Fri Sep 4, 2009 5:55 pm
Bishops on Healthcare
As Roman Catholics we applaud the efforts of our Bishops to:
1. Uphold the value of human life from conception through to natural death.
2. Support
pregnant women, enabling them to carry their pregnancies through to
term, then continuing to support the resulting family.
3. Establish
health care for all, to ensure that the least among us have the health
care which our Church states is a right, not a privilege.
But
we are very discouraged by some bishop's statements that are long on
rhetoric but short on facts and tie abortion into the health care
debate, especially as they argue that funds for health care for the
poor are essentially funds freed for abortion. Such flawed logic is beneath them and reflects a political partisanship. We
only need to point out that by this same logic each and every dollar of
government funding, be it Federal or State, can be directly used, or
frees up other funds, to procure abortions. By this same logic, are not dollars contributed in the Sunday collection supporting pedophile priests?
If Bishops want to speak
against a healthcare bill under consideration, they are free to do so,
but we call on them to leave their partisan political rhetoric and
their inconsistencies out of it. We encourage them
instead to enter the debate by pointing out the right to healthcare for
all US citizens in spite of the difficulties involved and not be a
stumbling block for the poor in this matter. They must give us credit
for listening to their teaching but also for being quite capable
of discernment and following our own God-given conscience. They must
not use their spiritual office to support their political biases nor to
deny the right of healthcare for all.
If you agree, pass it on.
ARCC is a co-sponsor of THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC COUNCIL (ACC) Please consider joining this effort to bring about much-needed organizational restructuring in the Church
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