The president of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the health care reform bill “must be opposed” because it doesn’t go far enough in banning federal funding of abortion and incorporating conscience clauses. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago notes that the Catholic Health Association (the people who run the country’s 624 Catholic hospitals) supports the bill, believing that flaws can be corrected after passage. Such a tactic, George said, “seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke.” The CHA, by the way, spent more than $1 million lobbying in 2009, 64 percent more than it spent in 2008. Anyone know how much the USCCB spent?
The House is considering a resolution condemning China’s persecution of Falun Gong-ers. Some 18 senators sent a letter to the FDA calling for a change in the policy that bars gay men from donating blood; Dr. David Stevens of the Christian Medical and Dental Association said “it’s still not safe enough,” to make the change.
President Obama’s trip to next week to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, will include an address to Muslims and a visit to his childhood haunts. The former White House social secretary may have been fired over Christmas cards.
Hispanic evangelicals are in the Capitol lobbying for immigration reform. Meanwhile, Latinos’ allegiance to Catholicism is waning, according to a new study. Two Jewish groups have joined Americans United for Separation of Church + State in filing an amicus brief urging SCOTUS to allow public colleges and universities to ban groups that discriminate based on religion. Florida megachurch pastor (and friend of POTUS) Joel Hunter has left the GOP.
A local ELCA synod denied a request from a Florida parish to leave the denomination, even though it had completed the necessary two votes. National Catholic Reporter spoke with the lesbian parents daughters were booted from a Denver Catholic school.
The priest at the center of the German sexual abuse scandal that has enmeshed Pope Benedict XVI was suspended on Monday. Peter Hullerman had continued working with children for more than 30 years, even after he was convicted of molesting boys. A German bishop said he is surprised at the scope of the sexual abuse in his country.
Ireland’s senior Catholic bishop said he won’t resign, even after admitting that he refused to report a child-molesting priest to civil authorities. “Yes, I knew that these were crimes, ” said Cardinal Sean Brady. “But I did not feel that it was my responsibility to denounce the actions (of the abuser) to the police.” Talk about your antinomians. Finally, the Vatican says they have completed their probe of the Legionaries of Christ, whose founder fathered a child and molested seminarians.
Vietnam released a Catholic human rights activist because they don’t want him to die in prison. Ireland will hold a referendum on its new, unpopular blasphemy ban. British humanists want bishops out of the House of Lords. Swiss Muslims are suing for separate cemeteries. Israel passed a civil union bill for nonreligious couples. HIV infections are increasing among gays, drug users, and prostitutes, in part because of laws that criminalize their practices, the UN said.
