Happy Birthday Medicare & Medicaid! | National Catholic Reporter

Happy Birthday Medicare & Medicaid! | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Sadly, Medicaid underpays providers, although less so after the ACA was enacted. What we need is either Single Payer so everyone gets the same reimbursement or an expansion of the US Uniformed Public Health Service - with PHS docs treating Medicaid, Medicare and uninsured patients first and expanding until all docs are PHS docs.

Links for 07/31/15 | National Catholic Reporter

Links for 07/31/15 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: His Eminence is not showing the way.  He is still participating in a fraud.  When he mandates that the rest of the movement deal with family income - including every diocese and parish, he is mainly a better spokes model.  There should never again be an electoral event around overturning Roe, since it will and should never happen.

Sadly, Cecil was protected by law.  The unborn are not.  Protecting the former is an exercise in frustration.  The latter is impossible until you can protect embryos from abortion without making miscarriages public events while not violating equal protection.  The first time an investigator is shot interviewing a family about their miscarriage is the clue that something is impossible here.  Sadly, those who think masturbation is also wrong endeavor to ban it too.  Also impossible.

Not all wages are stuck.  CEOs are doing great.  At this point, it is not the economy, its capitalism.  Of course, wages are always the last thing to move - and when they do those who could not get a job in the early recovery will get one in the late recovery.

Links for 07/30/15 | National Catholic Reporter

Links for 07/30/15 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: On Memphis, no mention at all of the teachers unions, which I suspect are not active in the Jubilee Schools, partly because the Church won't unionize its own workers and partly because the teachers unions have been historically pro-choice.

Private to MSW. The Post got the Cardinal's name right.

A good article by TCD, but I favor total open boarders and an end to right to starve for work laws as a way of controlling immigration.  Also, bishop is essentially political office, but until it is an elected one, perhaps TCD should not endorse candidates or use causes as a surrogate to do so, at least until a diocesean election committee of laity recommends the endorsement publicly.

Drudge is still an idiot, however the interesting thing is that Francis is obviously not Petrus Romano, the last pope, as mentioned by St. Malachy (Benedict lives), yet I cannot see one more prophetically significant.

Douthat is still emotionalizing the fetus (that kind of abortion does not happen to first trimester embryos, which are vacuumed out) when, unless it is a Downs Baby, the abortion was likely medically indicated - regardless of what the Magesterium and its Ogre God say about it.  If the Catholic Church would do these abortions via induction (early birth) instead of demolition and extraction it would be in control of fetal pain and the baptism of the infant (and its possible last minute adoption if it is a Downs child).

Boehner's Conundrum | National Catholic Reporter

Boehner's Conundrum | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Boehner should keep his seat, even to the extent of blowing up the GOP and forming a coalition with Leader Pelosi and those members of the Democratic Caucus that can be labeled “Centrist.”  That would throw a rock at the glass house that is the Republican Party and lead to a moderate party and a left wing party – and no right wing party except for a few fools in the Tea Party caucus who likely would not survive independently as a party.

Any discussion of the Hastert Rule must include the dance between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.  During the Clinton presidency, after he lost the House over increased taxes and health care (frankly, after the Clinton fans stayed home at mid-terms thinking they had won the day), a coalition of centrist Republicans would vote with Clinton and not Newt on financial issues – essentially voting for sanity on taxes and spending.  It’s what kept us on track to a balanced budget.  Newt’s side was against sanity, but he did let the votes that he knew he would lose happen anyway – which is why he is not entirely lying when he says he helped balance the budget – he did by taking a dive in the first round.  That type of finesse was impossible for Hastert (who allowed a bit of corruption back into the House) and is rare in Boehner, who at least supported the ATRA – which raised taxes on the rich and led to a more robust economy.  Create two parties, one pro-ATRA and one anti and governance is possible.

Review: Struggle, Condemnation, Vindication: John Courtney Murray's Journey toward Vatican II | National Catholic Reporter

Review: Struggle, Condemnation, Vindication: John Courtney Murray's Journey toward Vatican II | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I am combining both parts of the review in one commentary.

I

Hudock's 1933 Murray quote is an excellent example of the drive by the Church toward religious power under the guise of religious liberty.  I can't see how that has changed in the modern Church, Vatican II or no Vatican II - although St. John Paul and his sycophants in the clergy can take on most of the blame for that. This is not conservatism, which is libertarian on such matters - it is Traditionalism.  The fact that this doctrine, that there is no truth in error, is medieval in origin only shows how much there is to be done - especially in the governance of the Church (forget the state for a bit).   Worse, before the bishops were medieval lordings, the tradition of the Church was cooperation with the Empire - based in Constantinople - (and gasp, let us remember from other sources that the Church was democratic).

As you can guess, resistence ensued from the Church establishment.  See the book for details.  Lets just say it was nasty and make make me get a copy to read about it. Montitini liked Murray too and was friendly to his efforts on behalf of the emerging Catholic citizenry in the United States.  Revenge followed, but as we all know, did not last forever.

II

Enter St. John XXIII and Vatican II.  The Holy Office's monopoly on doctrine was ended even earlier.  While Murray was excluded from the first session, he was invited to the second to write about religious liberty.  In the end, after much up and down, Pope Paul VI forced this to a happy end.  Hudock informs us of quite an adventure - not quite the Dan Brown variety, but it has the advantage of being real and the stakes are just as high.

Critics fault Hudock for not fleshing out the argument of the other side, which was more traditional.  Nor do I see the name Karol Woijtila among the loud critics, though he was there.  Murray wrote about negative liberty, which MSW seems to disagree with.  There is an alternative in combining Rousseau and Aquinas, the general will's need of unanimity and the freedom of the individual will, but that is too advanced for most.  Also, Vatican II predates the cultural theory of Douglass and Wildavsky, but perhaps Elaine Paigels, who is familiar with their methods, will take this up. Sadly, negative freedom as it is now seen does not stand up to USCCB efforts to reassert Religous Power.  Luckily, Francis and time will weed the USCCB of its old boars who stand up for that tired view of the Church.

There will be more.  Not necessarily on Murray but on Religous Power v. Religious Freedom.

Links for 07/29/15 | National Catholic Reporter

Links for 07/29/15 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: There is no left and right on theological questions, there is Traditionalist and Modernist. Trads want no change and cannot conceive of a process to make any. This position requires blindness to how natural law should be used (reason and evidence, not authority) and how matters of faith were democratically settled - and still are - among bishops - who when matters were settled were elected by their home parishes (early bishops were pastors, not lordlings).

Try as they might, the Planned Parenthood affair will not be the Pro-Choice Waterloo.  The character and linkages of those who want to make their little right wing conspiracy succeed are fair game, none of which changes the fact that the medical director would describe exactly the same procedures if the tissue were coming from a natural miscarriage, or were part of an Orphan Black style conspiracy (sorry, I've been binge watching).

Leon seems to be what the left is doing about Planned Parenthood videos, going personal rather than at the deal.  The deal is absolutely necessary.  The sanctions have gotten to the stage of hurting real people and not the military.  We need a way out.  We have such a strong military pressence in the region that there is no risk of anything untoward happening, which won't anyway.  Two Muslims would die for each Jew - there will be no nuke on Israel.

Links for 07/28/15 | National Catholic Reporter

Links for 07/28/15 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Never quibble with local security.  If I had his job, I would be publically stern and take no crap.  Compromise needs to be rare in these situations.

The point of a Pope is that he does not need support.  On the fllip side, unless he and his bishops listen to the voters on these issues before letting their gums fly, we will feel morally safe in disregarding most of what they say, especially when it obviously favors the GOP.  Still, I  wonder what Francis has to say about Sanders, who is most like him politically, though Bernard is also a secular Jew.

That is a strange diocesan seal.  Still, it is good that a large operation like it is publically signing on to the Bush energy program.  Hopefully others will too.