Kelly Shakelford in Amarillo!

Check out this video of Kelly Shakelford at a Religious Freedom Rally in Fort Worth. 

Mr. Shakelford is the President & CEO of Liberty Institute, an influential non-profit law firm, dedicated to defending and restoring religious liberty across America. Mr. Shakelford  will be in Amarillo on Saturday, Sept. 8th. to discuss religious liberty and cases now pending related to defending Christian faiths. 

The program will be held at the Happy State Bank Auditorium from 1:00pm to 2:00pm. Make plans to attend if you can.

Obamacare Mandate: Sterilize 15-Year-Old Girls for Free--Without Parental Consent

By Sabrina Gladstone

August 10, 2012

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the White House on March 23, 2010, the day Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (White House Photo/Pete Souza)

(CNSNews.com) - Thanks to an Obamacare regulation that took effect on Aug. 1, health care plans in Oregon will now be required to provide free sterilizations to 15- year-old girls even if the parents of those girls do not consent to the procedure.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized the regulation earlier this year.

It says that all health care plans in the United States--except those provided by actual houses of worship organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code reserved for churches per se--must provide coverage, without cost-sharing, for sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives to “all women with reproductive capacity.”

In practical terms, "all women with reproductive capacity" means girls as young as about 12. That, according to the National Institutes of Health, is when girls usually start menstruating.

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--a.k.a. Obamacare--was enacted in March 2010 it included (in Section 2713) a non-specific requirement that health care plans must provide "additional preventive services" to women. These unspecified "additional preventive services," the law said, were to be "provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration," a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In developing the regulation to define these "additional preventive services," HHS commissioned a federally funded committee at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to recommend what they should to be.

In July 2011, this committee issued a report that said: “The committee recommends for consideration as a preventive service for women: the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity.”

White House staff toast Obama on the Truman Balcony early on March 22, 2010, after PPACA had passed Congress. (White House Photo/Pete Souza)

The committee report said that “with reproductive capacity” meant “from the time of menarche to menopause.” Menarche is the beginning of menstruation--again, on average, about the age of 12 for American women.

On Aug. 1, 2011, HHS announced that it was adopting the IOM committee's recommendation almost verbatim. In fact, it added just one word--placing "all" in front of "women with reproductive capacity."

Thus, the regulation issued by the Health Resources and Services Administration said: "Non-grandfathered plans and issuers are required to provide coverage without cost-sharing consistent with these guidelines in the first plan year (in the individual market, policy year) that begins on or after August 1, 2012. ... All Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity."

HHS said nothing about restricting the provision of these free "preventive services" to women who were 18 or older, or 21 or older, or even 15 or older. The regulation simply said "all women with reproductive capacity."

However, states have varying laws on the age of consent. CNSNews.com took a look at Oregon and its rule of consent for sterilization--one of the free services required by the Obama administration's regulation.

President Barack Obama fist pumps with a health-care professional at the White House on March 3, 2010. (White House Photo/Pete Souza)

In Oregon, the age of informed consent is 15, and the law and rules on sterilization are detailed in theOregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 436.205 to 436.335.

Under Oregon law, girls from 15 years of age and up are given complete control over whether to be sterilized or not. The parents or guardians of a minor girl--between 15 and 18--can neither grant nor deny consent for a sterilization.

The Oregon law says: "'Informed consent' means consent given by an individual 15 years of age or older for sterilization that is: (a) Based upon a full understanding of the nature and consequences of sterilization pursuant to information requirements set forth in ORS 436.225(1); (b) Given by an individual competent to make such a decision; and (c) Wholly voluntary and free from coercion, express or implied."

Oregon defines "sterilization" as "any medical procedure, treatment or operation for the purpose of rendering an individual permanently incapable of procreating."

The Oregon Health Authority has created a special consent form called "Ages 15-20 Consent to Sterilization."

"When I first asked for the information, I was told that the decision to be sterilized is completely up to me," says this Oregon form for 15-year-old children. "I was told that I could decide not to be sterilized."

"I understand that the sterilization must be considered permanent and not reversible," says this consent form. "I have decided that I do not want to become pregnant, bear children or father children."

The consent form even includes a section that can be signed by an interpreter, in case a 15-year-old child being sterilized by their own consent in Oregon is incapable of understanding English.

This section says: "If an interpreter is provided to assist the individual to be sterilized: I have translated the information and advice presented orally to the individual to be sterilized by the person obtaining this consent." After specifying what language the interpreter used to explain the sterilization to the child, the form asks the interpreter to stipulate: "To the best of my knowledge and belief he/she understood this explanation."

Additionally, the Oregon government makes the consent form available in Spanish--"15-20 anos Consentimiento para esterilizacion."

CNSNews.com specifically asked the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) by e-mail, “What is the legal age of consent to sterilization in Oregon?”

The OHA media contact, Christine Stone, replied, “In Oregon, the legal age for consent for sterilization is 15 years.”

Because the provision for coverage of sterilization under Obamacare applies to “all women of reproductive capacity,” which means girls younger than 15, CNSNews.com followed up with the OHA, asking, “What is the rule regarding 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old girls who want to be sterilized?”

Stone said she could not provide any information other than what is cited in the Oregon statute.

However, a handbook published by Disabilty Rights Oregon states that the law governing sterilization “prohibits the sterilization of children younger than 15, and mandates that a parent, guardian or conservator may not give consent for sterilization of a minor child or protected person. The law allows a person who is 15 or older to consent to be sterilized. But if a person is not capable of giving ‘informed consent,’ sterilization cannot proceed until age 18, and then only in limited circumstances as determined by court order.”(Handbook: DRO-Sterilization_Handbook(2).pdf)

CNSNew.som also contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and asked, “Can you confirm that under this regulation a girl as young as 12 must be offered the opportunity to obtain a sterilization free of charge?”

In addition, CNSNews.com asked the HHS, “In Oregon, the age of consent for a sterilization procedure is 15 years or older. Can you confirm that under this regulation, a 15-year-old girl can obtain a sterilization free of charge?”

After following up with multiple phone calls and e-mails, CNSNews.com was told by the HHS office of the secretary that there was no one available to answer these questions.

At a pen-and-pad meeting with reporters in late March at the U.S. Capitol, CNSNews.com asked House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), “The administration has approved a regulation under Obamacare that says, quote, ‘all women with reproductive capacity,’ end quote, must be offered free sterilization--”

Hoyer then interrupted, saying, “How is that related to a pre-existing condition?”

CNSNews.com continued, “--hold on--free sterilization in their health care plans. Do you support the mandate for free sterilization for college-age women?”

Hoyer expressed surprise, stating, “Free sterilization? I don’t know anything about free sterilization. I don’t know anything about that. I’m sorry. The answer is, I don’t. But I don’t think anybody is proposing that.”

At a press conference in mid-July, which specifically focused on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), CNSNews.com attempted to ask House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) whether she supported the HHS regulation insofar as it extends to teens and college-age women. Pelosi, however, cut the question off before it could be completed.

CNSNews.com asked Pelosi, “You mentioned the preventive services mandate. One of the services that health care plans have to offer free of charge are sterilizations. And I was wondering do you agree with the federal government mandating—”

Pelosi said: “You know what, I told you before, let’s go to church and talk about our religion—"

CNSNews.com asked: “No, no, but it’s—"

Pelosi said: “Right here we’re talking about public policy as it affects women and we’re not, you know that this bill is—"

CNSNews.com asked: “No, it has nothing to do with the religious views but do you—"

Pelosi said: “No, it does.”

CNSNews.com: “--agree that the federal government should be mandating—"

Pelosi: “I believe that the legislation to allow women to determine the size and timing of their families and have access--"

CNSNews.com: “--even for---”

Pelosi: “--to contraception. Next question.”

In another instance on Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Pelosi, "Do you support the regulation taking affect August 1 requiring all health plans to cover free sterilizations for teenage girls?"

Pelosi said, "I don't subsribe to your characterization of it," and then moved on to ther questions.

Also, in late July, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), “The HHS preventive services mandate requires all health plans to offer free sterilizations, including to girls in their teens. Do you support the mandate as it applies to teens?”

At that point, Rep. Schakowsky started to walk away without answering but, while walking, she said, “I don’t--I’m unaware that it says that sterilization including teens is in that. I’ll check that out.”

“I will check that out,” she said.

CNSNews.com then followed up, “It says all women of ‘reproductive capacity,’ and it defines it as from menarche to menopause.”

“I’ll check that out,” she said.

Edwin Black, author of War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, told CNSnews.com: “I find it abhorrent that a 15-year-old girl who is not old enough to consent to sexual activity, who is not old enough to consent to buying a beer, who is not old enough to drive herself to the hospital could possibly be considered old enough and mature enough to give informed consent for her own sterilization. And the most vulnerable of these girls will be those who are wards of the state who are presented a piece of paper and told ‘sign here,’  as they were in Virginia and California.”

“Right now, when our country is considering compensation, such as in North Carolina for sterilization victims [and] states are hopping on the bandwagon to issue formal apologies … is not the time to reverse years of awareness and dive back into state-sponsored sterilization,” said Black.

“The decades of genocidal sterilization are filled with numerous examples of fake consent forms being executed by young women who were being pressured by the state into sterilization.”

The IOM committee that recommended mandating coverage for free sterilizations to all "women with reproductive capacity" specifically argued that getting rid of cost-sharing requirements would lift a major barrier to what it considered more effective, long-lasting methods of contraception such as sterilization.

“In a study of the cost-effectiveness of specific contraceptive methods, all contraceptive methods were found to be more cost-effective than no method, and the most cost-effective methods were long-acting contraceptives that do not rely on user compliance," said the IOM committee's report.

"The most common contraceptive methods used in the United States are the oral contraceptive pill and female sterilization," said the report. "It is thought that greater use of long-acting, reversible contraceptive methods—including intrauterine devices and contraceptive implants that require less action by the woman and therefore have lower use failure rates—might help further reduce unintended pregnancy rates. Cost barriers to use of the most effective contraceptive methods are important because long-acting, reversible contraceptive methods and sterilization have high up-front costs.”

"The elimination of cost sharing for contraception therefore could greatly increase its use, including use of the more effective and longer-acting methods, especially among poor and low-income women most at risk for unintended pregnancy," said this report recommending free sterilization coverage for all women who could conceive a child.

"A recent study conducted by Kaiser Permanente found that when out-of-pocket costs for contraceptives were eliminated or reduced, women were more likely to rely on more effective long-acting contraceptive methods," said the report.

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Inter-Faith Prayer Service - August 23rd

Below is a letter from Arena of Life Pastor John Shattuck inviting everyone to the next Inter-Faith Prayer Service for Religious Freedom. Please plan to attend if you are able. God is doing wonderful things in our country and our city. 

August 13, 2012

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

          We are pleased to be able to host the third in a series of city wide prayer services aimed primarily to unite in prayer for our common concerns. We want to extend an invitation for you and your church members to attend.

          The first two were extremely successful as we gathered at St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral and again at Trinity Fellowship. Hundreds of people from many different churches came together and called upon the Lord in Unity. Many left there with a feeling of renewed hope for our city and our country.

          These are troubled times we are living in and God is calling His people to prayer. He said in 2 Chron. 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” As we come together in unity to pray for our city and nation, we believe we will experience God‘s blessings and see answers to those prayers.

          Please join us at Arena of Life Church, Loop 335 and South Washington, at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday August 23^rd.  Lets join forces, unite in prayer, and see God’s hand at work.

Blessings,

John Shattuck

Executive Pastor

Arena of Life Church      

Building a Culture of Religious Freedom

• CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. CAP.

A friend of mine, a political scientist, recently posed two very good questions. They go right to the heart of our discussion today. He wondered, first, if the religious freedom debate had “crossed a Rubicon” in our country’s political life. And second, he asked if Catholic bishops now found themselves opposed–in a new and fundamental way–to the spirit of American society.


We should begin by recalling that even at the height of anti-Catholic bigotry, Catholics have always served our country with distinction. More than eighty Catholic chaplains died in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. All four chaplains who won the Medal of Honor in those wars were Catholic priests.

Time and again, Catholics have proven their love of our nation with their talent, hard work, and blood. So if the bishops of the United States ever find themselves opposed, in a fundamental way, to the spirit of our country, the fault won’t lie with our bishops. It will lie with political and cultural leaders who turned our country into something it was never meant to be.

That said, let’s turn to my friend’s first question. The Rubicon is a river in northern Italy. It’s small and forgettable, except for one thing. During the Roman Republic, it marked a border. To the south lay Italy, ruled directly by the Roman Senate. To the north lay Gaul, ruled by a governor. Under Roman law, no general could enter Italy with an army. Doing so carried the death penalty. In 49 BC, when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his Thirteenth Legion and marched on Rome, he triggered a civil war and changed the course of history. Ever since then, “crossing the Rubicon” has meant passing a point of no return.

Caesar’s march on Rome is a very long way from our nation’s current disputes over religious liberty. But “crossing the Rubicon” is still a useful image. My friend’s point is this: Have we, in fact, crossed a border in our country’s history–the line between a religion-friendly past, and an emerging America much less welcoming to Christian faith and witness?

Let me describe the nation we were, and the nation we’re becoming. Then you can judge for yourselves.

People often argue about whether America’s Founders were mainly Christian, mainly Deist, or both of the above. It’s a reasonable debate. It won’t end any time soon. But no one can reasonably dispute that the Founders’ moral framework was overwhelmingly shaped by Christian faith. And that makes sense because America was largely built by Christians. The world of the American Founders was heavily Christian, and they saw the value of publicly engaged religious faith because they experienced its influence themselves. They created a nation designed in advance to depend on the moral convictions of religious believers, and to welcome their active role in public life.

The Founders also knew that religion is not just a matter of private conviction. It can’t be reduced to personal prayer or Sunday worship. It has social implications. The Founders welcomed those implications. Christian faith demands preaching, teaching, public witness, and service to others–by each of us alone, and by acting in cooperation with fellow believers. As a result, religious freedom is never just freedom from repression but also–and more importantly–freedom for active discipleship. It includes the right of religious believers, leaders, and communities to engage society and to work actively in the public square. For the first 160 years of the republic, cooperation between government and religious entities was the norm in addressing America’s social problems. And that brings us to our country’s current situation.

Americans have always been a religious people. They still are. Roughly 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christians. Millions of Americans take their faith seriously. Millions act on it accordingly. Religious practice remains high. That’s the good news. But there’s also bad news. In our courts, in our lawmaking, in our popular entertainment, and even in the way many of us live our daily lives, America is steadily growing more secular. Mainline churches are losing ground. Many of our young people spurn Christianity. Many of our young adults lack any coherent moral formation. Even many Christians who do practice their religion follow a kind of easy, self-designed gospel that led author Ross Douthat to call us a “nation of heretics.”¹ Taken together, these facts suggest an American future very different from anything in our nation’s past.

There’s more. Contempt for religious faith has been growing in America’s leadership classes for many decades, as scholars such as Christian Smith and Christopher Lasch have shown.² But in recent years, government pressure on religious entities has become a pattern, and it goes well beyond the current administration’s Health and Human Services mandate. It involves interfering with the conscience rights of medical providers, private employers, and individual citizens. And it includes attacks on the policies, hiring practices, and tax statuses of religious charities, hospitals, and other ministries. These attacks are real. They’re happening now. And they’ll get worse as America’s religious character weakens.

This trend is more than sad. It’s dangerous. Our political system presumes a civil society that pre-exists and stands outside the full control of the state. In the American model, the state is meant to be modest in scope and constrained by checks and balances. Mediating institutions such as the family, churches, and fraternal organizations feed the life of the civic community. They stand between the individual and the state. And when they decline, the state fills the vacuum they leave. Protecting these mediating institutions is therefore vital to our political freedom. The state rarely fears individuals, because alone, individuals have little power. They can be isolated or ignored. But organized communities are a different matter. They can resist. And they can’t be ignored.

This is why, for example, if you want to rewrite the American story into a different kind of social experiment, the Catholic Church is such an annoying problem. She’s a very big community. She has strong beliefs. And she has an authority structure that’s very hard to break–the kind that seems to survive every prejudice and persecution, and even the worst sins of her own leaders. Critics of the Church have attacked America’s bishops so bitterly, for so long, over so many different issues–including the abuse scandal, but by no means limited to it–for very practical reasons. If a wedge can be driven between the pastors of the Church and her people, then a strong Catholic witness on controversial issues breaks down into much weaker groups of discordant voices.

Having said all this, the title of my comments is “building a culture of religious freedom.” So how do we do that?


We can start by changing the way we habitually think. Democracy is not an end in itself. Majority opinion does not determine what is good and true. Like every other form of social organization and power, democracy can become a form of repression and idolatry. The problems we now face in our country didn’t happen overnight. They’ve been growing for decades, and they have moral roots. America’s bishops named the exile of God from public consciousness as “the root of the world’s travail today” nearly sixty-five years ago. And they accurately predicted the effects of a life without God on the individual, the family, education, economic activity, and the international community.³Obviously, too few people listened.

We also need to change the way we act. We need to understand that we can’t quick-fix our way out of problems we behaved ourselves into. Catholics have done very well in the United States. As I said earlier, most of us have a deep love for our country, its freedoms, and its best ideals. But this is not our final home. There is no automatic harmony between Christian faith and American democracy. The eagerness of Catholics to push their way into our country’s mainstream over the past half century, to climb the ladder of social and economic success, has done very little to Christianize American culture. But it’s done a great deal to weaken the power of our Catholic witness.

In the words of scholar Robert Kraynak, democracy–for all of its strengths–also “has within it the potential for its own kind of ‘social tyranny.’” The reason is simple. Democracy advances “the forces of mass culture which lower the tone of society . . . by lowering the aims of life from classical beauty, heroic virtues and otherworldly transcendence to the pursuits of work, material consumption and entertainment.” This inevitably tends to “[reduce] human life to a one-dimensional materialism and [an] animal existence that undermines human dignity and eventually leads to the ‘abolition of man.’”⁴

To put it another way: The right to pursue happiness does not include a right to excuse or ignore evil in ourselves or anyone else. When we divorce our politics from a grounding in virtue and truth, we transform our country from a living moral organism into a kind of golem of legal machinery without a soul.

Credit: Dominic Benintende/Wyoming Tribune Eagle

This is why working for good laws is so important. This is why getting involved politically is so urgent. This is why every one of our votes matters. We need to elect the best public leaders, who then create the best policies and appoint the best judges. This has a huge impact on the kind of nation we become.

Democracies depend for their survival on people of conviction fighting for what they believe in the public square–legally and peacefully, but zealously and without apologies. That includes you and me.
Critics often accuse faithful Christians of pursuing a “culture war” on issues such as abortion, sexuality, marriage and the family, and religious liberty. And in a sense, they’re right. We are fighting for what we believe. But of course, so are advocates on the other side of all these issues–and neither they nor we should feel uneasy about it. Democracy thrives on the struggle of competing ideas. We steal from ourselves and from everyone else if we try to avoid that struggle. In fact, two of the worst qualities in any human being are cowardice and acedia–and by acedia I mean the kind of moral sloth that masquerades as “tolerance” and leaves a human soul so empty of courage and character that even the devil Screwtape would spit it out.⁵


In real life, democracy is built on two practical pillars: cooperation and conflict. It requires both. Cooperation, because people have a natural hunger for solidarity that makes all community possible. And conflict, because people have competing visions of what is right and true. The more deeply they hold their convictions, the more naturally people seek to have those convictions shape society.

What that means for Catholics is this: We have a duty to treat all persons with charity and justice. We have a duty to seek common ground where possible. But that’s never an excuse for compromising with grave evil. It’s never an excuse for being naive. And it’s never an excuse for standing idly by while our liberty to preach and serve God in the public square is whittled away. We need to work vigorously in law and politics to form our culture in a Christian understanding of human dignity and the purpose of human freedom. Otherwise, we should stop trying to fool ourselves that we really believe what we claim to believe.

There’s more. To work as it was intended, America needs a special kind of citizenry; a mature, well-informed electorate of persons able to reason clearly and rule themselves prudently. If that’s true–and it is–then the greatest danger to American liberty in our day is not religious extremism. It’s something very different. It’s a culture of narcissism that cocoons us in dumbed-down, bigoted news, vulgarity, distraction, and noise, while methodically excluding God from the human imagination. Kierkegaard once wrote that “the introspection of silence is the condition of all educated intercourse,” and that “talkativeness is afraid of the silence which reveals its emptiness.”⁶ Silence feeds the soul. Silence invites God to speak. And silence is exactly what American culture no longer allows. Securing the place of religious freedom in our society is therefore not just a matter of law and politics, but of prayer, interior renewal–and also education.

We need to re-examine the spirit that has ruled the Catholic approach to American life for the past sixty years. In forming our priests, deacons, teachers, and catechists–and especially the young people in our schools and religious education programs–we need to be much more penetrating and critical in our attitudes toward the culture around us. We need to recover our distinctive Catholic identity and history. Then we need to act on them. America is becoming a very different country, and as Ross Douthat argues so well in his excellent book Bad Religion, a renewed American Christianity needs to be ecumenical, but also confessional. Why?Because “in an age of institutional weakness and doctrinal drift, American Christianity has much more to gain from a robust Catholicism and a robust Calvinism, than it does from even the most fruitful Catholic-Calvinist theological dialogue.”⁷


America is now mission territory. Our own failures helped to make it that way. We need to admit that. Then we need to re-engage the work of discipleship to change it.
I want to close by returning to the second of my friend’s two questions. He asked if our nation’s Catholic bishops now find themselves opposed–in a new and fundamental way–to the spirit of American society. I can speak only for myself. But I suspect that for many of my brother American bishops, the answer to that question is a mix of both no and yes.

The answer is “no” in the sense that the Catholic Church has always thrived in the United States, even in the face of violent bigotry. Catholics love and thank God for this country. They revere the American legacy of democracy, law, and ordered liberty. As the bishops wrote in 1940 on the eve of World War II, “[we] renew [our] most sacred and sincere loyalty to our government and to the basic ideals of the American Republic . . . [and we] are again resolved to give [ourselves] unstintingly to its defense and its lasting endurance and welfare.”⁸ Hundreds of thousands of American Catholics did exactly that on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific.

But the answer is “yes” in the sense that the America of Catholic memory is not the America of the present moment or the emerging future. Sooner or later, a nation based on a degraded notion of liberty, on license rather than real freedom–in other words, a nation of abortion, disordered sexuality, consumer greed, and indifference to immigrants and the poor–will not be worthy of its founding ideals. And on that day, it will have no claim on virtuous hearts.

In many ways I believe my own generation, the boomer generation, has been one of the most problematic in our nation’s history because of our spirit of entitlement and moral superiority; our appetite for material comfort unmoored from humility; our refusal to acknowledge personal sin and accept our obligations to the past.

But we can change that. Nothing about life is predetermined except the victory of Jesus Christ. We create the future. We do it not just by our actions, but by what we really believe–because what we believe shapes the kind of people we are. In a way, “growing a culture of religious freedom” is the better title for these comments. A culture is more than what we make or do or build. A culture grows organically out of the spirit of a people–how we live, what we cherish, what we’re willing to die for.

If we want a culture of religious freedom, we need to begin it here, today, now. We live it by giving ourselves wholeheartedly to God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ–by loving God with passion and joy, confidence and courage; and by holding nothing back. God will take care of the rest. Scripture says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps 127:1). In the end, God is the builder. We’re the living stones. The firmer our faith, the deeper our love, the purer our zeal for God’s will–then the stronger the house of freedom will be that rises in our own lives, and in the life of our nation.


Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, is the author of  Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life. This essay is adapted from a lecture Archbishop Chaput delivered July 26 at the Napa Institute’s 2012 annual conference.

Footnotes:
[1] For patterns of religious belief in various age groups, see Barna Group and Pew Research Center data. For the state of moral formation among young adults, see Christian Smith, editor, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011. For an overview of American religious trends and their meaning, see Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Free Press, New York, 2012

[2] See Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, W.W. Norton, New York, 1995; and Christian Smith, editor, The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2003

[3] “Secularism,” a pastoral statement by the Administrative Board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, on behalf of the bishops of the United States, November 14, 1947; as collected in Pastoral Letters of the American Hierarchy, 1792-1970, Hugh J. Nolan, editor, Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington, IN, 1971

[4] Robert Kraynak, “Citizenship in Two Worlds: On the Tensions between Christian Faith and American Democracy,” Josephinum Journal of Theology, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2009; see also a more extensive discussion of this theme in his book, Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 2001

[5] C.S. Lewis, see his “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” in The Screwtape Letters, HarperCollins, New York, 2001

[6] Soren Kierkegaard, The Present Age: On the Death of Rebellion, HarperPerennial, New York, 2010, p. 44-45

[7] Douthat, Bad Religion, p. 286-287

[8] “The American Republic,” a statement by the bishops of the United States, November 13, 1940; as collected in Pastoral Letters of the American Hierarchy, 1792-1970

House Repeals Obamacare; What’s Next

Brian Darling

The Foundry

Now that the House has voted to repeal Obamacare, what happens next with H.R. 6079?

The “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” will go to the Senate for consideration. If Senators take a few simple actions, they can force a debate and recorded vote in the Senate this year. They might even be able to pass it, although unlikely because of the minority party’s aversion to hardball politics.

How to get it to the floor: Once the Senate receives the “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” from the House of Representatives, it is expected that a conservative Senator will use the Senate’s rules to force a vote. A Senator can use Rule 14 of the Senate’s rules to object to a second reading of the bill. This objection would place the House-passed Obamacare repeal bill in a position for debate on a motion to proceed to the bill and a roll-call vote on whether the Senate should consider the measure.

If conservatives fumble the ball and no Senator objects to the second reading, then conservatives will have lost an opportunity for a vote. Failure to object using the Senate’s rules sends the bill to the black hole of a Senate Committee controlled by liberals. The repeal of Obamacare legislation would not be heard from again this Congress.

How long it would take: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–KY) or any other member of the Republican caucus can lodge an objection to the second reading of the bill that will start a two-day process to get the legislation on the Senate calendar. Once on the Senate calendar, the legislation can be considered at any point during the duration of this Congress.

Once on the Senate calendar, any Senator can start the debate and trigger a recorded vote. All that Senator would need is to gather up 16 Senate signatures on a cloture petition pursuant to Rule 22 to commence a debate. The Senator then would take his cloture petition and file it with the clerk of the Senate. The filing of “cloture” would commence a debate and vote.

How the left could block it: The only way for liberals to block consideration of the bill would be to table the bill or filibuster it.

What’s needed to pass it: Now, if four Democrats defect and sign on to the idea of a full repeal of Obamacare, all of a sudden there are enough votes to pass the bill. If the supporters of H.R. 6079 can get to a simple majority of support, the only way liberals could prevent passage of the bill by a simple majority would be to engage in a filibuster of the bill. Yes, the same party that has harped on the idea of “filibuster reform” would be forced into a filibuster to prevent the “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” from passing.

Under this scenario, there are two hardball tactics that can be used to repeal Obamacare. First would be to shame the filibuster-hating liberals into standing down and allowing an up-or-down vote on the bill. Nothing prevents conservatives from keeping the Senate on this bill if they have majority support until liberals relent. They have the power under the rules to file cloture over and over again until they shame liberals into allowing a majority of the Senate to pass the bill.

Another hardball tactic that could be used would be to put the language of this full repeal of Obamacare on a must-pass bill. The federal government will need to pass an appropriations measure before September 1 to fund the government this fall. A steadfast and resolute House could attach the “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” to a continuing resolution to fund the federal government and dare the liberals in the Senate to cause a government shutdown over Obamacare.

Any way you slice it, conservative Senators have the power, at a minimum, to force a vote. It is possible and not very difficult under the Senate’s rules.

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Government cannot take away true freedom, Archbishop Chaput teaches

By Benjamin Mann

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

Washington D.C., Jul 4, 2012
CNA/EWTN News

Government cannot give or take away the ultimate freedom found in obedience to God, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said at the closing Mass of the U.S. bishops' “Fortnight for Freedom.”

“True freedom knows no attachments other than Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Chaput said in his July 4 homily at Washington, D.C.'s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

“True freedom can walk away from anything – wealth, honor, fame, pleasure … It fears neither the state, nor death itself.”

“We’re free only to the extent that we unburden ourselves of our own willfulness and practice the art of living according to God’s plan,” Philadelphia's archbishop said. “When we do this, when we choose to live according to God’s intention for us, we are then – and only then – truly free.”

“This is the kind of freedom that can transform the world. And it should animate all of our talk about liberty – religious or otherwise.”

The Archbishop of Philadelphia preached at the last Mass of the U.S. bishops' two-week religious freedom campaign, which was spurred by the federal mandate requiring religious employers to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs.

The Fortnight for Freedom began June 21 – the vigil of the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More – and ended on the U.S. celebration of Independence Day. Its closing Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C., with a homily delivered by Archbishop Chaput.

He began his homily by greeting the congregation on behalf of the Church in Philadelphia, “the cradle of our country’s liberty and the city of our nation’s founding.” It was there, he recalled, that “both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were written.”

In his sermon, the Philadelphia archbishop taught that the human right to religious freedom is needed “to create the context” for the “true freedom” offered by Jesus Christ, which involves liberation from sin and the gift of eternal life.

While religious liberty “is a foundational right” and “necessary for a good society,” it is not “an end in itself.” Rather, it must be used to find and live out the truth in order to attain to holiness, the highest form of freedom.

This higher form of freedom, found through God's grace, “isn’t something Caesar can give or take away,” Archbishop Chaput taught.

“In the end, we defend religious liberty in order to live the deeper freedom that is discipleship in Jesus Christ,” he reflected.

The right to religious freedom only finds its fulfillment when believers “use that freedom to seek God with our whole mind and soul and strength.”

Among the Scripture readings for the July 4 Mass, was the confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees on the subject of taxation. As Christ observes Caesar's image on the Roman coin, he tells his listeners to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Archbishop Chaput, whose 2008 book “Render Unto Caesar” took inspiration from the same Bible passage, told the congregation at the national shrine that Jesus was not merely “being clever” or offering “political commentary.”

Christ's reasoning, he said, harkens back to the creation of mankind in the “image of God.” While the coin “bears the image of Caesar” and “belongs to Caesar,” the human person bears the image of the creator rather than the governing authority.

In this way, the archbishop said, Jesus is “making a claim on every human being.  He’s saying, 'render unto Caesar those things that bear Caesar’s image, but more importantly, render unto God that which bears God’s image' – in other words, you and me. All of us … We belong to God, and only to God.”

“Caesar is a creature of this world, and Christ’s message is uncompromising: We should give Caesar nothing of ourselves.”

While patriotism has its place, as an expression of justice and charity, believers cannot ultimately identify themselves with an earthly homeland. God, as Archbishop Chaput reminded the congregation, “made us for more than the world. Our real home isn’t here.”

As believers commit themselves to securing the Church's freedom in society, they must also ask themselves “some unsettling questions” about what they “really render to God” in everyday life.

“The political and legal effort to defend religious liberty – as vital as it is – belongs to a much greater struggle to master and convert our own hearts, and to live for God completely, without alibis or self-delusion,” Archbishop Chaput observed.

“The only question that finally matters is this one: Will we live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ? If so, then we can be a source of freedom for the world. If not, nothing else will do.”

“When we leave this Mass today, we need to render unto Caesar those things that bear his image. But we need to render ourselves unto God – generously, zealously, holding nothing back.”

In this way, he said, Catholics will fulfill their legitimate civic duties – while also, “much more importantly,” offering their lives “as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Five major ObamaCare taxes that will hit your wallet in 2013

By John Kartch

Published July 05, 2012

FoxNews.com

While the individual mandate tax gets most of the attention, the ObamaCare law actually contains 20 new or higher taxes on the American people. These taxes are gradually phased in over the years 2010 (with its 10 percent “tanning tax”) to 2018 (when the tax on comprehensive health insurance plans kicks in.)

Six months from now, in January 2013, five major ObamaCare taxes will come into force:

1. The ObamaCare Medical Device Manufacturing Tax

This 2.3 percent tax on medical device makers will raise the price of (for example) every pacemaker, prosthetic limb, stent, and operating table. Can you remind us, Mr. President, how taxing medical devices will reduce the cost of health care? The tax is particularly destructive because it is levied on gross sales and even targets companies who haven’t turned a profit yet.

These are often small, scrappy companies with less than 20 employees who pioneer the next generation of life-prolonging devices. In addition to raising the cost of health care, this $20 billion tax over the next ten years will not help the country’s jobs outlook, as the industry employs nearly 400,000 Americans. Several companies have already responded to the looming tax by cutting research and development budgets and laying off workers.

2. The ObamaCare High Medical Bills Tax

This onerous tax provision will hit Americans facing the highest out-of-pocket medical bills. Currently, Americans are allowed to deduct medical expenses on their 1040 form to the extent the costs exceed 7.5 percent of one’s adjusted gross income.

The new ObamaCare provision will raise that threshold to 10 percent, subjecting patients to a higher tax bill. This tax will hit pre-retirement seniors the hardest. Over the next ten years, affected Americans will pony up a minimum total of $15 billion in taxes thanks to this provision.

3. The ObamaCare Flexible Spending Account Cap 

The 24 million Americans who have Flexible Spending Accounts will face a new federally imposed $2,500 annual cap. These pre-tax accounts, which currently have no federal limit, are used to purchase everything from contact lenses to children’s braces. With the cost of braces being as high as $7,200, this tax provision will play an unwelcome role in everyday kitchen-table health care decisions.

The cap will also affect families with special-needs children, whose tuition can be covered using FSA funds. Special-needs tuition can cost up to $14,000 per child per year. This cruel tax provision will limit the options available to such families, all so that the federal government can squeeze an additional $13 billion out of taxpayer pockets over the next ten years.

The targeting of FSAs by President Obama and congressional Democrats is no accident. The progressive left has never been fond of the consumer-driven accounts, which serve as a small roadblock in their long-term drive for a one-size-fits-all government health care bureaucracy.

For further proof, note the ObamaCare “medicine cabinet tax” which since 2011 has barred the 13.5 million Americans with Health Savings Accounts from purchasing over-the-counter medicines with pre-tax funds.

4. The ObamaCare Surtax on Investment Income

Under current law, the capital gains tax rate for all Americans rises from 15 to 20 percent in 2013, while the top dividend rate rises from 15 to 39.6 percent. The new ObamaCare surtax takes the top capital gains rate to 23.8 percent and top dividend rate to 43.4 percent. The tax will take a minimum of $123 billion out of taxpayer pockets over the next ten years.

And, last but not least...

5. The ObamaCare Medicare Payroll Tax increase

This tax soaks employers to the tune of $86 billion over the next ten years.

As you can understand, there is a reason why the authors of ObamaCare wrote the law in such a way that the most brutal tax increases take effect conveniently after the 2012 election.  It’s the same reason President Obama, congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media conveniently neglect to mention these taxes and prefer that you simply “move on” after the Supreme Court ruling.

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Stop the HHS Mandate

Supreme Court upholds Obama health care law

It's time to get serious about defending our rights, our freedom and our faith.


By David Jackson, USA TODAY

The Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law today in a splintered, complex opinion that gives Obama a major election-year victory.

Basically, a bare majority of the justices said that the individual mandate -- the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine -- is constitutional as a tax.


Chief Justice John Roberts -- a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush -- provided a key vote to preserve the landmark health care law, which figures to be a major issue in Obama's re-election bid against Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Obama is expected to comment on the decision within the next two hours.

The government had argued that Congress had the authority to pass the individual mandate as part of its power to regulate interstate commerce; the court disagreed with that analysis, but preserved the mandate because the fine amounts to a tax that is within Congress' constitutional taxing powers.

The justices decided the tax question on a 5-4 vote, with four Republican appointees in dissent: Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.

Roberts, also a GOP appointee, joined four Democratic appointees in upholding the mandate: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Obama appointed justices Sotomayor and Kagan.

The announcement will have a major impact on the nation's health care system, the actions of both federal and state governments, and the course of the November presidential and congressional elections.

As lawyers examined the details of the various opinions, political analysts quickly predicted at least a short-term political boost for Obama.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said "you can hear the sigh of relief at the White House" over a big plus for Obama.

"It allows the president's signature achievement to stand," Brown said. "Since politics is the ultimate zero-sum game, what's good for Obama is bad for Gov. Mitt Romney."

Brown also noted that the ruling allows the Republican "to continue campaigning against the law and promising to repeal it."

Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, vowed to step up efforts to repeal what they call "Obamacare," should they win control of Congress in the November elections.

"The president's health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "Today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety."The law's individual mandate had been the key question for the court.

Critics called the requirement an unconstitutional overreach by Congress and the Obama administration; supporters say it is necessary to finance the health care plan.

While the individual mandate remains 18 months away from implementation, many other provisions of the health care law already have gone into effect, such as free wellness exams for seniors and allowing children up to age 26 to remain on their parents' health insurance policies.

Other impacts will sort themselves out over the next several years:

-- Health care millions of Americans will be affected – coverage for some, premiums for others. Doctors, hospitals, drug makers, insurers, and employers large and small all will feel the impact.

-- States -- some of which have moved ahead with the health care overhaul while others have held back -- now have decisions to make. A deeply divided Congress could decide to re-enter the debate with legislation.

-- The presidential race between Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney is sure to feel the repercussions. Obama's health care law has proven to be slightly more unpopular than popular among Americans.

Not since the court confirmed George W. Bush's election in December 2000 -- before 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, Wall Street's dive and Obama's rise -- has one case carried such sweeping implications for nearly every American.

Passed by Democrats along strictly partisan lines and still 18 months short of full implementation, the law is designed to extend health coverage to some 32 million uninsured people, ban insurers from discriminating against those with expensive ailments, and require nearly all Americans to buy insurance or pay penalties.
Its passage on March 23, 2010, marked the culmination of an effort by Democrats to overhaul the nation's health care system that dates back to Harry Truman's presidency. The most recent effort by President Bill Clinton in 1994 fell victim to Republican opposition. Since then, lesser changes have been enacted, including creation of a separate Children's Health Insurance Program in the states.

Inter-Faith Prayer Service June 28th At St. Mary's Cathedral

by Chris Albracht

June 19, 2012

Amarillo—Bishop Patrick J. Zurek encourages all Catholics in the Diocese of Amarillo to attend Evening Prayer Thursday, June 28 at 7:00pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1200 South Washington.

“This will be an Inter-Faith Prayer Service, in which we have invited our brothers and sisters of our non-Catholic Christian denominations and people of the Muslim and Jewish communities to join us,” he said. “I encourage all the Catholic people in the Diocese of Amarillo to please join me for that evening.”

Among the ministers scheduled to join Bishop Zurek for the prayer service will be Gene Shelburne of Anna Street Church of Christ, Amarillo; Jimmy Witcher of Trinity Fellowship Church, Amarillo; and, Ty Jones of Arena of Life, Amarillo.

The prayer service is being conducted in conjunction with a Fortnight of Freedom, a 14-day period from Thursday, June 21 to Wednesday, July 4, Independence Day, established by U.S. Bishops as a great hymn of prayer for our country. This special period of prayer, study, catechesis and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty.

“The most crucial aspect in this debate is the extremely narrow definition of what it means to be a Religious Ministry that has been handed down by the present administration,” said Bishop Zurek. “Historically, the government has always taken a very broad view in regard to Religious Ministries. What is needed at this time in our history is for the government to return to the previous broad definition of what a Religious Ministry actually is.

“Each faith community should be free to determine what is and what is not Religious Ministry. For example, the health care ministry, the educational ministry and the charitable ministries have been defined by Christian communities as essential to continuing the mission of Jesus Christ. Let us come and pray together, as varying communities of Faith and give a powerful witness to our love for God. Let our presence be an essential part of this witness.”

“As Catholic Christians, we are charged with being the conscience of our local communities,” said Father Tony Neusch, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, Shamrock and Our Mother of Mercy Church, Wellington. “We have a moral responsibility to participate in the political process of the country in which we live. This is an opportunity to pray for our country and her leaders with men and women of good will.”

Additional Inter-Faith Prayer Services will be scheduled throughout the summer and early fall in the Texas Panhandle, according to Father Neusch.