Washington D.C., Oct 9, 2017 / 03:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two sets of announcements by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services issued Friday both promise to broaden religious freedom protections in the United States.
The first announcement, by the HHS department, broadens the religious freedom exemptions to the department’s contraception mandate, which has been facing federal lawsuits from conscientious objectors since its introduction in 2011.
The second announcement was a memo issued by the Department of Justice, in which Attorney General Jeff Sessions explained in a detailed twenty-point memo, the legal principles all government agencies should consider when dealing with religious freedom concerns.
Neither announcement will automatically resolve religious freedom cases currently within the court system.
In an Oct. 6 interview with CNA, Robert George, a professor of constitutional law at Princeton University and visiting professor at Harvard University, explained the implications of these two announcements for religious freedom supporters throughout the country.
According to the administration this has been a pretty big day for religious freedom. Can you provide a general reaction and walk us through an overview of what the new HHS mandate adjustment and DOJ rules mean for religious freedom?
Well I think this is a big day for religious freedom. I see much greater value in the guidance that been issued today than in the executive order on religious freedom from a few months ago, which I was very disappointed in, as you know. I felt that order was essentially meaningless. The guidance today I think is genuine and I think it is very likely to make a positive difference. The administration goes clearly on the record and instructs all relevant agencies of government that the [Religious] Freedom Restoration Act applies even where a religious assurance seeks an exemption from a requirement that the entity confer benefits on third parties.
This is point 15 of the 20 key principles for Religious Liberty issued by the Justice Department.
And this is a big point in dispute between the two sides in this debate over religious freedom. And the administration comes down squarely in favor of what I certainly believe is the correct view.
Another key point that the guidance makes clear in point 19 is that religious employers are entitled to employ only persons whose beliefs and conduct are consistent with the employer’s religious precepts. Now I interpret that to mean that an employer may, if the religious employer chooses, for religious reasons choose to employ only members of its own faith. But it also means that the employer, if it chooses on the basis of its religious faith, can choose to hire people who are not of the same faith, but limit those employment opportunities to prospective employees whose conduct is in line with the moral teachings of the faith. Now this is very important. It means for example that a Catholic school could say, “We don’t insist on hiring only Catholics to be teachers in the school. Perhaps we insist on Catholics as teachers of religion, since it’s a Catholic school. We are perfectly happy to hire a math teacher, social studies teacher, and literature teacher who are Hindu or Protestant or Jewish or Mormon or Muslim.”
But, even if they choose to do that [a Catholic employer] can choose to employ only people from their own faith or other faiths who live their lives in line with Catholic moral teaching. So if for example the school says, “We do not want to employ people who are living in a cohabiting partnership outside of marriage,” under this guidance, under point 19 as I interpret it, the employer is entitled to do that, and that’s protected as a matter of the employer’s religious freedom. This is a very important point.
You know, I do have a question about point 20 that has to do with the first word and the point – that what is “generally.” The point says, “generally, the federal government may not condition federal grants or contracts on the religious organization altering its religious character beliefs or activities.” What I don’t know is what the exceptions are. I assume “generally” is meant to state a rule, but to contemplate that there are exceptions to the rule. So I think we need clearer guidance from the administration and from the Justice Department about the conditions under which the federal government may legitimately condition federal grants or contracts on their religious organization altering its religious character beliefs or activities. Since it’s presented as a conditional norm not as an absolute norm we really need some clarity about what the conditions are, or what the exceptions are. And I cannot find that clarity in in the material released today. But I do think we need it.
I’m glad you brought up the Executive Order and its shortcomings. Could you briefly explain what your concerns with the order were, for those who are unfamiliar?
There was very little in the March executive order that was actually operative in such a way as to protect everybody’s religious freedom.
To the extent that there was much operative, it had mainly to do with the interpretation and application of the Johnson Amendment, which forbids political advocacy of certain sorts by churches.
I said at the time that the Johnson Amendment, while problematic both constitutionally and as a policy matter, was not among the top 20 items on a list of genuine concerns about religious freedom. It’s very rarely, if ever, enforced. It does have something of a chilling effect which is why would like to get rid of it. But, to those who have not been chilled by it, have by and large been left unmolested by the government. So it was not a problem in desperate need of fixing.
There were a lot of other things like the protection of employers against being forced to hire people who were in same-sex partnerships, for example, where the employers faith judged those kinds of partnerships to be immoral, or other sorts of sexual partnerships – perhaps co-habiting opposite sex partners without benefit of marriage.
That was nothing in there to protect employers in those domains. So, what what we see today goes in the right direction on a number of those issues, including you know those two areas – points 15 and 19 – that I already called attention to.
Now I know that the preparatory materials for the guidance points, says that this guidance does not resolve any specific cases. It offers guidance on existing protections in religious liberty and federal law.
Of course there are cases that are pending. So the proof will be in the pudding. We need to know whether those government officials – including those in charge of litigation matters who have cases pending that jeopardize the life of religious employers. We need to know whether they will interpret these guidance points in ways that will cause them to relent in attempting to limit the freedom of those employers. I certainly hope that they will, but this is by its own terms, this guidance does not dictate to any official that he or she resolved a specific case in a particular way. It says that it doesn’t do that. It says, “this guidance does not resolve any specific cases.”
So since that’s true, we’ll need to know how officials interpret the guidance and apply the guidance to specific cases. That will be the proof. That will be the proof in the pudding.
We’ll see whether these cases are resolved in ways that are respectful of religious freedom, or whether these guidance points are treated as if they’re meaningless and officials carry on with cases in the way that some have been carrying on with these cases: in ways that limit the religious freedom, or attempt to limit the religious freedom, of these employees.
There’s some important points that have been well-established, but it’s good to have them reiterated since they remain controversial. Point three is an example of that: the freedom of religion extends to persons and organizations. There’s there’s a view that’s been circulated by people who are in truth enemies of religious freedom, although they would not admit to being that – but they are.
There’s a view that says religious freedom rights extend only to individual persons and not to organizations like churches, schools, religiously based social service providers, and so forth. This guidance in point three makes very clear that this administration’s position is that freedom of religion extends to religious organizations and not just individuals, so that’s good. It’s not new, but it’s good.
Switching gears to the changes to the HHS mandate: how does this adjustment impact the longstanding battle over mandate we’ve been seeing for the past six years?
Of course, your best source of your best source of information on that, Addie, is the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom. I’m would certainly myself defer to what the lawyers there said because it’s their case and they have been completely on top of this, and they’re excellent lawyers. As you know I’m a member of the board of the Becket Fund, and a member of what’s called the Corporation of the Becket Fund as well.
I think our lawyers have done a fantastic job in these cases including Little Sisters of the Poor case, so I would really defer to their judgement.
I will say this though: I believe an authentic, faithful, honest interpretation of these guidelines by the government officials who have responsibility for that litigation would it cause them to basically concede to the Little Sisters, and to acknowledge that to the extent that the regulations purport to impose upon religious organizations a requirement that they provide, or in any way to implicate themselves in providing contraceptives or abortifacient efficient drugs in violation of religious teaching, that the government would simply concede the government has no right to do that. The regulations cannot be enforced against those religious entities. But again, the proof will be in the pudding.
We’ll see whether the public officials to whom this guidance is addressed apply the guidance in that way. That’s the point again about the guidance itself not resolving specific cases. So we’ll see.
There’s other point that’s worth making, just to step back from all this for a while.
Even as late as the middle 1960s there were still jurisdictions – including Massachusetts and Connecticut – that prohibited the sale, distribution, and even use of contraceptives. Those were longstanding laws put on the books by Protestant majorities in the 19th century to protect public morality.
The reason that efforts to repeal those laws consistently failed in the legislatures of Connecticut in Massachusetts and some other states, although they succeeded in some states, the reason they failed in other states is that some of the legislatures felt that the widespread availability of contraception would would weaken the public morality and open the floodgates to promiscuity, adultery, divorce, family abandonment, and all the things that comes in the wake of a collapse of sexual morality. The Supreme Court struck down the anti-contraception laws in 1965 in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut and in 1972 in the case of Eisenstaedt v. Baird and they did that at the request of liberals who insisted that contraception was a deeply private matter in which the public had no right to intrude.
The Supreme Court found a so-called right to privacy, according to the justice system the right to use contraception, because it was a private matter. One cannot help but notice how liberals have changed their tune. They no longer regard contraception as a private matter: once they broke down the laws against contraception on the grounds that it was an allegedly private matter, they suddenly shifted back to treating it as such a public matter that they’re going to force people in general to pay for other people’s private contraception. They’re even willing to force religious conscientious objectors like the Green family and Hobby Lobby and a Little Sisters of the Poor to make themselves complicit in one way or another in providing other people’s allegedly private contraceptives.
So, one cannot help but perceive a rather huge dollop of hypocrisy in the way the contraception issue has been treated by the progressive movement to from the middle 1960s to the middle 2010s.
If it’s private, leave it private. If it’s not private, then they had no business asking the Supreme Court to strike down laws prohibiting it in the name of a putative right to privacy.
They really should make up their minds whether it’s private or not private.
Another change is that the mandate now protects those with non-sectarian conscience objections to the mandate. Can you speak to the importance of this expansion for those who object to these issues for non-religious reasons?
Yes. Many people do not derive their moral convictions from a religion, and many religious people believe that even apart from divine revelation there are moral truths that can be known by the disciplined application of reason even apart from what might, in addition, be known by religious authority by virtue of the teaching of a church or a body of scripture or what have you.
In both cases it’s sometimes described as natural law.
It appears that in this guidance, it’s acknowledged that conscience formed on the basis of non religiously based, or not necessarily religiously based, on a moral reflection deserves conscience protection in the same way that religiously based moral convictions deserve conscience protection.
Back to the DOJ update … Can you comment on the DOJ guidance on how to address all religious freedom objections. What other cases or situations can this apply to outside of the contraceptive mandate or providing potentially abortifacient procedures? What are some of the other kinds of cases that the DOJ guidance might impact?
Yes, I mean I knew one thing would be in those states that have moved to assisted suicide, I think the guidance system provides some promise of protecting religiously based health care-providing institutions like Catholic hospitals or other religiously affiliated medical institutions from being forced to participate in assisted suicide or, for that matter, in abortion. The same with individuals as well as institutions: doctors in state facilities for example who cannot in conscience participate in assisted suicide or abortion in places like Oregon that have taken the step of embracing assisted suicide.
It could be that if there are some states or municipalities that move in the direction of banning male infant circumcision – there’s a movement that strongly is pushing for bans on male infant circumcision– the movement is called the intactivist movement– if such laws are adopted I think that this would strengthen hands of Jewish organizations and Muslim organizations that will seek to preserve the right on a religious basis to have their male infant children circumcised. We’ve seen this in Europe: some some jurisdictions in Europe have banned male infant circumcision and their movement is alive here in the United States. One can easily imagine certain jurisdictions, certain municipalities, maybe a state, banning circumcision, so it could become important in that area.
These these protections will protect not only Catholics and other Christians, but members of non-Christian faiths as well.
What else should our readers know about these two religious freedom updates?
Probably the most important thing to remind people in closing is that the guidance or principles designed to guide public officials but, they don’t dictate results. The same is true of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, by the way. It simply gives the religious claimant today in court and requires that the government prove that its imposition on a religious claimant is supported by a compelling state interest and represents the least restrictive or least intrusive means of prosecuting that interest. It doesn’t dictate the result.
So while I welcome and I think all friends of religious liberty and of conscience should welcome this guidance, we need to hold off cheering until we see how the guidance is actually interpreted and applied by public officials. It’s when we see actual cases being resolved – whether those cases are in litigation or whether their decisions about whether to bring a case or how to bring a case – until we see actual cases. Until we see the guidance actually applied to concrete disputes we won’t know whether to cheer. So what that tells us is there’s a human element. Rules don’t apply or interpret themselves. Human beings interpret and apply rules. So we need to see the human beings in the bureaucracy interpreting and applying the rules and then we’ll see whether there’s anything worth cheering about here.
But I do like to believe of the principals and I think if they are faithfully and authentically interpreted, it will mean a very desirable set of protections for religious freedom. Protections that are now many years overdue due to the assaults on religious freedom during the Obama administration.
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When Catholic leaders weigh in on political and social issues that they know absolutely nothing about, they damage their own credibility.
And, in my opinion anyway, with the Bergoglio debacle in full swing, they have precious little credibility to spare.
Anyway, here are a few brief points about climate change that people should know. (I have contributed this information before when know-nothing Church officials have spouted off about climate change.)
• The earth’s climate is changing. Indeed, the climate has always changed. Look at a graph of the earth’s average temperature that goes back a few million years. It looks like a yo-yo. Yet life on earth has always adjusted. It’s what life does. In fact, the earth’s climate today is colder than it has been for most of earth’s history. But even if it weren’t, devastating the economies of entire nations in an impossible quest for an unchanging climate is needlessly imposing misery on humanity. Indeed, climate alarmists never even say how they ever came up with the idea that the earth’s climate is generally stable.
• A 1.5-degree warming of the climate in a century is hardly the “existential threat” that the warmists claim. Think of the people now living 60 miles south of your home. That’s what your hometown will be like after a century of warming. What is their lifestyle like with a climate that’s 1.5 degrees warmer than yours? Is their town an uninhabitable hell-on-earth? Are they bursting into flames atop thousand-foot-high sand dunes? No? You might want to think about that.
• Carbon dioxide is not a poison. It’s not a pollutant. It’s a necessity for life on earth. Indeed, carbon is the molecule of life. In eons past, the earth did experience significantly higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than we have now. The difference then? Plants thrived, food was plentiful and large dinosaurs literally covered the earth, from pole to pole. In sum, more carbon dioxide equals more plants equals more animals equals a better, less stressful life for all. It’s hardly the “existential threat” that the climate stooges claim.
• The “scientists” we keep hearing about who are sounding the climate alarm are meteorologists — weathermen. Their climate hysteria is based on computer programs that are not validated. They are closed loops with no way to account for all of the parameters that determine climate at this point in time, let alone decades from now. (Such as solar activity, the earth’s magnetic field, etc.) These are the same types of computer programs that predicted that the deaths from COVID-19 would be exponentially higher than what actually came to pass. Lowering all of humanity’s living standards based on such flimsy computer modeling is irresponsible.
• There are indications that the sun may be entering a period of relative dormancy, as it did for a few hundred years, starting in the fourteenth century. The inactive sun meant less energy released, which led to the Little Ice Age in America and Europe. Rivers and canals in northern Europe froze, vineyards were destroyed, cereal production in Ireland was devastated, and famine hit France. (Interestingly, the cold also caused hardwood trees to grow denser and harder, leading to the remarkable tone of Stradivarius’ string instruments.)
I could go on and on. And on.
For example, about the indications that the earth’s magnetic field may now be in the process of flipping. This will affect how much of the sun’s energy strikes the earth. The problem is, the last time such a thing took place — an event known as the Laschamp excursion — was more than 40,000 years ago. So information on how earth’s climate was affected is hard to come by.
Anyway, it is quite clear that Bishop Broglio and his USCCB confrères know next to nothing about the climate. What’s surprising is that they offer such a definitive opinion about a field that is totally unknown to them. Honestly, it makes them look quite foolish.
Perhaps someone should send his excellency a very balanced, and readable, book on the actual science of climate change. I highly recommend Dr. Steven Koonin’s “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.” Koonin isn’t a liberal or conservative hack. He served as Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy under President Obama, where his portfolio included the climate research program and energy technology strategy. He took considerable heat (sorry) from liberal friends for writing a book that didn’t contain climate change hysteria, and was backed up with real science. Finally, and I say this with all respect, maybe his excellency should stay in his lane.
He accepted the lead position in a bureaucracy which seeks Caesar’s coin. The USCCB has nothing to do with the salvation of souls. Simply follow the money.
The Conference of Bishops that was formed was a way to equate Church authority to bishops as much as possible to the pope.
In other words:
To decentralize the papacy.
Not to “decentralize the papacy.”
But, instead, Vatican II (Lumen Gentium) established the relationship between the papacy as the successor of St. Peter, and the individual bishops each as a successor of the other apostles—and not as delegates of the papacy.
The national bishops’ conferences are mostly administrative conveniences and do not displace the institutional and personal responsibility of individual bishops. How this works is already and further articulated in Apostolos suos (1998). https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_22071998_apostolos-suos.html
The latest twist was the typically ambiguous effort, by the Synod on Synodality, to cast local dioceses as possibly subordinate to hybridized (bishops and laity) national and even continental “synods.” The Final Report acknowledges that legitimate synodality doesn’t work if the bishops abdicate from their responsibilities as bishops. As noted in the Final Report which explicitly restores reference to the entire Preparatory Document of the International Theological Commission (2018):
“…It is essential that, taken as a whole, the participants give a meaningful and balanced image of the local Church, reflecting different vocations, ministries, charisms, competencies, social status and geographical origin. The bishop, the successor of the apostles and shepherd of his flock who convokes and presides over the local Church synod, is called to exercise there the ministry of unity and leadership with the authority which belongs to him” (n. 79).
So, in now implementing the verbose 52-page Final Document, one riddle is how to square the circle? That is, other than through consultative (!) archdiocesan and parish pastoral councils—already routine for decades—which legitimately can have lay members not included in a real “synod of bishops”.
SUMMARY: A decentralized Church is not a decentralized papacy; and doctrine in faith and morals remains of the one, hole, catholic and apostolic Church–of which the irreducible papacy and bishops remain the guardian, together.
You have just expressed the exact feelings that many feel…It is all truth. We have no control over the weather, or climate for that matter. I too have to be blunt. The church no matter what affiliation you are should keep their nose and opinions out of politics. As far a immigration. Since the pope thinks it is wrong for our country to get itself back on its feet and deport illegals, stop and think. They came over and invaded our borders. They did not apply for citizenship. The women, and some hardly I would say very young were with child, no husband. In fact a bus load pulled up to the south border and there had to be 25-30 get off all women and girls, all pregnant, no husband. When interviewed they said they were not worried, the president was going to take care of them. Is the United States a global welfare program. Not most practicing Catholics are angry, they intentionally are with child just to get money and stay in the US. Come in the right way, apply for citizenship and learn American and take the test –that is the right way. In fact I know of 2 people that became citizens, doing the right thing.
a) bishops who oppose death penalty are responsible whenever a hardened criminal who would otherwise have gotten death penalty kills a fellow inmate or a guard while in prison. These killings by killers who were not killed happen all the time.
b) Aquinas accepted the death penalty whenever it made a society more secure (see a above)
Thank you for reiterating these scientific truths.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I struggle with our Bishops in general these days. They are backseat drivers too concerned with losing their 501c3 privileges to lead the flock. In this case, the assumption is made that US citizens aren’t good stewards of the blessings God has given us if we disagree with the politics of climate change. To me, it’s a money grab and a way for governments around the world to lessen freedoms that are God-given.
I am disappointed with Trump bringing back the death penalty.
As for the migrants, getting the criminals out first is our Governments responsibility. I’m all for giving the poor help and a chance at a better life, but until the Pontiff and the Bishops come up with a better plan than their appeals, their judgement seems ludicrous to me. Our parish (and our K of C ) spend countless hours volunteering, raising money, and distributing all we can afford to the homeless and single mothers. Our Pastor is very involved. And we are losing the battle. For this particular Bishop I would ask what has he and the others done beside taking up collections and talking about it while eating good food on nice china every night.
The only comment needed about these irrelevant Bishops!! Well said!
The problem with climate change, and all related with nature, is stay away of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. Those (atheist woke) that use the Earth to their bizarre theories, and those (protestant sionists wild capitalist) that use the Earth in the Old Testament way denying any problem.
All that are not in the truth of the Christ New Testmament and the Apostolic Tradition are wrong.
Climate change is a problem (Greenland interest e.g.) with many uncertainties (is a theory, based in science, but not science). Is a problem created by wild capitalism and marxism materialism, with many uncertainties that no woke cannot understand. Only us, the Catholics, are able to manage the situation. Let us lead the world.
St Alphonse Ligouri maintained that the death penalty was a redemptive act given that it focused the mind wonderful upon God’s mercy and the positivity of redemption.
It’s true that Catholic Bishops’ Conferences everywhere tend to jump on the current trendy opinions. On the issue of immigration to the US, their voice is largely beneficial, however, While they, and the Pope, make no distinction between the Christian immigrant, and the pagan, the Muslim of the Sikh, in the US it doesn’t make much difference, because over 90% of “illegal” immigrants are Christian, hardworking, family oriented etc. (in Europe it runs 90% the other way). Trump would like to replace millions of hardworking Catholic families with millions of Hindus and Sikhs. In such a situation I say, let the bishops speak. They’re on the right side.
No to unvetted criminals, no to unvetted unaccompanied single males of military age. No to the unvetted disease carriers and unvetted agents of enemy foreign governments.
The bishops never met an illegal it didn’t like. Why? Just follow the money.
A real Christian would follow the laws of the country they are wanting to live in. Illegal is criminal right out of the gate. Where does their respect for their country’s laws start??
Yes we should follow the compassionate example of the Vatican (sarcasm):
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border
“…in the US it doesn’t make much difference, because over 90% of “illegal” immigrants are Christian, hardworking, family oriented etc.”
This is incorrect bordering on propaganda. Hard working people would not need taxpayer funded hotel rooms and debit cards for food, and they would certainly be paying their own medical bills. Illegals are taking more than they are contributing, so they need to be deported immediately. The bishop’s you support are actually on the wrong side of the issue. The voters have spoken, and elections have consequences.
Anybody would use any services made available. “Illegals” work for less money (and harder) than the rest of the population. Therefore, through the profits engendered by the businesses that employ them and which do have to pay taxes, “illegals” generate more wealth than they receive than the average resident. There are also many benefits they cannot access, despite the proportionately higher contribution they make, with respect to what they earn. The US economy is very much dependent on cut price wages.
Trumps immigration catechist, Stephen Miller would exchange millions of “illegal” Catholics for millions of Hindus and Sikhs. Is that really what you want?
The voters have also spoken on both national and state levels on abortion. The vast majority of them, including Trump himself, support abortion. So…?
NAFTA and the US based drug market have made life extremely difficult for many Mexicans. Also remember that almost half the United States was once Mexico, and only became the US after massive “illegal” immigration of WASPS. Catholics need to get back their own mind and stop thinking like WASPS.
You are right in some way. Maybe the point (everywhere) should be in the middle: no disorder immigration, that means in the two ways, no undocumented immigrants but only christian (catholics) inmigrants.
I want strong and secure borders that keep uneducated and unskilled people out of the country. Illegal aliens do not work harder than Americans, that’s a leftist talking point. They should not have access to any services, period. And access to even one taxpayers funded service is one too many. The fact that life in Mexico is difficult is irrelevant. Put yor own house in order.
Mr. Miguel, I think you make a good point about most immigrants/ migrants being hardworking people. We need immigration and we need more young people in our work force. But turning our immigration over to trafficking and drug cartels isn’t the way to go about it. And it just enables organized crime in Latin America to become stronger and more profitable. That’s creating more violence, extortion, and migration South of the border. It’s a never ending cycle and we have to put the brakes on for everyone’s safety.
The folks coming to the US today are for the most part assets . Just as our immigrant ancestors were. But they’re coming here in the wrong way.
Bishops, each of you, including the National Cathedral’s Episcopalian Bishop Budde, take in two illegals into the residency where you live. Feed them, clothe them, cover their healthcare needs, and infinitum. If you expect a nation to do this surely you can lead by example. You can shows us how the cross of mercy should be carried.
I AGREE AS TO ALL PEOPLE….ALL THESE PEOPLE AND POLITICIANS WHO PREACH, YOU TAKE THEM I AND SUPPORT THEM, EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY ROB YOU AND BEAT YOU UP…HOW CAN ONE EXPECT TO BE HUMANE TO PEOPLE THAT COME INTO OUR COUNTRY ILLEGALLY AND DO NOT RESPECT OUR RULES.
Where was Brolio and the rest of the USCCB when Biden unceasingly promoted and imposed unlimited abortion for 4 years? Crickets. These hirelings have squandered their moral authority and are now following Bergoglio’s buffonish example in pontificating about subjects in which they are completely ignorant.
Great comment.
The Bishops are indeed taking up Political Positions on themes that are beyond the Catholic Truth which they were ordained to defend. Less time implementing Bergoglioism, asset-stripping tradition, and rather time focussed on restoring Catholicism would rekindle a little legitimacy.
Peddling Weather-Fear is not Catholicism, it is Synodal New Church Bergoglioism.
Bishops are called to Obedience to the Word, not the WorLd; to Catholicism not Bergoglioism.
The hierarchs of the US Catholic Church (with a few exceptions, like the late Bishop Morlino), and the Pontiff Francis, have spent the last 23 years (and more), proving that they couldn’t care less about “the most vulnerable” who get sexually abused by their friends in the clerical caste system.
And they are likewise complicit in their abusive financial boondoggling in the illegal immigration program of the Biden “gangster-government.”
Their moral authority is as deep as the layer of wax on the floor of their millionaire metropolitan apartments.
Biden paid the Catholic church over 1 1/2 billion dollars to bring in and contribute to this chaotic mess…..Just follow the money as usual…..
Once again, if the USCCB is AGAINST something, it is almost invariably something good, decent, logical, sane, and Christian. If the USCCB is FOR something, it is almost invariably bad, appalling, absurd, loopy, or outright evil. Good bishops, wherever they may be, should disassociate themselves from this Marxist organization if they wish to retain any credibility.
I was thinking about the magnetic poles shifting this week Nr.Brineyman.
I’m snowed in again for the third day in the Deepest South after a blizzard. It was 1 degree above zero yesterday morning. Last year I had an alligator in my pond, now it’s got ice. I had to use a pickaxe to bust the thick ice in my cattle’s water tank. Our entire state hasn’t a single snow plow but I read more northerly states were sending some down to help.
A little bit of global warming would be very much appreciated here today. The good news is that it looks like things will be gradually getting back to normal. Whatever “normal” may be these days.
I wish our bishops would concentrate more on saving souls and less on faddish climate narratives.
My past respect for Bp Broglio is now near zero. Four silent years re Biden and now this. Speaks volumes, but once you get used to the palace that is the USCCB HQ in Washington, well, you know who butters your bread.
Sad.
As successors of the apostles our bishops have moral authority, but by their actions (and inactions) they have squandered credibility. Give the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who promote the killing of the unborn, but criticize Trump for withdrawing from a useless climate agreement? Pathetic!
When pressed the bishops say they are for secure borders, but when asked if an illegal who manages to get through the secure border should be sent back the answer is no. How honest is that?
In the bishops’ voting guide last year they said that, “We should stand with newcomers, authorized and unauthorized.” These are not words meant to inform, but rather to shape acceptance of illegals.
I am a lifelong Catholic, and Catholic to the inner marrow of my bones. I find it very sad that one frequently cannot look to our bishops, and even the pope for moral guidance.
I vehemently disagree with a good portion of this. Indoctrination is not good. They are listening to the press not the engineers on climate and a misinformation on deportations from within our Church. Sad.
Thanks, Briney!
“It is our hope that the leadership of our country will reconsider those actions which disregard not only the human dignity of a few, but of us all” (Archbishop Broglio). Fine. It’s true that some migrant situations require compassion. Although the complaints require specificity.
Example. Is he referring to the executive order that prohibits gay banners on government buildings as threatening the few? If so, then does that mean the USCCB acquiesces to gay rights, permitting gay banners in churches, on religious bldgs? Why hasn’t the USCCB seriously addressed the human trafficking that comes with open borders? Or the many migrant children who simply disappeared? Why hasn’t it addressed the exploitation of immigrant cheap labor?
If concerned with environment, why hasn’t it criticized California’s mismanagement of ecological, environmental requirements, fire protection agencies that were the major conditions that led to the LA inferno? USCCB policies continue to reflect this Vatican’s priorities, and appears a Democrat controlled body.
Just curious but do we ever hear from our Bishops on normal challenges of the day? Like sin? Sexuality?kindness and honestly?? What we owe to God? Or is it always just about opposition to Conservative thought and pushing their very clear leftist agenda and largely ignoring the distortion of sexuality we have witnessed the last 4 years?? I have zero interest in their voting advice, which will suggest i do opposite of every catholic thing i have ever lesrned, as well as opposing everything which is positive for my country. I am an American. Not a globalist.
CV NEWS FEED // In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday, Catholic priest Father Peter Totleben, O.P., explained the Catholic Church’s nuanced teaching on “deportation.”
The definition of the “deportation” explicitly opposed in certain Catholic texts “does not apply to deportation in the colloquial sense that Americans use the term,” Father Totleben wrote.
The Dominican friar wrote that when recent Church documents use the Latin word “deportatio” – usually translated to English as “deportation” – they are not referring to simply repatriating migrants to their country of origin.
He specifically named the 1965 pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes and Pope St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor.
“According to the dictionary (and its references to Roman Law), ‘deportatio’ is displacing people from their native land,” the priest explained. “So, in condemning ‘deportatio,’ the Magisterium is thinking of things like the displacement of the Jews, or various displacements that occurred in Europe right after World War II, or things like ethnic cleansing.”
“This should be obvious,” the Dominican stressed. “The Church teaches both that people have a right to migrate both for asylum and economic reasons.”
However, he emphasized that the Church also teaches “that the welcoming country has the right to regulate immigration for economic and cultural reasons,” which “obviously entails a right to repatriate.”
“And it should be pretty clear that if border authorities apprehend someone in the very act of illegally crossing the border, they are allowed to send the person back across the border, they don’t necessarily have to give him residency,” Father Totelben continued, summarizing the common 21st-century American definition of “deportation.”
The priest added it should “be clear that ‘sending a person back to his home country who has no legal right to be in the present country’ and ‘exiling a person from his native land’ are two different species of moral action.”
“Also, notice how no Church authority when speaking out in favor of immigrants has ever said that no immigrant may ever be sent back to his home country, because it is intrinsically evil to do this,” Father Totelben highlighted.
“As always, you have to find out what the people who formulated the Church teaching meant by a term,” the priest wrote. “You can’t apply your own definitions to Church teaching.”
Moreover, he cautioned that not all deportation policies are justified by Church teachings: “Just because deportations, understood as repatriations, are not intrinsically immoral does not mean that a particular plan for mass deportations meets the demands of justice or prudence.”
“To resolve that question,” he wrote, “you would have to weigh a variety of factors” including “the evil of family breakup, the potential injustice of any procedures used to effect the deportation,” as well as “the effect on the economy.”
“And the weighing of these goods and evils are matters that Catholics can in good faith disagree on, and still be good Catholics who are following Catholic social teaching,” he wrote.
I believe that issues like a proper and sensible immigration policy (so obviously lacking in the Biden administration), the Paris Accord and capital punishment are matters for the prudential judgment of each informed and discerning Catholic. When the U.S. Bishops pontificate about these matters, they just further lose credibility.
There are moral issues that the Bishops can and should address in the public arena. This week the Democrats in the Senate killed a bill that would have required care for infants born alive during attempted abortions. Where was the USCCB on this political action of unadulterated intrinsic evil?
About the “environment” or the natural science of ecology, yours truly has settled on three propositions: (1) conceptual clarity; (2) the incomplete sciences; and (3) cultural/systemic interactions and (given the uncertainties) the for “prudential judgment”—a moral principle of Catholic Social Teaching.
FIRST, about clarity, St. John Paul II acknowledged the ecology of natural science, however incomplete, but also distinguished this “natural ecology” from the distinct but interrelated “human ecology”.
The first applies to such significant details as tipping points (the Buffalo hunter ethic, the Dust Bowl event) and feedback loops (thawing of permafrost and release of millions of years of methane); and the latter based on “moral theology” (the family, the common good, etc.). Laudato Si proposes a somewhat conflated “integral ecology” which to critics kowtows to politicized science, and implies a blurred new world ethic where consequences and proportionalism might override moral absolutes (as articulated in Veritatis Splendor), and where Solidarity overrides Subsidiarity. So, maybe a work in progress…
SECOND, about disdain by some for the metric average 1.5 degree global temperature change, and about the oscilating climate record of world history and, yes, about the deficiencies of simplistically modeled climate projections…
One key deficiency of the modeling seems to be that attention is limited to the First Law of Thermodynamics, at the expense of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That is, first, that energy cannot be created or destroyed (therefore, atmospheric heat entrapment and the rising temperature since industrialization) and, second, that the entropy of the universe or our closed system also increases. So, under the second law, instead of heat entrapment, what we also get instead is global weather turbulence in the form larger and more droughts, multiple tornadoes, and even mrscrackers ice pond this year (comment above) where last year she had alligators.
THIRD, from the Church’s perspective, the case can be less limited to the “science (?)” of ecological Armageddon, and more about the “prudential judgment” of adaptive actions, and possible mitigation—given the long lead time it takes to get anything done.
Yes, the rushed Laudato Si could have said more about positive matters such as the public-private and international work of the Nature Conservancy, and the sometimes corporate “third bottom line.” Preventive actions already include land set-asides and forest restoration. Adaptive actions already include construction of massive sea walls in the Netherlands and in Venice where the sea levels are in fact rising. Not hysterical fiction, many regions need much better management of water—as a scarce resource. How to adjust to prolonged droughts, glacial disappearance, and the replacement of snowpack runoff by untrapped rain runoff? Also nonfiction, the mining of non-replenished groundwater is a ticking clock, as in Beijing with its population of 22 million. And then, of course, wildfires.
Ecological problems calling for ingenuity and more, rather than catcalls…
About which, in Centesimus Annus (1991), St. John Paul II defended property ownership (as under Rerum Novarum, 1891), but newly affirmed: “In our time, in particular, there exists another form of ownership which is becoming no less important than land: THE POSSESSION OF KNOW-HOW, TECHNOLOGY AND SKILL [italics]” (n. 32). He goes on to suggest much else, however, including but not limited to, “…a change of lifestyles, or models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies” (n. 58).
SUMMARY: Orange flags matter, and application of “know-how and skill” is part of what’s needed.
Yes, nature is resilient and adaptable, but within limits. Scientifically, in our compact world, what are those limits? Theologically, God is infinite, but Nature is not. With the configuration of world crises now exceeding the impact of historical industrialization on society (Rerum Novarum), the perennial Catholic Church now must defend the human person against not only the direct ideological dead ends of Marxism and myopic versions of capitalism, but also the indirect dangers to regional populations from ecological sinkholes of probably many sorts and sizes.
There are many other problems.
Probity
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/01/exclusive-a-third-of-u-k-met-office-temperature-stations-may-be-wrong-by-up-to-5c-foi-reveals/
https://co2coalition.org/news/hidden-behind-climate-policies-data-from-nonexistent-temperature-stations/
Deceptive trade/economic practices
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_7bd71ee0-cdfd-11ef-99e9-4761c552738f.html
https://fintech.global/2025/01/06/major-u-s-banks-exit-net-zero-banking-alliance-amid-political-pressures/
Consistency/inconsistency prejudices – random walk exploits
https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/bmo-first-canadian-bank-leave-un-climate-alliance
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Banks-Ditch-Net-Zero-as-Climate-Alliances-Crumble.html
No trade-off – trading-off trade-offs
https://www.stocktitan.net/news/IDCC/sustainable-solutions-have-the-potential-to-reap-huge-energy-savings-rlsyk6hr02z1.html
https://www.allianz.com/en/economic_research/insights/publications/specials_fmo/2024_01_11-Climate-Change-Trade-Offs.html
Leading or lagging compensating/compliance?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crucial-role-leading-lagging-indicators-ehs-systems-nathan-hammer-g85kc
[The Role of Forward-looking Climate Metrics in Decarbonization Portfolios]
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4135443
Has Broglio ever openly, loudly and boldly objected to the imposition of the death penalty upon millions of innocent, wiggling, kicking babies? For that matter, how many of you have ever heard a bishop simply make the point that the state has no authority whatsoever to legalize the murder of innocent humanity?
Yes, Broglio has addressed this more than once. See here and here, for example.
Thank you for that, Mr. Olson.
You are correct Carl. But Pope Francis has also appointed pro-abortionists to Vatican committees. Words vs. Actions?
My take in one sentence…The Church keep its own house in order. Have they not been embarassed enough the last few decades with their cover ups, of their priests. The church should keep its nose out of politics. They have know right to add fuel to the fire. The president has a big job ahead and I would think they should mind their own business.
The Church was infiltrated by Freemasons, communists and some Satanists in the Church-in past decades Still cleaning that mess up; most have retired or died. The younger generation is hopeful. So many Catholic men going into seminary, especially over a decade ago, hav no idea of this history of the infiltration, which is key for history to not repeat it self or while our current Pope is part of it making messes.
Watch YT documentary Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing, read Infiltration – Dr Taylor Marshall,
Windswept House & The Jesuits-Malachi Martin
Windswept 98% truth in story form and names changed.; I think 1-2 characters were fictitious. You can figure out who they were at that time, by looking up who was in what position; or look up Fisheaters.
harry, more accurately stated, the question should be: “Has the USCCB (meaning EVERY BISHOP) ever openly, loudly and boldly objected to the imposition of the death penalty upon millions of innocent, wiggling, kicking babies?” And the answer to that would be NO!
Those executive orders are among the many reasons I voted for President Trump. I make no apologies.
All the US bishops care about is the hundreds of millions of dollars the Feds have been pouring into the Catholic Church over illegal aliens invading our country. I should know as I was the Director of Catholic Charities for my diocese.
If you ever want to deal with nasty people hungry for government money just try working with CLINIC, Catholic Charities USA, Catholics Relief Services and those working for CCHD an agency of the USCCB. All a bunch of liberal Democrats who believe in Big Government who writes the checks for much of their budgets. Someday Joe Pewsitter will smarten up.
Trumps appointments overturn roe vs wade and he gets castigated by Christ’s “apostles”. Meanwhile Biden ordered abortion (executive order #14076) and not a peep from any of the apostles successors. Other signs of apostacy: the 24 months of COVID; shuttering churches & literally forbidding the sacraments while crowds throng inside Home Depots, grocery stores & gas stations. History tells us the all bishops of England likewise committed apostacy save John Fisher. More recent history; every single bishop in Austria & Germany gave tacit approval to the atrocities of the national socialists. Before Hitlers election it was forbidden to receive holy communion if one was a member of the NAZI party. After his election the bishops and pastors literally received monthly stipends from the party. They shut their mouths. The more things change the more they stay the same. Let’s stop looking to these clowns for leadership when they are merely masquerading as Christ’s chosen elders.
The dishonest and manipulative use of language is a hallmark of the progressive mindset. I noted this with the references to human “dignity.” Lying to people about the climate and silencing opposing scientific viewpoints does not honor people’s dignity. Viewing murderers who commit heinous crimes as victims and shielding them from the just consequences of their sins dishonors the victims of those crimes and makes a mockery of justice. Wasting valuable resources on illegal aliens when those resources could be used to support and assist taxpaying citizens dishonors hard working people who are trying to save for their family’s needs. Sorry bishops, but your priorities are way off here. It is not your place to use your position to advance a leftist agenda under the pretense that that is somehow the gospel of Christ. As usual, you are on the wrong side of the issues here. Please repent and get your own houses in order before you presume to lecture us.
This message is a reminder, as former Australian PM Tony Abbott once said, that while Bishops can transform wine and wafers into the Body and Blood of Christ, they cannot transform bad logic into good logic.
So our bishops are becoming more forcefully opposed to the precepts of the Catholic religion. I can’t say I’m surprised. They’ve been at it for years. Few demonstrate a knowledge that would make them qualified young students for a First Communion. If they were ever to obtain such knowledge, it would be refreshing to see images of them walking down the aisle, all in white, with a genuinely humble and prayerful attitude for once.