Comments for This Is War at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 16 out of 16 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 18:32:58 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10356 Control yourself Sigmund: Your post violates the expressed intention at the bottom of the web site for "intelligent, Catholic commentary." On a purely secular political note, better to refrain from sanctimony about the preference for novelties like HHS regulations which contradict the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. - Chris in Maryland Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:24:47 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10350 Memo to Catholic hospitals: Please close and sell your assets to those who will follow the law on employment benefits rather than attempt to impose Catholic dogma on its employees under the guise of "freedom of religion". Also, it would be great to have more hospitals that would serve all the people in the community including women who need contraception and abortion services. Whenever a Catholic hospital merges with or takes over a secular hospital, there is always a serious justifiable fear among most women in the community that they will be cut off from services that they need and deserve to have available. Catholic hospitals are an anarchronism that should be eliminated. - Sigmund Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:26:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10331 Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle . . . - Randall Peaslee Sat, 10 Mar 2012 09:25:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10329 DaveinAlaska gets it. Secular progressives violently hate religious conservatives and they are willing to engage in massive amounts of lying and disinformation in order to score a political victory against them. They are not good will participants in a policy debate; they are part of an active campaign to achieve cultural hegemony by any means available. They will say or do anything to defeat the religious conservatives that they so passionately hate and fear. We know all to well that there is no effort to roll back access to contraception; they are just engaging in bald-faced lying in order to whip up paranoia and fear of religion among the secular population. It is not fun to acknowledge, but the writing is on the wall. We are now in the opening stages of an undeclared civil war. - Porphyry Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:07:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10327 Last October at NARAL's 17th Annual Power of Choice convention, held in Chicago, Secretary Sebelius said, "we are in a war," after announcing that the GOP wanted to "roll back 50 years of progress." An Administration official declared a state of war against those who do not share its progressive policies. Let those words sink in. It behooves us all to google the event, read the speech, and engrave those words on our hearts and minds. We did not choose this war, which has been raging for more than fifty years by the way, and we did nothing to merit the brazen attack against religious liberty occasioned by the Mandate: the bishops thought, naively but in good faith, that the promises the President made at Notre Dame would hold true. We have to note, too, the Administration's insistence that the only possible outcome is total capitulation. So this is not only war: this is total war, in which one position or the other will win completely and unconditionally. We have the Lord's assurance of victory, in the end, and his promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church; but we also have his word that what they did to him, they will do to his disciples. And so this Lent we should make careful interior preparation for what lies ahead. Much will be required of us. - Dave Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:03:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10325 Close Catholic hospitals and colleges!!!! YIKES! That is what they want! That is music to their ears. Closing Catholic elementary and secondary schools was a goal of the Blaine amendment and in many cases it succeeded. My heart stops when I hear some bishops threaten to close our Catholic institutions. What we should hear is that they are willing to be like Christ and die for what is right! Spend time in jail if they must! Put their life on the line! That would get attention and show they are serious! Since when in war does a soldier hint at giving the enemy what they want before the battle begins? It is time for the men of the Church to be who Christ called them to be. We desperately need Christian men who are willing to die to save their people. If the Bishops and priests can't stand up for the Church and be willing to die, how can they expect men at home to defend their family, the domestic Church? The Bishops must lead the charge by their example. - Liz Sat, 10 Mar 2012 03:54:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10318 "I tell you — it's no use arguing with a Communist. It's no good trying to convert a Communist or persuade him. You can only deal with him on the following basis... you can only do it by having superior force on your side on the matter in question — and they must also be convinced that you will use — you will not hesitate to use — those forces, if necessary, in the most ruthless manner. You have not only to convince the [American] Government that you have a superior force — that they are confronted by superior force — but that you are not restrained by any moral consideration, if the case arose, from using that force with complete material ruthlessness. And that is the greatest chance of peace, the surest road to peace." - Winston Churchill, speech, New York, March 25, 1949. - Winnie Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:50:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10317 @Walt J.: Have you heard of the SCOTUS cases "Roe v. Wade" and "Doe v. Bolton"? I believe that these Supreme Court decisions effectively state a woman's right to contraception. This left open the question of whether a state could limit this to adult women - Should a twelve-year old girl be able to buy them? Certainly ABC's George Stephanopolous, a former White House Clinton staffer, deserves major credit for introducing this issue into the Republican primary campaigns. TeaPot562 - TeaPot562 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:32:59 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10313 Good article and three words tip us off to the message: Berkley, Liberty and Georgetown. Is it any wonder that the friends of this presidential administration run to this university to have liberal anti-catholic conferences? Sullivan, Fluke et al. Georgetown has closer ties with Sabellius than with Pope Benedict XVI. - Fr Eric Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:52:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10311 You are far too kind, or not "getting it" if you think Sullivan is simply mis-informed. There is an outright attempt to create confusion and thus victory for the left in these battles. It is called deceit and it's done on purpose. Call a spade a spade and more people will be interested in defending the direct attacks on liberty when they don't mistakenly grant the left a pass as being innocently misinformed, but understand these are purposeful lies to keep people confused and uninvolved. It's the art of deception in war and they are using it successfully. Casey in Alaska - CaseyinAlaska Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:28:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10307 Re: "To be fair, she did criticize the feminist left for using similar language about a war on women’s rights. But certainly one can still be right and one can be wrong. This is hardly a war on women’s rights. Nothing prevents women from getting contraception." I cannot find any place where there is prescribed a womens right to contraception. Help me out on that one - Walt J. Fri, 09 Mar 2012 05:22:11 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10306 What a Grand Canyon there is between a Christian liberal, like Stephen Carter, and a secular leftist, like Kathleen Sebelius! God bless him -- he does good work. - Tony Esolen Fri, 09 Mar 2012 04:58:17 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10305 Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter has written eloquently about the so-called "Wall of Separation" between Church and State. I recently emailed him with some laudatory comments about his main argument, made in his 1993 book, "The Culture of Disbelief," in which he states that the Establishment Clause is designed to protect religion from the state and not the state from religion. In discussing the "wall of separation" he also mentioned the "Founders' vision" and the need for a "few doors" in that wall. Professor Carter was kind enough to refer me to a recent column he wrote for Bloomberg, an excerpt which follows: "Although the provenance of the wall of separation stretches well back in Protestant theology, it was popularized in the New World by the Baptist preacher Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who wrote of the garden and the wilderness, separated by a high hedge wall. The garden was the place where God’s people worked together to understand what the Lord required of them. They were protected from the encroaching wilderness by that hedge wall. "That is the point: The wall protects the garden from the wilderness, not the other way around. With time, it is true, we have come to see the wall constraining church as well as state, and we as a nation are better for that understanding. But we should not, in our historical confusion, imagine that the wall was ever meant to hold back only the church, with the state free to breach at whim." In a response by email, Professor Carter thanked me for my comments and added, "I will be delivering an address on the topic at Catholic University in April. Interestingly, I also warned years ago that this issue would one day arise. I believe that was in a talk at DePaul back in the 1990s." - Grump Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:57:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10304 Excellent column, Austin. But I would quibble about the Blaine Amendments. For the reasons you give, the state Blaine Amendments are less outrageous than the HHS mandate, but it's important to recognize that the Blaine movement was and is far more successful than you indicate. These amendments passed in a large majority of states and are still law in 37 states, where they gravely hinder increased school choice and also charitable work by religious groups. See www.BlaineAmendments.org for details. These amendments have long been fought in the courts by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which now represents the Catholic and Protestant groups suing the federal government over the HHS mandate. For Becket's most important current lawsuit against a Blaine amendment, the Becket Fund website. - Scott Walter Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:56:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10303 It is! And while you may not be interested in this war, it is interested in you. - Other Joe Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:59:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/this-is-war.html#comment-10302 In war, the first casualty is the truth. For the Church, it cannot become a casualty as a result of self inflicted winds. Let the other side make that mistake. - Frank Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:29:43 +0100