Real Catholic Blog

Sorry for the inactivity — first a cold, now a horrible back pain. But I’m not suffering compared to the country now, nor what the unborn are going through, nor the Church for that matter. Sorry for the brevity, but as I recover — and for the time being — I give it to our favorite straight shooter, Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com.

The fact is, according to Voris and many others, tax-payer funded abortion is now a reality and the policy of the United States government. But is the real sin that Catholics were instrumental in bringing this about? This episode of The Vortex spells it out.

Taxpayer funded abortion is now a fact after the health care takeover by the Congress and President Obama. But what role did Catholics, unfortunately and sadly, play in this abomination?

I hate to beat a dead horse. No one likes to hammer at fellow Christians, much less Catholics. But Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV is one who is not afraid to promulgate the truth, and that’s something we need a lot more of these days, especially as so many Catholics are willing to sell out themselves, their faith and their Church for the holy grail of a mythical and unsustainable “social justice” through government running as much of our lives as possible. It is a sell out not only for its false promises, but for the actual harm it causes in the advancement of the culture of death.

Michael Voris explains how we’ve gotten to the precipice of socializing our health care system and creating an abortion-on-demand society.

Regarding the last post about the U.S. Bishops not doing enough until, possibly, now, to affect the debate on the “health care” bill and its funding of abortion, as well as their tolerance of groups and individuals who intentionally misrepresent Catholic teaching, here is the latest commentary from Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com. How appropriate the timing! As I posted yesterday, there are real lessons to learn from Saint Patrick. Mr. Voris gives us one, today, that certainly is applicable to the abortion debate and the “health care” bill.

Drive out the snakes as they are present among us to this day and we’re not talking reptiles, either.

It is very sad. Unfortunately, it is very true. Groups of people who claim to represent Catholic teaching on abortion are misrepresenting that absolute teaching on Capitol Hill and working over several key lawmakers to vote for the government-run health care bill, a bill which will fund abortions with tax dollars, mandate coverage of abortion by insurance companies (the ones still around after the government puts most out of business) and, eventually, eliminate all pretense of conscious protections for medical professionals who do not believe in abortion. Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com has spoken out about this recently and often, and we posted one of his expositions on this not long ago (click here). 

Now Brian Burch from CatholicVoteAction.org has released this letter which outlines some very disturbing activities by these groups. It is up to counter them. Contact your bishops and encourage them to do all they can to motivate the flock to contact their Congressmen to vote no on the health care bill. Make sure they are doing all they can to influence your state’s legislators. Ask them what they are doing to clamp down on these dissident and dishonest “Catholic” groups. Tell them the USCCB must ensure there is no funding — directly or indirectly — of these groups as it has in the recent past and currently.

Get involved and make your voice known. Get your parish involved. Educate your friends on the issue. Contact your own U.S. Representative now and encourage him or her to vote no on this abortion-laden legislation. Also, please read Mr. Burch’s letter. It is very informative and, at the end, he explains further what action you can take to make a difference. In this season of Lent, when Christ died for our sins, we can do no less for the unborn who are innocently dying every day.

Dear CatholicVote Member,

If you are tempted to think Catholics in America don’t matter, I have some news for you.

The past 48 hours of the health care debate has been a pitched battle between Catholic groups fighting over the votes of Catholic representatives.

If this pro-abortion legislation is ultimately passed, some so-called “Catholic” groups will be responsible. They have done major damage to the pro-life cause and provided cover for Democrats to abandon their pro-life record.

First, it was the Catholic Health Association writing a letter to pro-life Democrats encouraging them to vote ‘yes’ on the Senate pro-abortion healthcare bill. Then yesterday, it was a letter from NETWORK — an advocacy group of Catholic sisters who called for passage of the pro-abortion bill and promised they would be “working on all levels to promote [its] passage.”

Sadly, these groups got to Rep. Dale Kildee. You and I passionately pleaded with him to hold the line, running radio ads for days in his district. But he gave in to pressure yesterday saying he had consulted his priest and constituents and concluded “that no federal money can be used for abortion.”

This is bogus and he knows it. But the pressure was simply too great, and he gave in.

But we aren’t giving up. We have other votes including some “surprise” representatives we are working with that could replace the loss of Kildee and others.

What about the Bishops?

Whenever Catholic groups or politicians betray their faith and undermine our Church, people ask me why I don’t call out the Bishops more for not confronting people who spread dissent and attack our unity.

I agree that respectful criticism of our Bishops has a place, but in this fight, at this hour, I am convinced the Bishops need our help, not our condemnation.

CatholicVote is now working directly with Bishops across the country. They know about us and they are thrilled to have us working alongside them. I cannot emphasize enough how thankful they are for all that you’re doing.

I implored them to personally petition Members of Congress, and to speak out publicly against the distortions being spread by CHA and others. Every Bishop I have spoken with has agreed to do everything he can. And many are already doing so.

The USCCB is running editorials, and today is running ads in major newspapers urging the Congress to OPPOSE the pro-abortion bill.

We are also in direct contact with members of the Stupak Coalition and are assisting them with resources within the Church and in districts where undecided votes remain.

What you can do now

Finally, I have three last things you can do to fight against this horrendous bill.

I have two new Congressmen to call. These pro-life Democrats are sitting right on the fence. Call Rep. Jason Altmire at (724) 226-1304 and call Rep. John Boccieri at (330) 489-4414. With so many people calling Congress, you might have difficulty getting through to them. I didn’t say this was going to be easy.

Visit CatholicVoteAction.org for our primer: “Why the Senate bill must be opposed.”

Pray.

The last one is the most important. You and I have made the phone calls, we’ve defended the Church on the Internet and over the airwaves, we’ve fought the good fight.

But political pundits have said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will stop at nothing to get this pro-abortion bill through.

Ultimately, though, the fate of this bill rests in greater hands.

Let every member of CatholicVote join together in prayer over these next few fateful days.

Let us boldly ask Our Lord during this Lenten season for victory in this battle. As hard as we have worked, if this bill is defeated, we will rightly give God all of the praise.

Please, take a moment now to make a call to the switchboard upstairs. His line is never busy.

Sincerely,

Brian Burch

RealCatholicTV.com founder Michael Voris continues his series on the corruption of the Faith by those who would use the Church in America as an extension of a political party or movement. Rather than focus on souls and Biblical Truths, too often we find Church leaders involved in social justice issues to “accommodate” the secular world.

That is the exact path taken by many protestant liturgical denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, which suffered a schism in North America last year (in one of the most important and under reported events of the decade). It happened primarily because it ceased to stand for the Truth and allowed “truth” to become relative among its dioceses, its parishes and even unto its parishioners. Truly, card or bowling clubs are more grounded in principle than some denominations.

But the Faith isn’t about accommodation. It’s about Truth and spreading it for the salvation of souls. “Social justice” is great, but there are several ways to achieve solutions to secular social issues — not the one-size-fits-all-big-government “fixes” unfortunately adopted by too many Church leaders. Not that they should even take sides. Besides, how is “global warming” a social justice issue?

If our Bishops only stayed quiet on these types of matters it would go a long way to furthering the Truth in that they could focus on the issues that have only one solution, such as protecting the unborn and traditional marriage. These are the Scriptural Truths we are called to defend.

Mr. Voris doesn’t mince words. He is on, and to, the point. He is worth listening to. What do you think?

Michael Voris doesn’t hold back. The leadership of the American Catholic Church runs the risk of emulating the disintegrating protestant liturgical denominations.

Below is a very informative video from RealCatholicTV.com (via YouTube.com) about corruption and scandal at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, especially as it relates to personnel there and the activities in which they are engaged which are counter to the teachings of the Church. One individual, John Carr, served on the board of the radical leftist group Center for Community Change (see Bellarmine Veritas Ministry).

Mr. Carr and others at the USCCB are funding organizations — remember the revelation of its funding to ACORN? — that have a left-wing political agenda including those that work to advance the agendas of pro-abortion and homosexual rights groups. As Michael Voris (Catholic.org) and Vic Faust (The American Catholic) explains in the video, it calls into question the role of the USCCB. For example, the Conference doesn’t rule on doctrine and teaching — that is up to the Vatican.

However, that doesn’t stop it from issuing letters, which it represents as authoritative. But its biggest fault is that it has and continues to staff its organization with leftist political ideologues who have, since the USCCB’s inception, used the imprimatur of the U.S. Bishops to influence the notions of the faithful, seminaries and Catholic colleges. In this way, it has poisoned the faithful by confusing them as to what the Church (God) teaches. This has led to division within the Church and a weakened voice in the culture of our country which abets abortion, a weakening of marriage and a general deterioration of our culture and spiritual lives.  

By the way, we have added two sources from the video — RealCatholicTV itself and Bellarmine Veritas Ministry to our Media section and Blogroll, respectively. Two others, American Life League (see article) and Pew Sitter (see article) are mainstays in our Public Policy Section and Media sections, respectively.

The USCCB needs a staff and policy house cleaning. Michael Voris and Vic Faust  provide a detailed report.