CNS: Cdl. Burke discusses the relationship between social justice concerns and the pro-life movement

Compass: Bp Paprocki gives a lesson in Catholic social teaching

GREEN BAY — Bishop Thomas Paprocki chose to tackle a subject relevant to the upcoming election for his keynote address at the 2012 Red Mass Dinner, Sept. 20 at the Clarion Hotel. He presented the church's teaching regarding the work of the private sector and the role of government in managing the economy at the annual gathering sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society of the Diocese of Green Bay.
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In his talk, Bishop Paprocki, who was appointed the bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., in 2010, stressed that, when applying Catholic social teaching, it's important to distinguish between those aspects of the teaching that are binding principles and those that are prudential judgments.

"Principles are binding insofar as they must be held by the faithful for the sake of salvation," he explained. "Prudential judgments involve the reasoned application of these principles that allow for considerable latitude and discretion.

"Statements of popes and bishops on policy, legislation and other situational applications or principles provide guidance to the faithful, but they are not binding," he added. "The distinctions between binding principles and prudential judgments are not always clear and absolute. Different legal and policy proposals are often compatible with a particular binding principle, but it is not always so."

Bishop Paprocki used the $2 million cut to the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), formerly food stamps, as an example of a policy that may be looked at as a binding principle of Catholic social teaching, but actually involves a prudential judgment.

Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., and Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and the Committee on International Justice and Peace, told Congress that restoration of the funding is necessary in accordance with Catholic social teaching.

"They are simply making a prudential judgment that this program is a necessary, practical means for feeding the hungry," said Bishop Paprocki. "Reasonable minds can come to conclusions on more reasonable ways to feed the hungry."

continue at The Compass

Great article!  And yes, +Paprocki Rocks! 

CMReport: The Bishops Were Wrong On The Ryan Budget

In the wake of the selection of Paul Ryan as the VP nominee, you will be hearing a lot about how Ryan is a bad Catholic because the Bishops criticized the Ryan budget plan.

Let me cut to the chase, the Bishops were wrong.

The text of the letter issued by the Bishops gets the basics wrong and completely ignores the immorality of continued debt. They say...

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I write to urge you to resist for moral and human reasons unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutrition programs. The committee has been instructed to reduce agricultural programs by an additional $33.2 billion. In allocating these reductions, the committee should protect essential programs that serve poor and hungry people over subsidies that assist large and relatively well-off agricultural enterprises. Cuts to nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment. These cuts are unjustified and wrong. If cuts are necessary, the committee should first look towards reducing and targeting commodity and subsidy programs that disproportionately go to large growers and agribusiness

Except those draconian cuts they fear are not cuts at all, but reductions in growth from the projected baseline budgeting planned growth. To suggest that these are real cuts is disingenuous.

Further, this letter does not address the real problems facing America, rather the Bishops sit on their high horses while simultaneously sticking their heads in the sand.

This massive accumulating debt has real consequences, and those consequence will be disastrous for the very poor the USCCB pretends to be concerned about. 

continue at NCRegister

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I think it's time we asked how many employees the USCCB has working in their social justice office, as opposed to how many employees they have working in their pro-life office. 

CCHD funded group praises Obamacare

From the MJS: 

In Milwaukee, where faith leaders and advocates have held prayer vigils and sent representatives to Washington to lobby for reform, the Rev. Dennis Jacobsen of Incarnation Lutheran Church called Thursday's decision a sacred moment that hit close to home.

"I do have this sense that this was sort of a sacred moment in a secular chamber," Jacobsen, who heads the national clergy caucus for the advocacy group Gamaliel, said of the Supreme Court decision. "I am convinced that health care biblically is God's intent for everyone."

I have heard that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee's CCHD collection was way, way down this year. So if the Archdiocese refuses to cut ties with these groups, the faithful will have to defund them out.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin Alinsky groups were awarded  [PDF] close to $250,000 in the 2011-12 CCHD grants.

The below video shows leaders of the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation holding a creepy healthcare rally shortly after Obama's election.

"Hear our cry, Obama. Deliver us, Obama," the organizers prayed:

PS Also noteworthy in the MJS article is this little line:

[The USCCB] vowed Thursday to continue to push for changes in the law.

"Changes" is a little different than "repeal," no? So I did a little research and found this article from Catholic News Agency:

The [USCCB] said that it did not join in “efforts to repeal the law in its entirety” after it was passed in 2010 and added that “we do not do so today.”

More on the Marquette letter complaining about moral spending practices

Not news: a bunch of mostly leftist faculty recently signed a letter attacking Paul Ryan’s budget plan. The Journal-Sentinel puffed the story as though college faculty being liberal and opposed to Republicans really was news.

Now what is news: a majority of those faculty who signed the letter also signed petitions to recall Scott Walker, according to Entitlement Mentality Monitor.

In spite of the use of the language of Catholic social justice teaching, the impetus behind the letter was merely your standard liberal-let politics.

continue at Marquette Warrior

From the archives, round two

Yesterday I posted a rather startling photo from 1984 of a Milwaukee priest celebrating Mass, dressed as a clown.

The photo above is from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel archives, this time from 1982, involving the same Milwaukee priest, Fr. Edward Hussli. The topic, again, concerns female altar servers.

Some choice clips from the article: 

- Parishes that have altar girls, he said, want to keep a low profile because they don't want to stir up ultra-conservative Catholics, who don't approve of women taking any part in the liturgy.
- Although the chancery is aware that several parishes have altar girls, the archdiocese has not addressed the question.
- Father Edward J. Hussli, associate pastor of St. Agnes, said it was an injustice to girls to deny them the opportunity to serve at Mass. "We're trying to eliminate all the masculinity from Scripture and the service, and here in one area, we're denying girls the opportunity to serve on the altar," he said.
- "We thought it would be really good for the girls learn at an early age that they can be accepted in different lay roles of the church," said Carol Richards, coordinator of the program [at St. Alphonsus]. Remembering her feelings as a girl attending Mass, Richards said, "I always wondered how come the boys could cross the altar rail and we never could. It was OK for me to clean the altar afterwards, but I wasn't good enough to be up there for the liturgy." 

Read the whole article here.

I could write for days about the various issues in this article. This article is 30 years old. Are we really better off?

HT my anonymous friend.

FSPA: Social Justice Stations of the Cross

For your viewing despair:

Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

Remembering the oppression suffered by Jesus during his walk to the cross, this contemplative journey will bring awareness to how we as a people and as an earth community still suffer today. On this walk, we will process in silence through downtown La Crosse, stopping to pray and sing at places that represent the wounds of our world. Based on the traditional Stations of the Cross practiced by Christians for centuries, this will be our third annual Social Justice Stations of the Cross.

La Crosse, Wis. – April 6, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., Franciscan Spirituality Center
Chicago, Ill. – April 6, noon – 3 p.m., Northeast corner of Congress and Michigan, sponsored by the 8th Day Center for Justice.

Ahem..

"If you want peace, work for justice.  If you want justice, defend life."  - John Paul II

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New "Recall WEAC" billboard

The quote if of longtime national teachers union president Albert Shanker: "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren."  For more information, visit RecallWEAC.com

HT Vicki McKenna

The heresy of Americanism

Sponsors of "Vatican II Lives"

From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some "Americanism." But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world.

But the true church is one, as by unity of doctrine, so by unity of government, and she is catholic also. Since God has placed the center and foundation of unity in the chair of Blessed Peter, she is rightly called the Roman Church, for "where Peter is, there is the church." Wherefore, if anybody wishes to be considered a real Catholic, he ought to be able to say from his heart the selfsame words which Jerome addressed to Pope Damasus: "I, acknowledging no other leader than Christ, am bound in fellowship with Your Holiness; that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that the church was built upon him as its rock, and that whosoever gathereth not with you, scattereth." 

Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae
Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on January 22, 1899.

Social justice and seamless garments for all

Milwaukee Catholic Herald:

An anguishing, yet determined struggle to save a friend from deportation and certain death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo) led Sr. Josephe Marie Flynn [photo, left, the one in the habit... oh wait, the one in the blue top] to write a book about that battle, which started six years ago. This School Sister of Notre Dame felt called to “expose” the immigration system in the United States [while the system has its faults, which I won't get into here... seriously, is this the greatest issue facing Catholics today?].

“It’s hurting the very people we’re pledged to protect,” she said in a recent interview with your Catholic Herald.

“The system is so complicated because it’s so big [maybe because government is too big?]. Unless you understand it, you can’t see how it’s hurting people,” she said.

Regina Bakala was saved from deportation in 2005 with the help of Sr. Josephe Marie, at the time Adult and Family Christian Formation Director at St. Mary Catholic Faith Community, Hales Corners.

The book, “Rescuing Regina: The Battle to Save A Friend from Deportation and Death,” named by the online Huffington Post as “one of the 20 most anticipated books of the summer of 2011,” [applause from HuffPo is never a good sign of... anything] was published in July by Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago.

Read the rest here.