Crawl back in your hole.

Outrageous I say. We need to get rid of these laws that allow a few people to control the destiny of Wal Mart shoppers around the country.

Crawl back in your hole.

In the early years leading up to and after Roe v. Wade, many Protestants and even Catholics kept out of the pro-life ranks because the pro-aborts used an anti-catholic strategy to convince America that we didn’t want some out of touch Pontiff in Rome deciding what women could do with their bodies. The Church Hierarchy became the enemy versus the pro-life ideas of the Catholic Church. Co-founder of NARAL Bernard Nathenson outlines this blatant strategy of deception here –

http://www.catholicleague.org/research/naral.htm

Now it seems the same strategy is being repeated in an effort to separate Catholic parishes from the Hierarchy and from Church teaching. The indication is that this is a new national strategy, as can be seen by the eerily similar action in San Francisco as can be seen here –

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=100140

In both cases the idea is to get the average Joe Catholic to go along with the destruction of their Hierarchy or their church teaching. Unfortunately, because there are many poorly instructed priest who came from the liberal and often dissident seminaries of the 60’s through the 80’s (more or less), there are many parish priests who have “converted” away from church teaching on one issue or another. Of course there are also many average Catholics who have been swayed by the left to abandon or misunderstand their Church’s teaching. However, because Church teaching has remained consistent through it all, the left cannot alter Church teaching. Further, quality bishops have been put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. These are Bishops who will, for example condemn a Nancy Pelosi when she butchers Church teaching on life issues as described here –

http://www.newsmax.com/politics/pelosi_bishop_abortion/2008/09/07/128545.html

So the comments here throwing out school closings or hinting that Bishops must be stealing the money or any other garbage are most likely parroting this new but old strategy to attack the hierarchy and to separate average Catholics from their Church teaching as well as allowing non-Catholcis to feel that being anti-Catholic is OK, because it is only the “corrupt” Bishops that are being attacked and not the average Catholic.

What liberty is left if a government can take property because it disagrees with your religous beliefs? The defenses of this idea are non-sensical. As if sucessful, self-supporting Catholic schools and Parishes are closed by evil and stupid Bishops. Whatever – obviously the schools and Parishes that are fully self supported are not the ones being closed. As if taking control of finances from the Diocese and putting in the hands of parish Priests suddenly elimates the possibility of corruption. Is this because Parish Priests are uncorruptable? As if the parishes were all built when a few Catholics got together and said hey lets start a Catholic Church. Of course not, the diocese nearly always defined the parishes and in many cases provided the initial finances. As if any Catholic who doesnt like what the Church teaches or does can’t simply leave the Church. Do they all forget that many Catholics like myself believe in the Church teaching and the Church Heirarchy and are perfectly content with the overall structure of the Church. They are attempting to steal my religion and my Church – plain and simple and don’t let them pretend they are doing my bidding.

Don’t buy any of it. This is not only an attack on religious freedom, a slander of the highest order, a desicration of the right to free speech, and a blatant religiously and politically motivated theft by liberal politicians: This is not only an attack on every member of a religious organization: It is an attack on every individual who has deeply held beliefs that they are not willing to sacrifice merely to appease the secular thought police and their latest doctrine of debauchery

On April 23, 2009, the Diocese received a letter from Thomas K. Jones, Ethics Enforcement Officer for the OSE, stating that it was “the subject of an Office of State Ethics evaluation,” which was “being conducted to ascertain whether the Diocese had violated [Connecticut General Statutes Sections] 1-94, 1-95 and 1-96 by failing to register as a lobbyist in Connecticut, by failing to submit all other appropriate lobbyist filings, and by failing to follow all applicable registration procedures.”

“If we did a forensic financial audit of all of the Bishop’s personal assets, you would be shocked to see how wealthy they have become, with the “parishioners money”. Follow the money trail.”

Pathetic attempt.

Why is it necessary to have a New York State “civil law”, to protect the bishops and give them ownership of all church property?

This is existing legislation that determines ownership of all parish and school property. Civil Law is already intervening into ownership of the Catholic Church.

When a parish is closed, the parishioners are astonished to find out that the parish community doesn’t own the parish and school, that they “paid” to build and maintain.

Before the epidemic of school and parish closings, parishioners never had a reason to talk about ownership issues. Several years ago, most parishioners never knew that the bishop is basically the sole owner of the buildings, since he appoints the other 4 members of the corporation, according to the New York State Religious Corporation Law.

If we did a forensic financial audit of all of the Bishop’s personal assets, you would be shocked to see how wealthy they have become, with the “parishioners money”.

Follow the money trail.

But I would never, never, never give up my religious freedom to the government because of dissatisfaction with the Church hierarchy. There are far better options, e.g., purchasing the school from the diocese and running it independently; contributing payment of the church’s gas bill directly and deducting the amount from your collection offering; payment via services in-kind…

FWIW, my grade school and the church where I was married are now closed. The local economy tanked forty years ago and the population dwindled. Because of the shortage of both priests and parishioners, the parishes had to be combined. I live in a different part of the state now and my husband and I volunteer and give until it hurts to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen here.

There is no way that your post makes any sense. None. At least not as a conservative, a patriot, or a Catholic. How can you condone the state medlling in Church affairs. This bill is an abomination. A direct affront to the First Amendment. A direct assault by its two authors, militant gays, on the Catholic church. What a sham.

In New York State, the Religious Corporation Law allows Catholic bishops to have 100% financial control of the parish, school, rectory, convent, the contents of the buildings and all of the money collected from the collection basket. They are able to run each parish community as a personal dictatorship.

The current law allowed Bishop Matthew Clark to close 50 Catholic schools and over 25 parishes “against the will” of the parishioners, because he has total financial control. More than 75 parish and school communities were destroyed.

The parishioners built these parish and school buildings and financially supported them for generations.

Bishop Clark’s negative actions have driven away parishioners. Now only 23% of our parishioners attend Sunday Mass in our diocese. Two hundred and seventy thousand (270,000) parishioners stay home.

It is time for change. Existing state laws which actually protect the bishops instead of the parishioners, have to be changed.

Instead you reiterate your theological argument that the RC church should require a married priesthood (or perhaps you simply mean they should permit priests to be married). That would be a legitimate topic of discussion on a religion discussion site, but RedState is primarily a political blog. Since you surely aren’t arguing (at least I hope not) that the state of Connecticut should attempt to enforce a married priesthood upon the RC church dioceses in their state (and since the Vatican is not about to do that in the foreseeable future, and certainly is not going to reverse their theology on the basis of your arguments here), I don’t see how this matter has any bearing upon the issue of whether the proposed bill involved an unconstitutional interference in the operations of the RC Church in Connecticut and whether the subsequent actions of Connecticut officials in retaliation are a legitimate use of state power.

Your second issue of some rumored arrest warrant at the Federal level – pray tell what in the slightest does this have to do with this bill and the powers of the state of Connecticut – since I don’t see the slightest relevance.

If you want to present some pertinent arguments as to why this bill and the actions of the Connecticut officials represent legitmate and constitutional uses of state power, please do so. But right now, all you’ve done is exhibit your evident animus towards the RC church, which is not helpful or germane to the topic of this post.

more later

Besides, why would I trust politicians, who hide every vote they make as long as possible to expose the dealings of a private institution? Oh, I forgato, that whole “Systemic Risk” thing.

There is also a little matter of an arrest warrant which the Vatican requested be quashed after a recent election. Bush and Company did so, but I believe it would have been much more interesting if they had not.

I also live in a country where otherwise very intelligent people can be astonishingly naive about the Roman Church and its general effect upon the society around it. I also live in a country where they expect the rest of us not to notice nor complain about the effect it has on the rest of our lives.

I don’t see how a married clergy (the imposing of which is even more outrageous intrusive) and recounting church history well before our nation’s founding is in the slightest germane to this post.

Especially since, the issue of this post was not with the merits of the proposed bill but rather had to do with efforts by state officials under the color of authority to retailiate against the Diocese for exercising its protected Constutional rights under the 1st Amendment to petition for a redress of grievances (plus other civil rights) by attempting to invoke antilobbying statutes.

I’ve always felt O was a djinn, or wandering spirit. Able to grant wishes that usually backfire on the wisher.