Father Z of the blog What Does The Prayer Really Say? posted part of an interview that Hugh Hewitt had with Rick Santorum. Santorum answers a question on President Obama’s attack on the Church. Here is part of the transcript:
RS: I talked about it in every speech I’ve given today. And here’s what I said, though, Hugh. I said that I took issue with the Catholic Bishops Conference, because Hugh, you may remember, they embraced Obamacare.
HH: Yes.
RS: They embraced it and said…here’s what I said to them. Be careful when you have government saying that they can give you rights, that you have a right to health care, and government’s going to give you something, because once you are now dependant on government, they, not only can they take that right away, they can tell you how to exercise that right, and you can either like it or not. And that’s the problem. That’s what the Catholic Bishops Conference didn’t get, that there’s no free lunch here, folks. If you’re going to give people secular power, then they’re going to use it in a secular fashion. And that’s why, you know, I hate to say it, but you know, you had it coming. And it’s time to wake up and realize that government isn’t the answer to the social ills. It’s people of faith, and it’s families, and it’s communities, and it’s charities that need to do this as it has in America so successfully for so long.
HH: Rick Santorum, what do you advise Catholic hospitals, Catholic colleges, Catholic…the centers of poverty assistance, the adoption agencies? What do you advise them to do in the face of, as Archbishop Olmstead said, we cannot comply with this unjust law?
RS: Civil disobedience. This will not stand. There’s no way they can make this stand. The Supreme Court, eventually, this thing’s going to get to the Supreme Court just like the ministerial hiring issue that was just decided by the Supreme Court the other day. And it was a 9-0 decision that said the Obama administration can’t roll over people of faith when it comes to hiring. Yet in the face of that decision, this radical, secular government of Barack Obama continues to have faith be the least important of the 1st Amendment. And I just think they fight. They fight in the courts, and they fight by civil disobedience, and go to war with the federal government over this one.
[…]
The devil’s temptations at times can be quite enticing to the individual. Sometimes evil can be cloaked in goodness. I believe this is what happened to the Bishops with regards to Obamacare.
As noble as it is for the bishops to want to ensure that every person has acess to health care in the United States that is an impossible feat. Did the Bishops “dance with the devil” when they left the unborn for collateral damage in order to support Obamacare and the Democrat Party? I mean c’mon, when you have knowledge that Obama voted against the Infant Born Alive Infant Protection Act, that many in the Democrat Party believe in the “choice” to kill innocents via abortion, that these people have imposed numerous strangling regulations on the American people and have taken God out of our public schools thus removing the teaching of morality how can you honestly be surprised that the Obama admin would force their secularist values ( or lack thereof) down our throat? In the past big government has not been friendly but in fact hostile to religion and liberty so why would the bishops think that getting in bed with big government policies in the U.S. would turnout any differently? It is my opinion that the Church and in particular our bishops have been snake-bitten by the serpent. Now, we need to pray for our bishops and the Church.
I’ve been meaning to visit you since this whole tempest started with the Obamacare mandate to provide birth control–I knew you would have a post, and you didn’t let me down. Santorum is correct. The Catholic Church should never have endorsed national health care, not that it would have made much difference in its passing. But I am glad that this issue has created another huge chink in the Obamacare armour. It must be abolished, hoperully by the Supremes.
This is an amazing time.
I’m proud of the response. I’m proud of the church. Kind of stunned of the degree of camaraderie appearing over this. From Catholics, former Catholics and non Catholics coming together over this. Catholics coming home may have to pay the DNC and Obama for this boon they gave the church.
http://www.catholicscomehome.org/
what the Catholic church failed to realized 2 years ago (primarily because they were getting what they wanted) when the issue was straight in their face, was that contraception and abortions would indeed be paid for by the government. How can it be avoided. The Catholic church has for years conflated government handouts with charity. Government handouts are the result of taking property from one person or group (this is called taxation) and deciding whom to give it (this is called politics). Catholic clergy have figured out the Scriptures and haven’t ,for years, figured this out.
Let me put in layman’s terms, he who pays the fiddler, names the tune.
The other comment I have is that if the Catholic church thinks they can finesse their way past this one (I happen to believe that they will reach that point some time before the election) then they will have given up their freedom of religion. Because this is the beginning of their problems, not the end. And by the way, all of you liberal Catholics that flipped the lever for Obama in 2008, you got what you deserve because you were not paying attention. Think ya might in November, I would not bet on it.