How Obama shafted the Church

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, interviewed by James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal (linked at Lucianne.com), tells how President Obama explicitly assured him in a one-on-one meeting at the White House last November that the Church’s “rights of conscience” regarding birth control would not be violated by Obamacare. Then in January Obama brusquely informed the Cardinal on the phone that the birth control mandate had been decided on, there would be no exceptions, and the Church had until August to comply.

As I’ve discussed before (“The contemptible U.S. bishops,” March 17), the Catholic hierarchy was eager to deliver the rest of us into socialist slavery, so long as the Church’s own pet area of liberty was protected. But now that Obama has turned so brutally on his erstwhile allies, it is to be hoped that they will stand against him and that this will materially increase the likelihood of his defeat this year. It is remarkable that the Obamites did not wait until after the election before unveiling the birth control mandate. I see two possible explanations: they are are so eager to suppress religious liberty and other liberties in America that they couldn’t hold back; or they are so blind to any reality outside their own ideological circle that it didn’t occur to them that the birth control mandate would create problems for them.

- end of initial entry -

Joseph C. writes:

A third possibility: They believe they will win anyway in November since (i) we are already at a point where half the population pays zero taxes and will thus vote to protect their government checks; and (ii) the Republicans don’t have the guts to run a vigorous campaign because they fear the riots if Obama loses more than the damage Obama will do to America in a second term if he wins.

Daniel S. writes:

A third possibility is that the fix is in. Due to his agitation of class and racial warfare, widespread voting fraud, total mainstream media support, and an exceptionally weak Republican candidate in Mitt Romney, Obama is certain that he will win reelection and has decided to throw a bone to his cult followers among the cultural Marxists and feminists (but I repeat myself) by attacking the Catholic Church, which is forever the chief of devils in the demonology of the left.

As for the Catholic bishops, they can compromise with liberalism all they want, but the left will forever hate them and will not rest until it has destroyed the Church or, at the very least, completely defanged it to where it has no more relevance than the mainstream Protestant denominations.

Kathlene M. writes:

I’ve been wondering for awhile now why Obama picked this fight with the Church. Today I found an answer:

Report: Unchurched could carry Obama to victory

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 29, 2012, 07:09PM

President Obama could lose the Catholic and Protestant vote in the fall election and still sweep to victory if he dominates among non-religious voters, according to projections released Thursday by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.

“President Obama could lose both the Catholic and Protestant vote to the Republican nominee—even lose badly—and still win re-election,” said Mark Gray, associate professor at Georgetown and director of CARA.

The study found that U.S. adults who identify themselves as having “no religious affiliation or other” had risen to 22 percent this year, compared to just seven percent in 1972. The percent of the electorate not belonging to any faith is equivalent to the U.S. Catholic population percentage, the report said.

In one scenario, if Mr. Obama can win traditional Democratic strongholds and claim just 44 percent of Protestant and Catholic voters in key battleground states, he could still win re-election with a strong win among the religiously unaffiliated.

Even with narrow losses in Ohio and Iowa, the study found, “this would result in 291 Electoral College votes [for Mr. Obama]—a healthy surplus above the 270 needed to win re-election.”

—David Hood

Mike writes:

The fourth possibility is that Obama knew that this would alienate Catholic voters but he thought that allowing the media to make a big show about a “Republican War on Women” would win him more middle class women than the Catholics he would lose. It’s frightening because it highlights the leftist government’s close collaboration with the leftist media, as well as the utter vapidity and solipsism of women voters.

C. in North America writes:

As the other readers have mentioned, Obama and his minions are confident that he will be re-elected for all the reasons mentioned. There’s yet another reason they’re confident besides the predictable Republican perfidy, massive vote fraud, etc. The Catholic Church in the USA has been thoroughly taken over by modern liberalism. The church’s official stand on abortion, contraception, women in the priesthood, gay marriage, etc. is routinely ignored and openly opposed by large numbers of Catholics, who will gladly vote for Obama despite his status as the most radically pro-abortion politician to ever occupy a high public office. Worse, the Church hierarchy is thoroughly infested with leftists from top to bottom. We now see abominations like Catholic charities taking tax dollars (via the refugee-resettlement racket) to aid and abet the Muslim colonization and evangelization of places like small towns in Minnesota.

Consider what happened back in 2009 in the wake of the “historic” speech given by Obama at Notre Dame. A number of Catholic traditionalists on that campus voiced strong opposition to this atrocity and were subsequently punished and disciplined for their courage by the Notre Dame establishment. What have the bishops done about this outrage? Absolutely nothing. What do they do about outrage after outrage from the likes of a Pelosi or the Kennedys? Absolutely nothing. Catholics for “Choice” (openly pro-abortion)? Absolutely nothing. The list of outrages is endless, as is the list of non-responses (typically a platitude about the necessity of “more dialog”). If a small group of traditionalists tries to set up a church using the traditional Latin mass they might face excommunication if they’re in the wrong bishop’s fiefdom. The reality is that the U.S. Catholic Church, despite its official stances on the issues, does not actually oppose abortion, gay marriage, etc.—it only gives lip service to opposing them. They’d make perfect Republicans, so maybe they should consider voting for Mitt “Big-Gov Love” Romney anyway. He’s too melanin-challenged, so they’ll vote for Zero instead.

LA replies:

To boil down C. in North America’s very interesting point, Obama won’t pay a price for having forced the Church to subsidize birth control and abortion, because, even on this one issue on which the Church is supposedly adamant, they will end up folding.

Jeff W. writes:

The left clearly values the Catholic hierarchy more as targets than as allies. In order for leftist politics to succeed, leftists must assemble a voting coalition that totals 50 percent plus one vote. Essential to assembling a majority coalition of predators is the choice of targets of predation. White males are usually the target of America’s leftists, but the Catholic hierarchy, a small subset of white males, is also now a distinct target group.

It is amusing when a group that thinks that they will benefit from predation is thrown out of the predators’ coalition and becomes a target. But it is also just.

CO writes:

C. in North America is exactly right. All of the Catholic churches in my area preach Socialist doctrine. It isn’t possible to find one that does it never. You have to settle for the one that does it the least. They scold opponents of open immigration and Tea Partiers. They praise the Pope for displaying his tolerance of other religions by visiting mosques.

A few Sundays ago, they announced from the pulpit that the Obama administration was taking “steps in the right direction” in cooperating with the Catholic church regarding the birth control mandate. They’ve found out differently since, but have yet to cop to it publicly.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 31, 2012 12:58 PM | Send