orders of the Church itself.

All tax exemptions, immunities, legal safeguards and special privileges enjoyed by the Church must be abolished.

Diplomatic recognition of the Vatican and its status as a so-called “state” must be annulled.

All special concordats and financial agreements with the Vatican must be annulled, and all public funds and taxes given to the Vatican and all other churches must be returned to the people in the form of a direct, public redistribution of that wealth to the poor.

The wealth and property of all church bodies larger than a single congregation must be nationalized and placed under public ownership, so that the Church may function as a servant of the community and especially of the poor.

We, the founding clergy of the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths united in our group Not in Our Name, do solemnly pledge ourselves to this program and allegiance, and call upon all Christians and clergy to do the same.
Henceforth, and until this Program is enacted and the Church is disestablished as a corporate, self-governing, criminal body, we will conduct ourselves and our pastoral duties separate from and in opposition to corporate Christendom and its existing churches.
We call upon all true believers to reclaim their spiritual sovereignty and help us re-establish the true church of Jesus Christ, by disassociating themselves from corporate Christendom and its false churches, and the Vatican. Begin this new Reformation now by not giving money and tithings to the Catholic and Protestant churches responsible for crimes against the innocent and God.
We ask and pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our one and ultimate authority.
We are twenty four clergy in Canada, the United States, Ireland, England, Australia and Italy, who are affiliated with Not in Our Name.
Duly signed and ratified this Fifteenth Day of March, 2012
(Names to follow)
Please share this with clergy and laity and sign it. You can reach us through Rev. Caoimhin Ui Niall at thecommonland@gmail.com

Vatican report attempts mere excuse not explanation

By Tom Doyle :
This “crisis” is not primarily about sexual molestation. It’s about the obsession with power and the corruption and stagnation of the clerical culture.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0327/1224313953836.html