The health care bill that passed Congress was terrible. It funded abortion. The executive order that accompanied it was a temporary fig leaf at best. The bill created a bureaucratic mess. It was shoved down the throat of an unwilling public. The process that passed it was far from the transparency President Obama promised, and it often stank of pork-barrel bribery. And the bill was signed by the President when it was 36 hours old, though Obama promised he would always wait for five days of public review.
But it showed the difference that too often exists between pro-family and anti-family legislators: The bill’s backers had the courage of their convictions. They insisted on what they thought was the right thing to do (yes, with the mixed motives all human beings almost always have) and did it, despite the pain.
Republicans sometimes have the courage of their convictions: When it came to war decisions, President Bush certainly did. He insisted on the Iraq surge against public opposition, and even Obama eventually admitted he was right.
But the Democrats in general and Obama in particular did with the health care vote what Republicans rarely do: They stayed true to their principles despite angry shouts from their left flank and dark public opinion polls.
Will they pay a hefty price for it? Almost certainly. But they all knew that. That they did this anyway is breathtaking. It’s not how the political game is usually played. Politicians aren’t supposed to push anything that’s not a painless foregone conclusion.
Politicians aren’t supposed to be willing to risk failure. Politicians are supposed to be Clintons: Their genius is in keeping their coalition together while they cave.
Obama has shown he’s willing to risk failure on several occasions; oddly enough, twice in Copenhagen where he pleaded for the Olympic committee to put the games in Chicago, and got trounced, and where he went to try to unite the nations around a global warming treaty, and leapt into a quagmire.
Yesterday, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann met with senior students and professors from the Theology and Philosophy departments here at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. His assigned reading was John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Houston Ministerial Association and Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput’s remarks to Houston Baptists from earlier this month assessing that speech — in which Kennedy pulled a Clinton.
Archbishop Naumann told the seniors that bishops and lay people have different roles. “Politicians have usurped the role of teacher” in many cases lately, he said. A bishop’s role is “to protect the deposit of the faith.” For the whole system to work, bishops “need committed Catholics who will take leadership roles within society.”
A lively discussion ensued. Some thought a tactical retreat from society was necessary. Others pressed for a direct confrontation — not as angry opponents but as “happy warriors” confident in the faith.
There was some discussion that the opposition was too overwhelming; the public couldn’t hear our message; we might as well not even try, or at least aim at an easier target. That’s precisely the position Obama and the Democrats found themselves in two weeks ago. Everyone hated their health care reform bill and assumed they would give up that fight. Their response was to push forward. They had the courage of their convictions, and they won, big.
As I suggested last night: Perhaps in addition to praying for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, we should start a prayer campaign for political vocations in the model of St. Thomas More: Men and women who have formed their consciences with the Church, and who, when the chips are down, will have the same audacity to do what they know is right. Sometimes, they will lose. But, by uniting their convictions to the truth, we can be confident that, ultimately, they will win far greater victories for the culture of life than the temporary victories of the culture of death.
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You know, I hate to admit it but you’re right. The Democrats at least were willing to take a stand here. A stand I think is horribly wrong but at least they had the guts to do it knowing they were likely to get hammered for it. If only the Republicans would have a similar courage when it comes to pro-life issues.
But the Democrats in general and Obama in particular did with the health care vote what Republicans rarely do: They stayed true to their principles despite angry shouts from their left flank and dark public opinion polls.
I’m scratching my head here??? Stupak did NOT stay with the convictions of voting pro-life. He caved in to the perssure of whatever small non-significant PROMISE that was made to get him to change his vote.
This is not democracy. This is dictatorship. The audacity of the Democratic party to enforce death panels and huge taxes on the public is fraudulant and despicable beyond compare. The lies and deceit accompanying this entire charade is henious. As is the forcing of murder on the most innocent human lives that this health-care (care!) bill will bring….God is weeping and will not stay His mighty hand much longer. Lord have Mercy on us all.
Please give us a break from your grouching. The health care act is the greatest piece of legislation since Medicare, which you and your right wing cronies probably opposed. Let’s hear it for conviction…and balance of opinion.
That’s what makes Obama so scary - his religious zeal and his ability to inflame others to respond with the same zeal. Is he really a Muslim? Does he really hate this country? It seems like it. Whatever his agenda, it’s not to make these United States of America the home of the brave and the land of the FREE. I weep!
One of the problems is that our culture has become so complex that as Chesterton warned, the people are weary and willing to sleep while one person watches the gate.
Yes, let us pray for political vocations after the model of St. Thomas More. Let us pray for the American people to be energized to insist on such politicians - to pray, organize, demonstrate - whatever is necessary.
Ironic that you should broach this subject at the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus did the will of His Father even until death and the Democrats followed Obama’s will even at the risk of loosing their jobs.
Oh that Catholics had so much zeal, as you call it, for their Church and Christ as its’ head. Had Catholics not turned their backs on their church leaders, as shaky as some of them were, when they were told that voting for Obama was a vote for abortion and embryonic stem cell which were intrinsically evil? Some Catholics even promoted Obama. Many voted for Obama because they hated Bush. Many are still ardent democrats in a party that supports those same evils and others as well. Now we have a President that said he doesn’t know when a baby in the womb has a right to life?
If you voted for Obama, just remember this week you have company in those who denied Christ 2000 years ago. Their zeal for Christ came after His Resurrection.
I’d strongly suggest that you apply whatever zeal you have to following our Lord Jesus’ teachings one with the Church which is heavenly based and not in any earthly political body.
The President of the United States of America and the democratic party in general have become the practitionars of death from the cradle to the aged and infirmed.
Their credo should read, “Non Serviam”.Watch closely as the escalating natural disasters increase around the world as we continue to ignore the moral law of God. Lord have mercy on us.
We have alot of vocations to political life among professing Catholics. The problem is formation. Obivously , inspite of all these politicians and judges we are still sadly lacking something. First and foremost, we need holy obedience to God, to His word, and to His Church through it’s ‘highly flawed’ individual leaders. Once we relearn that, lessons in discretion and how to treat one another in the public forum according to 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 18 might go along way toward a united front. It is the disunity, division, and general dissing overall that we spread among ourselves by our constant back biting in the public forum that undermines our cause.
Jesus said they would know we belong to Him if we love one another. I’m not feelin’ it. And the world is not seein’ it.
This legislation has nothing to do with courage. It had to do with money and power. The pro-death side has a lot of lobbying power and a lot of money behind them for re-election campaigns. The pro-life side - not so much. The President used a lot of our money to persuade legislators to get control of about 20% of our economy. Courage would have been to persuade our legislators on principle not through bribery.
The kind of behavior displayed is not courage it’s arrogance. Courage would have been displayed without lies, misleading and false claims of reducing the deficit and backroom and secret deals. It feels more like dictarship than a republic.
Excuse me, Mr. Flemings, i didn´t understand your comment. What are you talking about? I think that the last part of your comment is an off-topic.
My point was similar to Mr. Hoopes with the addition that it is not just better formed politicoes that we need. In order to make the difference that we are able to by virtue of our numbers, talent, and economic resources in our nation and our world we need to become better unified. Everywhere you turn online you can find Catholics sniping at one another in the public forum over things that should not be aired the way they are. Criticisms of our leadership, backbiting in the subsequent comments, judgements and insults etc., in the name of Canon 212 or freedom of speech do nothing for our cause, and in my opinion they are contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. I am not exactly sure where the boundaries are, but I think part of the reason we are ineffective or that no one is listening to Catholics because Catholics do not live out what they believe when it comes to how they deal with one another in public. If this is the ‘love of God’ who needs it? That was my contention.
Talk about courage and conviction—-by Mark Mallett—-SCANDAL OF THE CROSS
When Jesus was seized in the garden; when He was stripped and scourged; when He was handed a cross which He carried and then hung upon… He was a scandal to those who followed Him. This is our Messiah? Impossible! Even the Apostle’s faith were rattled. They scattered in the garden, and only one returned to gaze upon the “crucified hope.”
So it is today: the body of Christ, His Church, is covered in the scandal of many wounds—of the sins of her individual members. The head is once again covered in the shame of a crown of thorns… a tangled weave of sinful barbs that pierces deeply into the very heart of the priesthood, the very foundations of the “mind of Christ”: her teaching authority and credibility. The feet are also pierced through—that is, her holy orders, once beautiful and strong with missionaries, nuns, and priests who were consumed with carrying the Gospel to the nations… have been disabled and dislocated through modernism and apostasy. And the arms and hands—those lay men and women who boldly made Jesus present in their families and in the marketplace… have become drooped and lifeless through materialism and apathy.
The body of Christ as a whole appears as a scandal before a world in desperate need of salvation.
WILL YOU?
And so… will you run too? Will you flee the Garden of Sorrow? Will you abandon the Way of Paradox? Will you reject the Calvary of Contradiction as you gaze upon the body of Christ once again riddled with scandalizing wounds?
…Or will you walk by faith instead of sight? Will you see instead the reality that, beneath this battered body lies a heart: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. A heart that continues to beat to the rhythm of love and truth; a heart that continues to pump pure Mercy into its members through the Holy Sacraments; a heart that, though small in appearance, is united to an infinite God?
Will you run, or will you join the hand of your Mother in this hour of sorrow and repeat the fiat of your baptism?
Will you remain among the jeers, protestations and mockery heaped upon this body?
Will you stay when they persecute you for your faithfulness to the Cross, which is “folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, the power of God”? (1 Cor 1:18).
Will you stay?
Will you?
you say obama and the dems acted with courage and conviction, how about i call it just plain STUPID.. Cause that is also human nature too!
Stupidity makes you blind to any thought of the supernatural and that is all obama and the dems have when they passed that bill, plain old arrogance at its finest. Sin in its best form and anyone who calls it courage and conviction is not in reality themselves. I would suggest more prayer in their lives which leads to the supernatural.
Here’s some more of your so-called ‘courage and conviction’, I wonder what makes your brain tick….
“Who wouldda thought Stupak would get sold out by… Stupak?
“Today a new phrase is coined in the American political lexicon: “Doing a Stupak”, meaning taking an apparently principled stand against a proposal, only to sell out at the last minute on some cheap assurance that it’s no big deal.”
***The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks….
... Since the health care reform push hit its final stretch, numerous sweeteners for lawmakers’ districts and states have been found inside the package….
The individual earmarks requests from each of those lawmakers range from $20 million to $1.4 billion. Of the 8 lawmakers whose 2010 requests were available for comparison, 5 requested more money than they did a year ago. Stupak requested $579 million.
THIS IS THE OBAMA DIFFERENCE—DON’T TELL ME HE IS A CHRISTIAN EVEN REMOTELY.
To be a Christian is not the same as being a member of an organization. When we join an organization, we make a commitment to the goals and objectives of the organization, but we still have our own private lives that we live outside of the meetings and activities of the organization.
Christianity is essentially different. When we embrace Jesus as the way, the truth and the life, we are faced with the reality that Jesus encompasses our entire being. Christianity is a way of life. Jesus wants to send his Spirit through every door and window of our soul.
The remedy for pride is the virtue of humility. This is the solution for a world so filled with sin and corruption.
Just because someone does something or gets something passed into law doesn’t mean that they have courage and conviction because GOD KNOWS WHAT IS IN THEIR HEARTS….so how can you judge them that way?....rather silly or (pelosi) of you to do that!
i took the time to read your blogs, and i have a question will this president every do any thing right in your sight
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WITH GOD, TANYA.
As a young girl, I sat and waited for the news one night to see if the gov. made abortion legal that day and thought that if they made it legal, then it was ok and not really a baby and ok with God because how could the gov. go against God..our gov. was based on the principals of God., in God we Trust!..that was Pres. Carter…and so Pres. Clinton came along and the first bill he signed was one to make abortion much more legal and accessable….and along comes obama and makes abortion even more legal by making taxpayers like me pay for it and then tries to lie about it and say that it is not true…ironic, how now my penance is to pay for someone elses’ abortion. So, now Tanya, you want me to find something good about obama and Hoopes wants me and others to see how courageous a man he is…Happy Easter, may the light of Christ really shine through the darkness…off to work and then Mass at noon.
Catholic actor booted from ABC show for refusing sex scenes
Los Angeles, Calif., April 5 (CNA) .- Neal McDonough, a devout Catholic family man known to the American public as one of the characters from “Band of Brothers” and the bad guy on “Desperate Housewives,” has been suddenly replaced three days into the filming of ABC’s new series, “Scoundrels” last week, apparently for reasons of faith and principles.
Although McDonough’s sudden replacement with David James Elliott was officially explained by ABC as a “casting change,” several Hollywood sources claim that McDonough was sacked because of his refusal to do “heated love scenes” with actress Virginia Madsen.
McDonough’s position is well-known in the industry. He previously refused to do sex scenes with Nicolette Sheridan on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” when he played her villain husband during the show’s fifth season.
He also did not do love scenes in his previous roles in NBC’s “Boomtown” and “Medical Investigation.”
“It has cost him jobs, but the man is sticking to his principles,” wrote Nikki Finke of “Deadline Hollywood,” quoting an unknown source.
“You can’t help but admire McDonough for sticking to his beliefs, even if he’s poised to lose as much as $1 million in paydays for Scoundrels,” Finke also wrote.
McDonough, the son of devout Catholic Irish immigrants, has made many television and film appearances, including “Band of Brothers,” “Star Trek: First Contact,” “Minority Report,” “The Hitcher,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “I Know Who Killed Me,” and “Forever Strong.”
McDonough is married to Ruvé Robertson, with whom he has three young children: Morgan Patrick, Catherine Maggie and London Jane.
With all due respect, they didn’t take a stand. They had solid control over the House and the Senate and they spent billions they don’t have to buy enough votes to win the day.
They cajoled, threatened, bullied, bribed, and bought their bill to passage - and they had to cheat to do it.
That’s not courage. That’s back-alley machine politics.
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