HHS move amounts to 'to hell with you,' bishop says as protests mount by Nancy Frazier O'Brien of the Catholic News Service (an arm of the USCCB)
Spare us the historionics. Health insurance benefits are earned, not a matter of largesse. They belong to the employees, not the employer, and the impact of covering birth control on the cost of the insurance is minimal.
The contention that birth control destroys a human life is far fetched and not in line with the natural sciences, which indicate that the energy that ends at death and protects against entropy throughout life by guiding development, does not and cannot start until gastrulation, which occurs after implantation. Preventing implantation does not, therefore, end life, merely potential life. As for the impact on birth control on sexual relations, the sexual relations of employees are plainly none of the bishop's business.
The only leg the bishops have to stand on in resisting birth control is in affirming that birth control should not be necessary in society because workers should be paid a just and living wage with the birth of each child, however that matter has nothing to do with health insurance coverage but the mortally sinful payment policies of the Catholic Church.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Vatican Insider on RCs & the Death Penalty
Vatican Insider on RCs & the Death Penalty
by MSW
My response: It is not enough to abolish the death penalty. Life without parole must also be abolished, as it is essentially the death penatly by different means. Indeed, the use of prison instead of rehabilitative mental health care flies in the face of basic Christian charity, which requires forgiveness to be forgiven. That being said, what the Holy Father does not understand is that if a convict cannot be reached therapeutically, the most humane option for both the convict and the society is to euthanize him witout fanfare, not as punishment, but for public safety. Last I checked, one of the duties of the sovereign, which is all of us, is the protection of the weak from the dangerous. This, by the way, is why abortion is legal as well - because some pregnancies are dangerous, or would be if abortion were self-induced or performed without licensed care givers. Guilt or innocence is God's to decide. Society must judge danger.
by MSW
My response: It is not enough to abolish the death penalty. Life without parole must also be abolished, as it is essentially the death penatly by different means. Indeed, the use of prison instead of rehabilitative mental health care flies in the face of basic Christian charity, which requires forgiveness to be forgiven. That being said, what the Holy Father does not understand is that if a convict cannot be reached therapeutically, the most humane option for both the convict and the society is to euthanize him witout fanfare, not as punishment, but for public safety. Last I checked, one of the duties of the sovereign, which is all of us, is the protection of the weak from the dangerous. This, by the way, is why abortion is legal as well - because some pregnancies are dangerous, or would be if abortion were self-induced or performed without licensed care givers. Guilt or innocence is God's to decide. Society must judge danger.
Bishop Zavala & Celibacy
Bishop Zavala & Celibacy by MSW
My response: The reason the orthodox have a two track system for married men who stay priests and unmarried men who can become bishops (and you can't marry after ordination) was because they did not want the children of bishops inheriting Church property. That can be avoided by abandoning a feudal personal ownership model for church property and institutions and joining the 21st century. Then both bishops and priests can marry and have kids.
More importantly, priestly celibacy must be abandoned because of the way it affects how the Church teaches about sex in the culture. While the kingdom of God is not of this world, it is IN this world. We don't obey sexual norms to get to heaven but to make life bearable - and when those norms make life unbearable they can't be from God and cannot be the result of natural law reasoning. Indeed, celibacy in the Latin rite has, in its origins, ideas on Continence that are offensive to married people and to womanhood in general that must be abandoned for their own sake. There is nothing incompatible with celebrating conjugal love and the Eucharist on the same day - and anyone holding to a belief otherwise should not be allowed to teach about sexuality or sexual ethics. Indeed, such a view is responsible for the warped clericalist views on contraception and unitive love and resistence to accepting homosexuality in a loving marital relationship.
My response: The reason the orthodox have a two track system for married men who stay priests and unmarried men who can become bishops (and you can't marry after ordination) was because they did not want the children of bishops inheriting Church property. That can be avoided by abandoning a feudal personal ownership model for church property and institutions and joining the 21st century. Then both bishops and priests can marry and have kids.
More importantly, priestly celibacy must be abandoned because of the way it affects how the Church teaches about sex in the culture. While the kingdom of God is not of this world, it is IN this world. We don't obey sexual norms to get to heaven but to make life bearable - and when those norms make life unbearable they can't be from God and cannot be the result of natural law reasoning. Indeed, celibacy in the Latin rite has, in its origins, ideas on Continence that are offensive to married people and to womanhood in general that must be abandoned for their own sake. There is nothing incompatible with celebrating conjugal love and the Eucharist on the same day - and anyone holding to a belief otherwise should not be allowed to teach about sexuality or sexual ethics. Indeed, such a view is responsible for the warped clericalist views on contraception and unitive love and resistence to accepting homosexuality in a loving marital relationship.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Payroll Tax Cuts & Third Rails
Payroll Tax Cuts & Third Rails by Michael Sean Winters
My response:
The new third rail for Republican politicians is keeping capital gains and dividend taxes low, where they currently sit at 15%, rates they wish to make permanent. There would be some justification for doing that if there were also a Value Added Tax.
The current economic depression has taken the wind out of the sails for Social Security personal accounts, at least if they are invested in Wall Street index funds. There is an argument for investing them in your employer, provided that each employee gets the same number of shares, which would come from the employer.
As for the payroll tax holiday, what matters is not so much is that the stimulus come from this tax, but that it come from some tax. A better sweetener would be to let this tax expire and instead increase the child tax credit and make it refundable for everyone, since families are most likely to spend the money. Rick Santorum is currently the only candidate who proposes anything like this, as he would triple the child exemption - which in the political process may get turned into a higher child tax credit.
My response:
The new third rail for Republican politicians is keeping capital gains and dividend taxes low, where they currently sit at 15%, rates they wish to make permanent. There would be some justification for doing that if there were also a Value Added Tax.
The current economic depression has taken the wind out of the sails for Social Security personal accounts, at least if they are invested in Wall Street index funds. There is an argument for investing them in your employer, provided that each employee gets the same number of shares, which would come from the employer.
As for the payroll tax holiday, what matters is not so much is that the stimulus come from this tax, but that it come from some tax. A better sweetener would be to let this tax expire and instead increase the child tax credit and make it refundable for everyone, since families are most likely to spend the money. Rick Santorum is currently the only candidate who proposes anything like this, as he would triple the child exemption - which in the political process may get turned into a higher child tax credit.
Rick Santorum’s Tax Plan
Rick Santorum’s Tax Plan by Howard Gleckman
I am still troubled that you wait until he has supporters to score his plan. In the pursuit of both truth and solutions, any good idea - and bad idea - should be scored - especially if it gives good solutions more exposure than they would otherwise get. While it is true that Santorum likely won't win the nomination and certainly not the general election, his ideas should still be scored because they add to the debate.
I agree with his approach of funding families more through the tax code, although the exemption for children and EITC should be merged to a larger refundable Child Tax Credit. Generally, his plan for more tax benefits for families is in line with his pro-life beliefs.
It seems that some of his proposals, like the expensing of equipment right away, might work as a transition to consumption taxes. A good consumption tax regimine combined with a surtax on high income might not be as much of a revenue loser, especially if the Democrats retain enough power in the Senate to force concessions and the anti-compromise/anti-fact members of the Tea Party are banished from Congress by the voters.
I am still troubled that you wait until he has supporters to score his plan. In the pursuit of both truth and solutions, any good idea - and bad idea - should be scored - especially if it gives good solutions more exposure than they would otherwise get. While it is true that Santorum likely won't win the nomination and certainly not the general election, his ideas should still be scored because they add to the debate.
I agree with his approach of funding families more through the tax code, although the exemption for children and EITC should be merged to a larger refundable Child Tax Credit. Generally, his plan for more tax benefits for families is in line with his pro-life beliefs.
It seems that some of his proposals, like the expensing of equipment right away, might work as a transition to consumption taxes. A good consumption tax regimine combined with a surtax on high income might not be as much of a revenue loser, especially if the Democrats retain enough power in the Senate to force concessions and the anti-compromise/anti-fact members of the Tea Party are banished from Congress by the voters.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Holding all things in our hearts
Holding all things in our hearts by Patricia Datchuck Sanchez. My response:
The signifant thing about this passage is that it hints at the source of Jesus knowledge about himself - that it was not simply from the fact that he was full of grace, which he did have - or because he had a full share of the divine mind (which he did not have prior to his resurrection) - but because Mary told him of these things, causing him to search the scriptures for confirmation and believe, which is more meritorious than knowing. When he suffered on the cross and gave care of his mother to John, he was in a way rejecting this belief, which led to his psychic crushing when he cried out to God in anguish, which is the real instrument of our salvation, much as his taking of the fruit of the vine is a sign that he and we had entered the Father's kingdom.
The signifant thing about this passage is that it hints at the source of Jesus knowledge about himself - that it was not simply from the fact that he was full of grace, which he did have - or because he had a full share of the divine mind (which he did not have prior to his resurrection) - but because Mary told him of these things, causing him to search the scriptures for confirmation and believe, which is more meritorious than knowing. When he suffered on the cross and gave care of his mother to John, he was in a way rejecting this belief, which led to his psychic crushing when he cried out to God in anguish, which is the real instrument of our salvation, much as his taking of the fruit of the vine is a sign that he and we had entered the Father's kingdom.
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