News Updates, 9/23

Funeral Rites Should be Denied to Publicly Pro-Abort Catholics: Vatican Official [Burke]
In an address to InsideCatholic.com's 14th Annual Partnership Dinner Friday evening, Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, said that funeral rites should not be given to pro-abortion Catholic politicians. He also defended the duty of Catholics to speak in charity against the scandal caused by such figures.

The archbishop said that, while "we must speak the truth in charity," Catholics also "should have the courage to look truth in the eye and call things by their common names." "It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself in this manner," he told the crowd of about 200 guests.

Burke hammered home his message of the need for fidelity to Church teaching on the part of Catholics in politics in his 50-minute speech. The archbishop, known for his unwavering and vocal defense of the Church's teachings on life and family issues, was given a standing ovation at the conclusion of his address.
[And where are the bishops in Amerika??? They act like the hirelings who have run off when 'danger' approaches...These clowns fear the truth! May God have mercy on their pitiable souls!]

The Catholic Bishops and ACORN
This is a good news/bad news story. First the good news: The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) cut off all funding to ACORN at some point in 2008, after revelations of the embezzlement of nearly $1 million dollars by the brother of Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN. What's not such great news is that the Catholic Church, through the CCHD, was funding ACORN in the first place....

Catholic Medical Association Comes out Publicly Against Obamacare
Open Letter to Catholics and Catholic Organizations
[...]Health-care services are expensive and fragmented. These problems result largely from misguided incentives in tax, employment, and government policy. One unfortunate result of this has been increasing third-party payer intrusion into the patient-physician relationship, with significantly deleterious consequences.

All Catholics should agree on the fundamental ethical and social principles proposed by the Church. The question we are faced with, after decades of misguided policies, is how should we apply these teachings so as to provide universal access to quality health-care insurance and services in a cost-effective, ethical manner?

Bills passed out of committees in the House and Senate this summer rely heavily on the federal government to dictate solutions. They empower a small group of unelected government bureaucrats and committees to determine the composition and cost of health insurance policies, the reimbursement of providers, the approval of treatments, etc. We think this government-controlled approach is flawed in principle and ineffective, if not dangerous, in practice....

“Essential and irreplaceable”
Pope tells bishops laity cannot replace priests
In an audience...with bishops visiting from Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI advised them on how to respond to the lack of priests, emphasizing that the shortage cannot be solved by having lay people substitute for the clergy...