A Leap Of Faith

By Semperpapa

The subject of religion is one I purposely steer clear from, as I consider faith as being an extremely personal human endeavor, but I will make an exception for once.

As a Catholic, I try to adhere to the teachings of my faith and my Church, but there are times when the actions of the Church leave me no choice but to dissent. These are the times that remind me that after all, the high echelons of the Church are nothing more than human beings with specific ideologies and agendas.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has come out in opposition to the Obamacare debacle on the basis that the bill would have federal money be used for the performance of abortions.
As much as I share the view of the USCCB, I find it extremely ingenuous for the leadership of the Catholic Church in America to come out and now voice some sort of a unified front against those who are fervent proponents of the murder of innocent lives.

In the Presidential elections of 2008, 54% of Catholics voted for Obama, together with a majority from other faiths, including Jewish.
And at the time ramping up to the elections, the fact that Obama supported abortion under all circumstances, including the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion, did not appear to create an ideological obstacle for Catholic voters, nor for the leadership of the Church. More concerned with following the ideology of what they labeled “human justice” that the Obama machine succeeded in portraying, I cannot remember nor find any instance where the USCCB had the conviction to come out denouncing candidate Obama.

Obama catholic supporters at the time combated the criticism by stating that their support for Obama, or any candidate for that matter, could not be based on a single issue decision, that it was the totality of the candidate that counted. What a crock!

Even if we want to accept those premises, and I do not, one should ask which part of Obama agenda Catholics felt it was a good fit for their so-called religious beliefs.
Besides the abortion issue, was it the redistribution of wealth that attracted the faithful? Was it the stand on the war on terrorism? Was it the radical communist agenda?

I am just as incensed about it now, reading about the USCCB statement against Obamacare, as I was then.

I can remember when in 2009 some illegal immigrant woman sought sanctuary in a Catholic Church, I believe in San Francisco. The priest and his higher ups allowed that to happen. They allowed someone who had broken a federal law to circumvent it under the protection of the Church. In that case, my decision would have been clear and swift, as I would have had ICE officers just go into the church and arrest the woman. And my decision would be the same if it was a Mosque or a Synagogue, for if the country allows the breaking of the law to go unpunished under the banner of religious protection, than a huge can of worms may be opened.
Then terrorists could not be apprehended if they sought refuge in a church, or robbers or rapists.
And spare me the accusation of comparing illegal immigrants to terrorists and rapists.
Breaking the law is just that! If someone’s actions go against the law of the land, if they are listed as an offense against society by the Penal Code, they are illegal actions and therefore punishable.
The gravity of the offense and the proper punishment is determined by the courts. The enforcement of the law is determined by law enforcement.

One of the attractions the United States represented for me was the clear demarcation between lawful and illegal. But that demarcation line has gotten so completely blurred that law enforcement officials appear to be shooting at a fast moving target, and even when they hit the target, there is always a lawyer or a judge ready to shift the culpability from the crime perpetrator over to the victim or the system.

The actions of Obama and Co. for the last year have been a typical example of radicalism wanting to overturn everything our Founding Fathers had created, radicalism disregarding the law and the US Constitution. The hypocrisy of the USCCB in opposing Obamacare when they supported the election of Obama just leaves me utterly disgusted.

Just my thoughts!