Secularism is already filling this void.  Catholic participation in many parishes is only a fraction of what it was not so many years ago.  The refusal by many bishops to address the issue of clergy abuse at its inception has cost the Church dearly.

if you are not going to tell the flock not to vote for the democrat party because you would end up losing the Churches tax exempt status…you sold your soul for the devils money…

The Cardinal would do well to worry less about politics and whether the church’s position is “popular”.  This is a God-given opportunity to teach both Catholics and non-Catholics about the evil of artificial contraception and abortion including not only the spiritual cost but also psychological, sociological, and economic cost as well.  The last time I heard a homily addressing contraception was ....... well, never.  Church teaching on this matter is clear - if you bother to seek it out.  I am at a loss to understand why the clergy almost never addresses it as it surely is the elephant in the room.  Are they too gutless to address it?  Is it too controversial?  Did Jesus parse his words and seek to avoid confrontation or did he speak and teach the truth at all times?

I support Cardenal Dolan’call for Catholics to actively participate in the public area. The defense of religious freedom is the way to start. Organizations like the Knights of Columbus with its human resources   must back up the Bishops’ call to action. Full participation at rallies, picketing, prayer vigils are some ways to get involved

“Catholics in the United States have been rather shy about any public witness to their faith in the marketplace because of what? The innate ingrained anti-Catholicism that is part of the Puritan culture of the United States.”—-I hope that he is also referring to fellow Bishops- bless them.

It is my prayer that ALL cradle Catholics and orphan Catholics would ” Come Home” and together as all families based on love alone, could than rise up against the enemies of our rich faith, and just as my father said about   Being raised in a large but struggling family on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Newfoundland ” We were the poorest but we were the richest family.”

Open letter to Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan
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Dear Cardinal Dolan,
We are most thankful that you are our national Catholic leader and wish for you a Blessed Easter.
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Your Eminence, brevity intends no disrespect as when having to present evidence for a few USCCB problems whose feasible repairs by you and brother bishops are achievable in time for the heated 2012 campaigns. In this most dangerous year, Catholics sorely need that “apostolate of friendliness” you extended last November in your Baltimore Address: “There’s nothing we enjoy doing more than helping our people, and everybody else, get to know Him and her (the Church) better. That’s our job description.”
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Part 1 is about one such problem re the unacceptable and insulting HHS mandate: how to augment high-plane Christian arguments with an irrefutable, gut-level truth so basic that it walks with you into the voting booth. The following example or something similar needs to be presented in every parish across America *by its own lay parishioners* with, of course, prior content-approval of their local bishop – and for a time not-to-exceed five minutes immediately after weekend Masses before the rush for cars:
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“ANYONE willing to coerce God-endowed consciences treats God’s people like mere animals!”
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By avoiding naming candidates while functioning inside-Church, clergy and laity are free to talk strongly about ISSUES and potential damage to children’s futures and to the Republic *even when an issue is heavily associated with a particular high level candidate*. In such periodic presentations during the remaining campaign months, other bishop-approved selected truths would get aired together with brief reminders of the above gut-level statement on that DEEP threat to Responsible Religious Liberty.
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Such laity-to-laity communication IS effective. In upstate NY we demonstrated in a much more complex “Witnessing With the Poor” pilot program—well received by the congregants over three years – a method that it is easy for a handful of willing parishioners to learn how to prepare, practice and give such short presentations. Indigenous use of God’s people avoids problems of scheduling and paying for invited speakers for 19,000 U.S. parishes. That enormous logistics-benefit is absolutely priceless because it allows 19,000 Catholic parishes across America to educate millions of Mass-attending members on any given weekend at almost no cost. Sustaining Religious Freedom comes at the price of being willing and able to work together as just described. Your Eminence, this proposal is prompted by your urging Catholic laity to get involved. Thank you!
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Email and internet facilitate communications with parish-designated leaders across America so that it is realistic to see how all 19,000 parishes could be ready in *one month to six weeks* from a “go-ahead” signal since each parish prepares independently and the task for each parish is bite-size and easily manageable with help from one’s local bishop on content. The Founders did not hesitate to use their available resources and we of 2012 are not dealing with minor matters. Dear Cardinal Dolan, Catholic and other God-respecting allies can turn our country around or at least give it a fresh start. Then, after the election, the USCCB can follow Benedict’s urging to ‘teach & preach’ for better understanding of and for greater respect for God-blessed human sexuality. I will give my connecting information to your Archdiocesan Office right after Palm Sunday.
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The above or an equivalent gut-level defense-of-conscience statement will allow contracepting Catholics to “talk up Responsible Religious Freedom” with fellow Catholics while comfortably avoiding occasions of being asked why they are contracepting. Though contraception per se is NOT the central issue via the mandate, it can and does come up. In November, we need to turn out to vote in great numbers. The succinct, gut-level argument will help ensure Maximum Turnout. Meanwhile, it is suitable for dinner-time discussion and for all ages for it reinforces our precious values as God-Imaged *persons with dignity affirmed on Calvary*!
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We ought not to risk loss of the Republic by waiting for the USSC decision by late June. The attempt to coerce conscience *did happen* and that fact alone signals the kind of hardness and disrespect that will worsen in a second term when as the President said in Korea on another topic, he will have more “flexibility”. Either way the USSC decision goes, we are stronger in several ways by being underway in May.
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To again quote Your Eminence: “if we do not act now, the consequences will be grave”.
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In a separate “Part 2”, there is need to surface a very few fixable, non-doctrinal yet critical problems with the USCCB “Bulletin Insert” still used since 2007 – problems that truly leave laity unintentionally misled about a *well formed* conscience and about some Key Church-honored principles for protecting and rebuilding society with success.
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With love and respect,
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William F. Folger

I encourage you to check out this inspiring 2-minute video about the Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies, protesting Obama’s HHS mandate. It’s the Official video of Stand Up for Religious Freedom.

http://youtu.be/LpGJ91fXi3o

Please share to help spread the word!

April 1st: allowing Catholic politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry, et al who aggressively support and promote abortion to consider themselves Catholics in good standing, so much so that Obama openly declared that Catholics are on his side, is not, in my opinion, ‘fighting vigorously’! Obama and his team consider Catholics to be easy marks because he has such powerful support from prominent Catholics like nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Sr. Keehan et al…it’s tragic.

God bless you for your comments and your example.  Catholics need the courage and example to stand up for their faith and beliefs.  We are losing our children away from the faith because of our apathy.

I was baptized a Catholic and hopefully will die a Catholic and I thank God every day that Our Lord was nothing like the current hierarchy of my church.  Cardinal Dolan when the hierarchy of the Catholic Church addresses the ills of our society such as substance abuse, poverty, disease, the physical and sexual abuse of our children, children who are in foster care then I will support you every step of the way. I’m a public health nurse who case manages children in foster care in the State of Utah and have worked for 8 years at this job.  The Utah Foster Care Foundation is constantly trying to recruit foster parents for children who through no fault of their own have been placed in state custody and I have yet to see the Diocese of Salt Lake City step up to the plate and help DCFS place children in good foster homes. As a Mexican and a Catholic,  I’m escpecially concerned about the Mexican children who are US Citizens and their parents have been deported who are Catholic. Most of the families who take on Foster kids here in Utah are LDS.The LDS Church here in Utah has always stepped up to the plate when comes foster care.  Where may I ask is the Catholic Church and trust me, the LDS Church is doing quite well winning converts, especially in Latin America.  In many ways they put our Church to shame.  Here in the United States Cardinal Dolan and others should be advocating to right the social injustices of our society instead of worrying about who is using birth control.

The question raised by Florin that politicians who say publicly they are “Catholic” but support abortion and now the HSS mandate is extremely troubling to the Catholic conscience. We as members of the Catholic Church must take a stand asking ourselves it is just that many Catholics are being misled by the perception that these politicians have a right to speak for the Catholic community declaring publicly that they are “Catholic”  The bishops are our only spiritual leaders and soon or later they must make a difficult decision about the standing of these politicians in our Catholic community.+

The future of the democratic party lies entirely in your hands, my fellow American Catholics.  Reject the snake oil of “social justice” and vote your conscience. If you withold your vote from all pro-abortion politicians, we can look forward to a country that no longer snuffs out its future while still in the womb. End the holocaust! Enough innocent blood has been spilled. It will stain the conscience of our nation forever.

Cardinal Dolan,
The enemy has attacked with a direct hit against the teaching of the church that contraception, the abortion pill and sterilization is immoral, and your feable response is the attack isn’t about contraception it is about religious freedom. It seems you already have up that battle and lost to the weapon of popularity. I may be mistaken but I thought bishops were called to be defenders of the faith. On February 10th your statements did nothing but help the administration and now you still look to work with the administration, I doubt you are that naive.

Ceci, Catholic charities do take care of children; world wide. To complain that they do not do enough is a complaint that could be directed at anyone, even you I suppose. The Bishops have been trying to educate everyone on the issue that threatens our Church now - it is not birth control (you leave out abortion causing drugs), it is a society that has embraced it’s own self indulgence and is going to destroy every church that disagrees with it via law (LDS, Baptist, Muslim, Anglican, etc) because the churches believe in a God who says NO to our society. My complaint with the Bishops is that they speak so often about the fait of Mexican illegals and their families that they give the impression that they support breaking the law.

So CeCi, you’ll only support the church when it agrees with you on what is most important?  Wow!!! Perhaps you see yourself as the next bishop of SLC.  We’ll all be sure to pray and let God know your plans so He can inspire others accordingly.

For Christ said: ”The enemy has attacked with a direct hit against the teaching of the church that contraception, the abortion pill and sterilization is immoral, and your feable response is the attack isn’t about contraception it is about religious freedom.”—————-The fight about religious freedom is not dead and is the central fight in the near term. To make the argument about any other issue is to insure defeat of the influence of the Church in America. All other issues are a LONG TERM fight. The opposition to smoking took DECADES to get to the point where public opinion turned from socially desirable to an anathema. This is a political fight right now with an enemy that is setting the agenda – birth control only because the enemy knows that position has the least supporters among voters. The Bishops are wisely meeting the enemy when it is most vulnerable at the moment. If the courts defeat the Health Care law or the election in 6 SHORT months defeat it, then we could encourage them to divert their attention towards other teachings.

To Howard,
Your argument is for the political arena and would be true for one of the political partys. It is not true for teachers of the faith. If by this smoke the bishops do not teach the faith for political or popular reasons, the devil has already won a bigger victory than you are seeking.

Dear CeCi,

“Here in the United States Cardinal Dolan and others should be advocating to right the social injustices of our society instead of worrying about who is using birth control.”

Translation:  You don’t like the unchanging teaching of the Church on contraception and therefore don’t want anyone to remind you of your hypocrisy for claiming to be in communion with the Catholic Church when, in fact, you are not. 

To say that the HHS mandate is more about violation of religious freedom than the violation of the commandment of God, does not befit Practical Cathlics stand about the mandate. God’s law must prevail against human law. In fact, abortion or killing of the unborn is a crime and yet the abortionists can just go scot-free. So, I would like to suggest that Catholics should make an appeal to Pres Obama to issue a new mandate: “Stop killing the unborn” This appeal coupled with praying of the Holy Rosary by all Catholics will soften the heart of the President, which will result to his issuance of the said mandate.

People, we have laws that are being ignored to our determent. If the Supreme Court does not rule in our favor or the election goes for the status quo or the law suits fail over the next two years; we will be suffering people in our faith with less to no effect on the conscience of our fellow Americans. To work for these immediate goals to go in our favor does not mean anyone stops teaching or praying or letter writing or marching on any other topic. To hole up in the church building and not to speak of the important issues of our faith is the goal of the larger society. Cuba is now moving towards a more free society as we move the opposite. Use any other country that suffered under atheistic rule as an example and judge if you want that for here. Speaking up is so easy to do now. All you are doing is witnessing, trying to inform people; as we are told to do. It is not rocket science.

To continue. The parts of the mandate that has followers in the numbers that vote that we can sway is the 1st ammendment argument. The other parts will take you a lifetime to convince anyone.

Awilaway, you need to read my post. Nowhere does it say that I am advocating contraception and abortion.  I’m a registered nurse who has worked in maternal and infant servcies and would never advocate for contraception or abortion.  As a matter of fact I have called out pro-choice nurses on the evils of abortion. And NO I’m not a hypocrite, I try to practice my Catholic faith 24/7.  I work in the system where I deal with the abused children and teen pregnancies on a daily basis in my job and since we live in Utah which is a staunchly Pro-Life state we DO NOT encourage the girls to have abortions we encourage them to put up their babies for adoption. The majority of them do not and end up keeping them which, ufortunately, continues the cycle of child abuse. and we have politicians(Republicans) who doing everything in their power to do away with programs such as sex education in the schools, and yes classes on contraception and STDS which propigates these cycles. One of many reasons why support the Democrats and President Obama.  I work in the real world and see the horrible things that some parents do to their children that would make your hair stand on end. Why don’t you talk to a DCFS case worker sometime, or better yet, become a foster parent.

Dear CeCi,
Funny that you should “advise” me to become a foster parent.  My wife and I were foster parents and have three adopted children who were each individually (they are not biologically related) abused first by their birth parents and then, indirectly, by both DHS and the court system.  All our children deal with serious and on-going psychological issues.  I could detail for you the severity of their problems but, hopefully, you get the point on that matter although I am not sure why you brought it up or what it has to do with contraception.  Your latest writing, which is a little hard to read due to the typos, seems to continue the duplicity of your previous post.  You say you are Catholic 24/7 but you support President Obama who aggressively promotes abortion at every opportunity.  Please view this video wherein he details his love for abortion (but only scratches the surface of the easily available evidence against him).  In other words, he believes killing babies is a good way to solve problems.  You say you are against abortion and yet you associate with him??? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxChwtSPxA

CEC:  No practicing Catholic can accept the abomination, abortion and genocide policies of Obama. You and those other CatholicsINO who voted for him received automatic excommunication.  You defy God by claiming to be a Catholic. That is bad for salvation.