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One does wonder, sometimes, just what goes on at Catholic News Service (CNS), an agency that wouldn’t exist were it not for the U.S. bishops and the bishops’ conference. This past April 16, CNS distributed a lengthy interview with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., giving her a platform to blast the 2013 federal budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and to badger Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York (the president of the USCCB) to pay as much attention to “the poor, the hungry, the middle class, the people who are going to be eviscerated by the Ryan budget” as Cardinal Dolan and the bishops he leads are paying to the defense of religious freedom.
The congresswoman’s appeal was specifically Catholic — “my Church, the Catholic Church, needs to speak out loud on this issue” — which involved an irony left wholly unexamined by CNS. For DeLauro’s voting record is in some tension, to put it gently, with Catholic understandings of justice.
The Church teaches the inalienable right to life of the unborn and insists that that obvious moral truth be acknowledged in law; DeLauro is a consistent pro-abortion vote in the House. According to statistics from National Right to Life, DeLauro’s pro-life voting record is 0% (compared to 100% for Ryan, for instance).
The Catholic Church worked with the District of Columbia education authorities to provide “opportunity scholarships” to Catholic inner-city schools for poor children; DeLauro supported the Obama administration’s cruel refusal to fund that program. The bishops have declared that religious freedom is under serious assault in the United States today; the gentlewoman from Connecticut has been notably AWOL in defending the first of American liberties.
How, then, does DeLauro imagine herself as someone who speaks for “my Church, the Catholic Church?”
My hunch is that she imagines herself a spokeswoman for authentic Catholicism because she, like many other Catholics on the port side of both American politics and the Church, have long thought that they alone hold the high ground at the intersection of Catholic social teaching and public policy.
Memo to Congresswoman DeLauro and friends: Those days are over.
They’re over because four decades of intellectual and political work, coupled with extensive care for women in crisis pregnancies, have made the pro-life cause the cultural marker of serious Catholicism in the United States.
They’re over because much of the “Catholic left” has obstinately refused to promote religious freedom in full and the inalienable right to life as priority social-justice issues.
And they’re over because contemporary history has vindicated Catholicism’s anti-statist social-justice principle, subsidiarity.
The impending fiscal meltdown of European welfare states vindicates subsidiarity by making clear that providing necessary aid to those in genuine need means, among other measures, developing the associational and charitable instincts of civil society. The alternative is state bankruptcy and social chaos.
Then there is Obamacare, which flatly contradicts subsidiarity and its principled rejection of vast concentrations of state power — the dangers of which are amply demonstrated by the coercive HHS “contraceptive mandate.”
The universal health care the Church rightly seeks must be accomplished by means other than handing over one-sixth of the economy (and critical medical decisions) to unregulated regulators.
These home truths are bad news for Rosa DeLauro and those of her persuasion.
Now, to make matters worse, here is Paul Ryan, a congressman of uncommon intelligence who can ably argue the public-policy implications of Catholic social doctrine and who understands that what the Church asks of a just society is the empowerment of the poor: breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and unleashing the creativity the Church believes God builds into every human soul.
Ryan is the dissenting Catholic’s worst nightmare, and his demonization from that quarter has just begun. Ryan is a big boy, though, and he’ll fight his corner well. That argument might even lead to some consensus about empowerment-based anti-poverty strategies and fiscally responsible social-welfare policies among serious Catholics of both political parties.
Rather than being a megaphone for dissenting Catholics posing as authentic representatives of the Church and hyperventilating about people being “eviscerated” by a budget, might CNS help provide a level playing field for the debate?
George Weigel is distinguished senior fellow of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Weigel’s column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register,
the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver.
Mark Shea: The Key to Catholic Social Teaching
Matthew Warner: What so many Catholics miss about Solidarity and Subsidiarity
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Now this is what I like to hear…..all these so called “Catholics” in name only who pick and choose what they want to interpret as truth being given some guidelines.
I believe in looking after the poor but I do not consider Rep. DeLauro as anyone who should be defining Catholic doctrine when she is a strong supporter of the grave evil of abortion as she appears to be. I’m tired of hearing from Cafeteria Catholics who express their partial views as worthy of support by the main body Church. If she doesn’t like what the Church teaches, I suggest she look into finding another Church.
I am wondering when Archbishop Mansell will correct this errant ‘daughter’. She has a 100% approval rating from NARAL. The Cathechism is pretty clear on Catholics in public life and participating or supporting actions that are ‘inimically evil’.
Ms. DeLauro might be culturally Catholic but her own actions have placed her far outside the acceptable norms for being a Practical Catholic.
This isn`t the first time for CNS and it is only one of many praising psuedo, cafeteria, ‘Catholic in name only’, politicians who claim to be Catholic but support policies and laws that are in direct conflict with Doctrines and Magisterial teachings of the Church. Why the anti Catholic teaching platforms and mixed messages from a news organization that is a direct representative of the USCCB is beyond my understanding and leaves one at a loss of explaination. You might think that the findings and orders from Cardinal Levada and the Congregation for Doctrine and Faith
to the LCWR would be a wake up call, but then, with people such as pro-gay marriage and woman priests advocates as Sr. Joan Chitister OSB running around the country citicizing the Pope and the Hierarchy of the
Church as dictating dominant males trying to impose their rules on woman,
maybe they are afraid to rock the boat. Trust me, since the left has demonstrated where they are really coming from with the HHS mandate, I believe sooner or later there will be push back as we have already seen from Rome. Will the real Catholics please stand up.
Tom T opens a wonderful discussion. Many of us would prefer that the bishops fill the role of “critical parent” (in transactional analysis terms) and clearly criticize those like Ms. DeLauro. However, the bishops are pastors first and act like nurturing parents, gently guiding their flock to the truth, always remembering that the flock’s members have free will and are accountable to God for themselves at Judgment. We who tend to the critical parent side must remember that the high-pitched shrills of criticism are often found on the wrong sides of these issues and we must guard against becoming just like them, lest we undercut the lessons our bishops are teaching us about how to bring about conversions.
Dear Connecticut, please gerrymander Middletown out of DeLauro’s district!
Amen!
CNS and USCCB should be ashamed for airing the views of a person so opposed to the Church’s teachings. Promulgating such nonsense is the right formula for developing more cafeteria Catholics or Protestants as they should be called. This is a scandal.
The Bishops, I believe, are misguided to politicize their Justice and Peace efforts by making friendly with the Obama administration. Where is the concept of subsidiarity in all of this? For the last few decades the USCCB has become more of a left wing political organization in effect abandoning their role as teaching of the Faith and becoming a tool of the Democratic party.
Hopefully this will change with Cardinal Dolan in charge. Let us pray that this be so.
Thank you Paul Ryan and George Weigel! Catholics like Rosa DeLauro make me think of myself when I was in the 8th grade. Not very strong on backbone, I so often spouted the lines of the “cool group” so I would fit in and be liked. That was normal for a 13 year old but not quite so in an at least 40+ year old woman as Ms. DeLauro.
She needs to spend ore time in adoration and praying the rosary (and perhaps other devotions). I must say that I felt some of what this congressperson feels, when it comes to controlling Gods gift of life either preventing its beginning or causing its end. My wife and I spent a lot of spiritually challenging time thinking and discussing these things. After a year or so of rosaries, adoration and praying (in addition to mass), we felt the Catholic teaching has always been the right way. This realization came about in a thoughtful way. Not coercive, not easy either. It required a greater understanding of the mysteries, the faith and the teachings on how to live in synergy with the faith.
In retrospect, The hard part was overcoming misconceptions fed to us by friends, family, some of whom are cafeteria Catholics. It may have been even harder accepting the criticism of friends about the behavior of some Catholics not acting in the faith. but when I came to accept the faith and do my best to live it, We have no doubt it is right. Nothing flashy or all that. Just a certain contentment, a certain peace. Now I have to continue to live it.
Part of being a ‘practicing Catholic’ is obedience to the official Magisterium of The Church…Some politicians think that when elected they somehow rise above this obligation…!!! Weigel and Ryan both get it…!!! Faithful Catholics don’t ‘pick & choose’, they ‘stick & cruise’...!!!
I am not a fan of ‘distinguished’ Mr. Weigel (a title that he should be ashamed of being a Catholic) but sometimes he writes things that I can even understand such as this article. I thought that I was the only one that questions the CNS, which I believe is a sister to CNN as I have found that their version of the news is different from the truth, especially in the Catholic Church. Mrs. DeLauro, what a poor excuse of a ‘catholic’ Congressman, was one of the signers to the late ‘pope’ Ted Kennedy’s letter to the USCCB, telling them to back off when the few Bishops actually obeyed Pope John II’s command to rid the Church of all heritics, and they started, for a very short time, to use Canon 915 on these ‘catholic’ politicians. But, even though our Blessed Pope told the Bishops to get out of bed with the politicians and back to the poverty of the Church, they obeyed their American ‘pope’ instead. +JMJ+
We have a young former congressman in Penna. who is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and voted for Obama`s health care plan and is a Catholic that
proudly proclaims, “I answer to the people. Not the Pope.” He lost the last election for congress, ran again for another office in Penna. and never made it past the primary. All you can do is shake your head and pray for him and his young family, talk about misguided priorities. Sadly, there are so many of them around the country and in Washingtion
D.C. such as Nancy Pelosi, and V.P. Biden and the Governor of Illinois
and the Gov. of New York and on and on. I really don`t know where they got the idea they could just pick and choose the teachings they care to observe, but the attitude is pervasive in the Church today. It is almost
as though we have two types of Catholics in the Church, those that are, and those who think they are, and of course, those who could care less either way. I wonder who or what is missing. Could it be that there is no real clear direction, or is it that people don`t bother to make the effort to find out anymore, due to all the changes we have faced over the last 40 or 50 years since Vatican II?
How about looking at the special interest voting records of all the so-called Catholic politicians in Congress and have all those who score high meet at, say, the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle (you’ll need a lot of room and a cathedral might be enough) at 9:15 on a Sunday (because we know that all good politicians go to church, right?)?
Then have Cardinal Wuerl give ushers boxes of pre-printed excommunication papers (we’ll call them 915’s) to distribute - either let them fill in their own names (we know who you are) or have Pelosi pass out the papers for House members and, since there are fewer members, any Senator will do.
Wait a minute. Since the cardinal doesn’t believe in Canon 915, perhaps the individual bishops could do something similar in their own dioceses.
Wait a minute, what if no bishop does it? How about the laity gathering signatures (say 915)?
Rich (4:53 am), Let me see if I have your comments straight. You believe that it would be unwise for bishops to criticize least they violate pastoral niceness. It’s more important to you that Catholic anti-Catholic bigots, who facilitate the crushing of the skulls of unborn children, not run the risk of feeling overly guilty for their demonic activities rather than have them cease their demonic activities in crushing the skulls of unborn children. Hasn’t the ecclesial culture of sin denial gone on long enough? How mush more slaughter does there need to be before we stop taking refuge in psychobabble?
The forces of secularism include many high profile Catholics like Rosa DeLauro who have attained key leadership positions in government, academia, media, and religious. Given the significant damage that these quasi Catholics are doing to the Church, the critical question is when is the Church leadership going to take action to re-assert their authority as the official Voice of the Church, and also to dismantle the cartel of internal and external secular Catholics who collectively are spreading their watered down brand of Catholicism and moral standards.
Catholics need to once again see and hear their leaders, beginning at weekly Masses and from the pulpit. They need to know what the real issues are - an attack on religion and religious liberties, NOT what the spin meisters and secular proponents say they are (contraception rights or woman’s healthcare). And finally Catholics need to clearly know what is required of them as Catholics. There should be no ambiguity or wiggle room allowed (for making personal interpretations). As a Catholic, the HHS mandate is morally wrong, cannot be supported, and should be overturned.
The Church has always allowed a Catholic the right to follow their conscience, even if it goes against Church teaching. It is called free will. No change there, but if a person doing so happens to be a Catholic public figure (such as a government, academic, or religious leader), whose position therefore could influence other Catholics decision making, then that public figure MUST keep their decision private. If they do not do so and publically oppose the Church’s position, then the Church should take immediate, public, and decisive action (remove the person’s right to take Holy Communion because their public action against the Church put them in a state of serious sin).
The Church leadership MUST stop being timid on conditions of Catholic faith and morals. Of course the Church must always be compassionate, but the Church, through its leaders, also has a sacred and unequivocal mandate to uphold Church teaching and moral requisites, and to defend her when necessary. Such a time is now!
The forces of secularism include many high profile Catholics like Rosa DeLauro who have attained key leadership positions in government, academia, media, and religious. Given the significant damage that these quasi Catholics are doing to the Church, the critical question is when is the Church leadership going to take action to re-assert their authority as the official Voice of the Church, and also to dismantle the cartel of internal and external secular Catholics who collectively are spreading their watered down brand of Catholicism and moral standards.
The Church has always allowed a Catholic the right to follow their conscience, even if it goes against Church teaching. It is called free will. No change there, but if a person doing so happens to be a Catholic public figure (such as a government, academic, or religious leader), whose position therefore could influence other Catholics decision making, then that public figure MUST keep their decision private. If they do not do so and publically oppose the Church’s position, then the Church should take immediate, public, and decisive action (remove the person’s right to take Holy Communion because their public action against the Church put them in a state of serious sin).
The Church leadership MUST stop being timid on conditions of Catholic faith and morals. Of course the Church must always be compassionate, but the Church, through its leaders, also has a sacred and unequivocal mandate to uphold Church teaching and moral requisites, and to defend her when necessary.
I believe that even right to life catholics need to hear the other side if only to understand what we’re up against. It also amazes me to find out how many catholic congresspeople are horrible practicing catholics.It definitely gets my ire up. I’m frankly thinking that we all live in a different time line or a different dimension when I see how far the left has infiltrated the church and its members. When it started, I don’t know, but I am truly afraid.
CNS tilts to the left in many of their articles. Unfortunately, our diocesan paper (and probably many more) run most of their articles from this source. I wasn’t aware that this is supported by the bishops, however. It gives me another reason not to support the UCCB collection and instead support the Register and other more orthodox Catholic magazines and newspapers.
CNS has been doing this for at least 30 years! I worked for a diocesan paper for two years and all of the paper was based on their articles. At the time there were a lot of dissenting priests and theologians such as Hans Kung that appeared regularly in their newsfeed. They still are highlighting dissenting “Catholic” politicians as well as nuns and priests. Thank you for not using their new articles.
The USCCB`s CNS is not the only left wing liberal supposedly Catholic News
organization. Two others amongst the many come to mind, namely,America
and CommonWheel both published by the Jesuits who, lest we forget run Notre Dame where they invited pro-choice President Obama for an honorary
degree and a commencement speech. If anyone would like to have an eye opener as to how all this got started, I would recommend the reading of a paper that explains a great deal and can be found at http—www.culturewars.com—culturewars-1999-rogers.html. You can also read an analysis at http//www.ewtn.com/library/priests/coulson.TXT.
Notre Dame is run by the Holy Cross order, not the Jesuits.
It’s important to not classify large groups of people as dissenting or not dissenting. Just as it is not to classify large groups of people as being lazy or immoral. There are a few great Priests in both orders both on EWTN. Fr. Mitch Pacwa, and Fr. Ed. Sylvia :)
It is very frustrating to see people call themselves Catholic, and then walk about the door, and do the exact opposite(ie pro abortion politicians), I do it every Sunday. It is a call for prayer and fasting. Our Priests need our prayers, and so do our politicians. I would even say those causing scandal need not be re-elected to public office. We the lay people have the authority and ability too make a difference even in a small way. We can support a candidate who is not scandalous to the Church.
Matt H
You are correct about Notre Dame and I certainly did not mean to imply that all Jesuits are of the same mind set. There are to be sure liberal and conservative view points in every order. The Jesuits of course do run some of the Universities where there are large deviations and campus activities that are not in communion with Church Doctrine. I can name quite a few off the top of my head and we will start with Georgetown Univ. and the recent scandal of Scranton University where a Jesuit priest allowed a pro-choice speaker to give a presentation despite over 8000 emails against it and request by the local Bishop not to allow it. There have been problems with Fordham in N.Y. and many others. I personally do pray for priests and politicians however the days of the laity following the the Church leadership without question are over. The Jesuits by the way, were one of the first orders to be indoctrinated into the phsycological encounter groups that destroyed so many good orders and in fact even gave the pshycologists that spearheaded this movement in the 60`s an academic award. Read above links. As the Dominican`s motto goes Veritas. To be informed about your Faith only increases the possibility that you will not be misled. Pax.
My apology for the incorrect reference to Notre Dame and the misspelled
words in my response. I was in a hurry to leave when I posted. I
should never assume that it is a forgone conclusion that people don`t all
believe and act the same way no matter what order or faith they belong to. There are obviously, differences of opinions in the highest Pontifical
Congregations of the Vatican. Pax
Well, at least it cannot be said that the Catholic News Service does not give equal time to heretics.
I_M_Foreman
I guess you could say that if you ignore the praise given to politicians
who publicly dissent on abortion or gay marriage, such as H. Solis Sec. of Labor who, according to Catholic Culture Sept. 2 2011, was praised in an article sent to diocesan newspapers across the country by CNS as a
“model Catholic politician” while ignoring her 100% pro-abortion voting
record while a Calif. Congresswoman where she even opposed restrictions on partial birth abortions or,,,,, we could change the definition of heresy.
Tom T, I am with you all the way. If politicians want to call themselves Catholic then they should be corrected and called for what they really are when they endorse abortion, gay marriage or use the lame excuse that they do not want to impose their morals on others. As for publications that give them that make them sound like legitimate Catholics I suggest that are called to task for it - that was why I inferred that CNS gives time to heretics. Perhaps it is time for Bishops to authorize the use of the name Catholic on any publication or institution on a yearly basis with a seal of some sort. Letting this go on year after year with a hands off attitude by the USCCB is wrong. Let the local bishops handle that responsibility. As for heretics masquerading as Catholics, well they don’t need communion if that is the case. Abortion and Gay Marriage alone is a great litmus test.
I_M_Foremam
It is sad. There are many mixed messages coming from the USCCB. I just
don`t understand when Card. Dolan and the USCCB has all the bisops issue a
letter to be read at all the Masses to unite Catholics in the fight against the Obama Admins. regarding the HHS Mandate, and then along comes
Archbishop Gomez and retired Card Mahony and the USCCB to file a friend of the Court brief with the Supreme Court supporting Obama`s lawsuit against the State of Arizona with Archbishop Gomez doing a full page comment in the Washington Post, where he not once, mentions the word illegal. Now that ought to unite Catholics. I just don`t understand why they had to do that. The Court is going to decide on the merits no matter
what they file. Real genius that is. Pax
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