Nuns Face Consequences of Supporting Healthcare Reform Bill

Posted on May 4, 2010 by KHernandez

During the tail end of the healthcare reform fight, several supposedly Catholic orders of nuns weighed in for the bill, even though it funded abortion and didn’t protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals. They signed a letter that went to President Obama on March 17^th in support of the bill, which was in direct opposition to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Some of those nuns, specifically the Sisters of St. Joseph, are now facing the consequences for publicly supporting the atrocious legislation – they are being barred from recruiting new nuns in a diocese in Pennsylvania, right outside of Pittsburgh. The nuns are launching a recruiting drive through ads and community events and Bishop Lawrence Brandt has refused to allow them to add to their members when they so blatantly opposed the Church by publicly supporting the healthcare legislation and the Church’s teachings regarding the sanctity of life.

Brandt “has a right to disapprove a request from a religious community that wants to host a recruitment event when that community has taken a public stance in opposition to the church’s teaching on human life,” the diocese said in a statement dated April 15.

“Furthermore,” the statement continued, “an environment of dissent from and public opposition to the positions of the U.S. Catholic bishops does not provide an appropriate seedbed for vocations.”

Bishop Brandt isn’t alone. In Providence, R.I., the bishop there ordered a “diocesan-sponsored health care system to withdraw from the Catholic Health Association, which also supported the health care bill.”

We are glad to see the bishops exercising their roles as teachers of the faith and taking actions to uphold the Church’s teachings and reprimand those who publicly oppose and encourage dissent from the teachings of the Church.

Oh No She Didn’t!

Posted on March 19, 2010 by KHernandez

Today is a big feast day in the Catholic Church, so much so that we get a day off from fasting and abstinence on this Friday in Lent.

It’s the feast day of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus himself. We could write a lot on how awesome St. Joseph is, as we’re sure many of you know, but suffice to say, the Church wouldn’t give us a day off in Lent if there wasn’t a good reason.

Feast days of saints are great opportunities to ask them for their intercession and prayers as well. St. Joseph is the patron saint of workers (although St. Joseph the Worker feast day is on May 1st – today we celebrate the role of St. Joseph as husband and father) so we’re sure many requests are going up to him today asking for help with their jobs or in help finding or keeping a job.

But one person has called on the intercession of St. Joseph in a very public forum to “benefit the workers of America, which is exactly what our healthcare bill will do.” Want to guess who said it?

Watch till the end – Madame Speaker, a self-proclaimed Catholic, talks about the misleading letter from the nuns supporting the pro-abortion healthcare bill and says that two of the sisters who taught her signed it. Figures.

St. Joseph, pray for of us.

Culture of Death Knocks on Congress’ Door, Catholics Called to Action – Day of Prayer and Fast

Posted on March 13, 2010 by GMueller

Last week was a crazy and confusing week given the latest twists and turns emanating from the final days of the health care battle. Pro-government run health care forces are doing all they can to play parliamentary games to try and pass pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, government imposed health care on the American people, despite the peoples’ fairly obvious objection — over and over again.

SMS has covered the health care debate ad nauseum. This is because of the tremendous life-altering impact health care “reform,” as proposed by pro-abortion/euthanasia forces in Washington, mainly President Obama and his allies in Congress, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will have on the American people and our culture. Obama, Pelosi and Reid are trying to pull out every trick in the book to force the American public, the taxpayer, to fund elective abortion on demand and sign up for policies that lead to rationing of care, as well as force doctors to perform abortions and engage practices that ration care.

A new study out by the New England Journal of Medicine says that almost 1/3 of Doctors say they would leave the health profession if the Obama Democrats version of health care passes. Yet we see little of this in the national media.

The USCCB issued a Call to Action that will appeared in many bulletins on Sunday urging Catholics to call their Represenatives and Senators and once again make our voices heard in defense of the sanctity of life, from conception to natural death. It also declares that a conscience protections clause must be in the final bill, protecting the rights of doctors, nurses and other pro-life medical professionals who refuse to engage in life ending practices or counseling on abortion or euthanasia.

You can read the Call to Action and bulletin insert here.

Additionally, SMS is asking our supporters to pass the word in joining Bishop Paul Loverde, Bishop of the Diocese of Arlington, VA in his call for Monday, March 15th to be a national day of prayer and fast to protect the sanctity of life in any health care legislation that comes from Congress.

Learn more about the fast here.

Make no mistake, the health care bill that will be voted on this week will include taxpayer funding for abortion, will lead to rationing of health care and is devoid of sufficient protections for pro-life doctors, nurses and medical professionals. The culture of death is knocking on Congress’ door. Given that no life-protecting measures are in the bill to be voted on next week, SMS urges our supporters to call their Representatives and Senators and tell them to vote NO!

Call your Congressman at 202-225-3121

Call your Senator at 202-224-3121

PRO MULTIS – For Many or For All

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Probbio

The USCCB recently announced a series of workshops to prepare priests and diocesan leaders for implementation of the revised Roman Missal.

The seminars are sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship and the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions as part of educational efforts for introducing the latest version of the Roman Missal, which incorporates the most significant changes in the Liturgy since 1974.

You don’t need to wait for the seminars. There is a great site that lists all the “changes,” which I would call improvements, here. You can start reviewing the changes now.

What changes do you like? Which do you find confusing? Do you wish some had been left untouched? What do you think they missed?

We’ll put some of the questions to a priest, and post his answers here.

My favorite – The consecration:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT; WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

Sen. Rick Santorum on Catholics in the Public Square

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Probbio

Big Week in Healthcare Coming Up

Posted on February 19, 2010 by KHernandez

A lot will be happening on healthcare next week. Not satisfied that the American people have soundly rejected their healthcare plans, that includes government-funding of abortion, President Obama, Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi are back to pushing their own agenda hard.

President Obama is meeting with GOP leaders next Thursday, Feb. 25^th, which will be aired live, to talk about coming up with a bi-partisan healthcare plan. But before that he will be releasing his own reconciliation healthcare bill and posting it online either late this weekend or Monday morning. The President wants this bill to be the starting point of negotiations during the GOP healthcare meeting.

Has Obama mentioned abortion? Of course he hasn’t. But here’s the thing. Abortion HAS to be addressed somehow in the healthcare bill. If there is no specific exclusion of abortion written into the bill, like the Stupak Amendment did, then you and I will be funding abortion through healthcare. Period.

Obama knows it. Pelosi knows it. Reid knows it. And Americans know it too. We’ve written on several national polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of government-funding of abortion.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), Nancy Pelosi is going to have a heck of a hard time passing a healthcare bill in the House that doesn’t include his amendment.

Be vigilant. Read the new bill. And contact your legislators. Like we have said, healthcare reform isn’t over yet. Obama and his allies are desperate for a healthcare bill and they are desperate to pay back all the support they have received from the abortion industry. And from the looks for it, they will do anything whatsoever to get it.

Pelosi Corrected By Bishop…. AGAIN!

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Patrick Looby

This one almost slipped by unnoticed, but thanks to a friend I came across this recent public chastisment of Nancy Pelosi by Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco after comments she made last month about her disagreements with Church teaching. Ms. Pelsoi, as only Ms. Pelosi can do, managed once again to completely misrepresent the faith she claims she so avidly follows.

Anyway, the news here is not Pelosi’s heretical ramblings. Those have been well documented before. The news here is that another bishop has risen to publically correct those ramblings – to make sure that the liberals no longer go unchecked when they pretend to evenagelize in the media.

The St. Michael Society is happy to report on the courage and leadership that is being shown by many of our American bishops since the Obama-Notre Dame scandal. This time, Archbishop Niederauer gets the props. If you have a moment, send him your thanks, support and prayers. (you can contact him at info@sfarchdiocese.org)

Here is his open letter to Nancy Pelosi on the real meaning of conscience, free will, and what it means to be a Catholic.

Georgetown University Administrative Ties to Planned Parenthood

Posted on December 30, 2009 by COBoyle

Georgetown has once again found itself treading in controversial waters.

St. Michael Society editors have learned of the University’s administrative ties to the largest abortion provider in the United States: a current nursing adjunct instructor and former vice president, both of whom served in the upper echelon of Planned Parenthood for at least a decade each.

The first comes from the University’s own paper of record, The Georgetown Voice. According to the publication’s blog “Vox Populli,” a current adjunct instructor at Georgetown’s School of Nursing and Health Studies previously worked for Planned Parenthood – as President and CEO of local Ohio and Maryland chapters and for at least 10 years.

According to her curriculum vitae (download it here), Geidner-Antoniotti was President and CEO of the Mahoning Valley Planned Parenthood from 1990 to 1997, where she increased increased donor loyalty and giving and patient numbers. She held the same job from 1998 to 2000 with Planned Parenthood’s Maryland branch and was an acting project manager with Planned Parenthood Federation of America in the interim.

More recently, she was the CFO of the Whitman-Walker Clinic and has won a host of public awards. At Georgetown, Geidner-Antoniotti is involved with strategic planning and execution

The second was reported today by CatholicCulture.org :

Dr. Gary Lewis Filerman, who chaired the Department of Health Systems Administration at Georgetown University until 2008, is a former Planned Parenthood vice president, according to the university’s web site. Dr. Filerman, who began to teach at Georgetown in 2000, served as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s vice president for international development from 1993 to 1996, as president of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington from 1990 to 1991, and as a member of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington from 1986 to 1992.

For both Geidner-Antonoitti and Filerman, that’s at least a decade each working within the upper ranks of Planned Parenthood’s management. Not exactly something Georgetown could claim to ignore as they evaluated their resumes.

It’s a chilling discovery at any time of year, but perhaps even more disturbing as we’re reminded of what Planned Parenthood has done to desecrate Christmas in their annual “Choice on Earth” campaign. More on that by Jill Stanek here, complete with fundraising email from their 2009 campaign.

This discovery also comes just months after Georgetown complied with the White House request to “cover up all signs and symbols on the wall of the state behind where the President spoke” during his April 14^th address at the University. Read that story reported by CNS News online here .

Pray that St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle and help Georgetown reclaim its Catholic identity.

Good News and Bad News on the Marriage Front

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Patrick Looby

The good news is that NY became the latest in a series of states rejecting legalized so-called gay marriage.

The bad news is that the DC City Council voted in favor of a measure that would legalize same-sex marriage in the district. This isn’t the end of the story for DC as there are a couple more hurdles that the measure has to jump through before it becomes law, but it will be a tough battle for people who are against this redefinition of marriage as the media in DC has been relentless in its attacks against groups like the Catholic Church who are fighting the measure.

SMS will keep you updated on these state battles over marriage, so check back often for the latest – especially as the DC situation moves ahead. And don’t forget to read the US Bishops’ approved statement on marriage from their fall meeting. It provides a tremendous defense of marriage as well as useful explanations for the Church’s position.

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Are We Losing Advent?

Posted on November 30, 2009 by GMueller

Driving to Mass on Thanksgiving Day, many of us may have heard that WalMart, and many other retailers were open much of Thanksgiving Day, while Bass Pro Shops in NY were holding camp outs on Thanksgiving night for those shoppers wanting a front row position as the doors opened before sunrise on Black Friday. Stories abound about Black Friday and the many stores offering sales and early morning hours for folks to get the best deals they can.

While this is nothing particularly earth shattering or new in our culture – most stores are open on Sunday’s and don’t think twice about it — it raises the question of whether we are losing touch with the importance of the season that Thanksgiving precedes — Advent and then Christmas.

In today’s culture, with all the focus on shopping deals, store hours, etc, one has to wonder are we losing Advent?

First Things has a terrific piece on the subject here. And, in the spirit of Advent, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has dedicated a web site to Advent that offers a number of terrific ways to prepare for the coming of Our Lord, and Our Sunday Visitor proposes some things we can do with our families to, at least in some small way, bring back the true spirit of Advent.