America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President

David Barton - 02/29/2012
When one observes President Obama’s unwillingness to accommodate America’s four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions.

Listed below in chronological order are (1) numerous records of his attacks on Biblical persons or organizations; (2) examples of the hostility toward Biblical faith that have become evident in the past three years in the Obama-led military; (3) a listing of his open attacks on Biblical values; and finally (4) a listing of numerous incidents of his preferential deference for Islam’s activities and positions, including letting his Islamic advisors guide and influence his hostility toward people of Biblical faith.
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I Have a Say: Father John Hollowell

Another great video! This priest is bold. I like it.

HHS mandate threatens Little Sisters of the Poor elder care

By Kevin J. Jones

The Little Sisters of the Poor say the HHS contraception and sterilization mandate threatens their continued ministry to the impoverished elderly. They are “strongly objecting” to the federal rule and say it should be repealed as soon as possible.

“Because the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot in conscience directly provide or collaborate in the provision of services that conflict with Church teaching, we find ourselves in the irreconcilable situation of being forced to either stop serving and employing people of all faiths in our ministry – so that we will fall under the narrow exemption – or to stop providing health care coverage to our employees,” the order said on March 1.

“Either path threatens to end our service to the elderly in America. The Little Sisters are fervently praying that this issue will be resolved before we are forced to take concrete action in response to this unjust mandate.”

Their order serves 13,000 needy elderly of all faiths in 31 countries around the world. In the U.S., it has 30 homes for the elderly, accommodating 2,500 low-income seniors.
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The Obama Abomination

by Tim Huelskamp
When President Obama took the oath of office three years ago, he swore to defend the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of all Americans. There were no asterisks denoting exceptions for health care providers, religious employers, service members, or military chaplains. More than three years later, his inaugural words fail to match his actions and those of his administration.

President Obama gave America a preview of his warpath against organized religion and people of faith when he undid parts of a President Bush Executive Order protecting health care providers from being required to perform, participate in, or provide a medical procedure with which they had religious or moral objection.

But in the past month alone the Obama Administration has gone guns-a-blazing, full-force against both religion and the Constitution.

First, President Obama and his “Catholic” Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius finalized a rule that will require Catholic employers to cover and pay for contraception – including abortion drugs – and sterilization. The fact that the Catholic teaching excludes artificial contraception or abortion matters not a single bit to President Obama. HHS argued that a one-year exemption is all religious organizations need in order to comply with this law. What President Obama and Secretary Sebelius do not get is that religious organizations and people of faith do not need time to renounce their faith; they need their First Amendment views to be protected.

Second, President Obama’s Secretary of the Army – a political appointee – silenced Catholic chaplains from speaking out against this HHS rule attacking religious freedom. If you are Catholic you heard in your Sunday Mass a message from your Bishop that “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.” But not if you were serving in the military defending the freedoms of other Americans. Instead, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains attempted to censor the reading of the letter from Archbishop of Military Services Timothy Broglio. After a conversation between Archbishop Broglio and Army Secretary McHugh, it was decided that line would be eliminated.

Non-Catholics, those not in the military, and even those who support the use of abortion drugs and contraception should take offense at and be outraged by the actions of the Obama Administration. It could just as easily be something other than sterilization or abortion drugs next time. This HHS rule requiring religious entities to act in contravention of their teachings is a clear violation of their rights to exercise freely their religions. The gag order on Catholic chaplains amounts to an obvious violation of free speech. Who or what is next?

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Epic Video of Priest Denouncing HHS Mandate

You have got to watch this!

Coming Soon: No More Catholic Hospitals and Free Abortion-Inducing Drugs!

Another look at the HHS mandate's ramifications.

by EWTN NEWS 03/08/2012
In a March 1 column in The Fiscal Times, political analyst Edward Morrissey said that if the mandate succeeds in shutting down Catholic hospitals and health-care institutions, it will “create a disaster for the delivery of health care in the country and rapidly escalate the public costs of health care.”

“Thanks to the economic models of these hospitals, no one will rush to buy them,” he explained. “Over 120,000 beds would disappear from an already-stressed system.”

The U.S. bishops have remained united and steadfast in their opposition to a mandate that was recently introduced by the Obama administration to require employers to offer health-care plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago recently warned that the archdiocese would shut down its institutions, including schools, hospitals and charitable organizations, rather than violating its core principles.

Morrissey observed that the Catholic Church runs “perhaps the most extensive private health-care delivery system in the nation.”

According to the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the Church operates 12.6% of U.S. hospitals and accounts for 15.6% of hospital admissions and 14.5% of all hospital expenses. In 2010, these expenses added up to $98.6 billion.

Additionally, more than 400 health centers and 1,500 specialized homes are operated by the Catholic Church.

If Catholic hospitals cease to exist, Morrissey explained, many patients would have to turn to institutions run by state and federal governments, which operate less efficiently, in order to receive important services. Wait times would increase significantly, and patients may not receive the same care they currently do.
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'A Critical Role to Play'

I just read the address of Pope Benedict XVI to the American bishops on January 19, 2012 - the day before the HHS mandate was issued. You make some excellent points Your Holiness!

The Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel that not only proposes unchanging moral truths, but also proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering. To the extent that some current cultural trends contain elements that would curtail the proclamation of these truths, whether constricting it within the limits of a merely scientific rationality or suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule, they represent a threat not just to Christian faith, but also to humanity itself and to the deepest truth about our being and ultimate vocation, our relationship to God.

The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a “language” that enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint, but of liberation.

The legitimate separation of Church and state cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the state may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values that will shape the future of the nation.

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States comes to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.

Here, we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism.

Respect for the just autonomy of the secular sphere must also take into consideration the truth that there is no realm of worldly affairs that can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion. There can be no doubt that a more consistent witness on the part of America’s Catholics to their deepest convictions would make a major contribution to the renewal of society as a whole.

(This next quote is my favorite part!)

We can take heart from the promise offered by a new generation of Catholics whose experience and convictions will have a decisive role in renewing the Church’s presence and witness in American society. - He's talking about us!

View the complete address

Upcoming Meeting

The next meeting for the High Plains Freedom Coalition will be Tuesday, March 13, at 7:00pm at the the Southwest Branch Library. The library is on 45th between Coulter & Bell.

The purpose of this meeting will be to formalize an action plan that will help us raise awareness in the community about the attacks on religious freedom posed by the Obama Administration's mandate issued through the HHS. This action plan will be designed to work in support of our local religious leaders who are engaged in this battle.

Everyone who is interested in joining in these efforts is welcome. Feel free to invite those that may not be aware of the High Plains Freedom Coalition and its mission.

I will send out an email with more details. If you would like to be included in emails from the High Plains Freedom Coalition, just send an email to highplainsfreedom@gmail.com.

Franklin Graham would ‘break the law’

Franklin Graham has said if the government passes an edict forcing him to hire employees who do not share his Christian outlook, he will “break the law.”

In an interview with NewsMax senior editor David Patten in February, Graham said, “What I’m concerned about as a faith-based organization is that I’m going to be forced to hire people that are not of my faith, or don’t have the same values that I have.”

Graham worried the parachurch organizations with which he is affiliated, Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, will someday be compelled to hire people who do not share their faith.

“Frankly, I think every Christian out there should be concerned that we will be forced to bring people into our organizations, and put them on our payrolls, when we know that they are opposed to everything that we stand for and believe,” he added.

“I guess at that point, I would just have to break the law and take it all the way to the Supreme Court and fight it if I have to.”

Graham voiced his concern over the HHS mandate to provide abortion-inducing drugs to the employees of religious organizations. “I don’t believe the compromise is a true compromise,” he said. “You’re still paying for it, but it’s going to be paid for now through the insurance carrier, who is then going to charge you.”

He worried forcing Catholics to pay for contraception was the beginning of a larger effort to suppress religious liberties in the name of fighting “discrimination.”

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Cardinal Dolan: White House Lectured My USCCB Staff On How to Interpret Catholic Teaching!

by Thomas Peters

"At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.” Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America. The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers." - Cardinal Dolan

Let’s break this down so we don’t miss anything about the context or gravity of the situation:

1. This meeting was prompted because the White House decided to curtail and violate the religious freedom of the Catholic Church and individual Catholics.

2. The White House refused to consult with Catholic bishops while originally formulating and issuing this mandate. President Obama misled Cardinal Dolan when he promised the Cardinal he would be happy with the White House’s final decision.

3. The White House has continually lied about and misrepresented the opinion and position of the U.S. Bishops in this process (claiming, for instance, that they were always against Obamacare and that Catholic Charities USA supported their false accomodation). They have continued to act in bad faith.

4. The White House has also chosen to ally itself with liberal, left-wing Catholic dissenters like Sr. Carol Keehan throughout this process, thereby snubbing the U.S. Bishops and all faithful Catholics.

(Are you still there? Because now it gets really good….)

5. After all of this, when the White House finally gets around to inviting staff authorized by the USCCB to negotiate on behalf of them, the White House says what to them?! First, they issue an ultimatum saying all compromise is off the table. So what on earth are they supposed to talk about if the White House refuses from the outset to compromise in any way, shape, or form? The cynical answer is the White House, once again, simply wanted to establish the appearance of dialogue while offering zero substance.

6. Then, the White House proceeds to lecture the USCCB staff about how to interpret Catholic teaching! Can you imagine anything more offensive? Telling Catholics how to be Catholic? They show them a copy of the America editorial as if a) the staff has not already read it and b) the U.S. Bishops give a fig what the editors of America think.

7. Let’s read Cardinal Dolan’s line again:

The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

In other words, what we have here is NOT a failure to communicate. What we have here is an Administration and White House officials who believe they know Catholic teaching better than us. And who have the hubris to lecture us about what our faith teaches.
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