Catholics in Alliance For The Common Good: Fake Pro-life Group

Our own Christopher Blosser blew the whistle on the George Soros funded group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good some time ago in this post here.  They specialize in attempting to give cover for pro-abort pols, especially Obama. They are of course in favor of the pro-abort Senate version of ObamaCare.

They are brilliantly taken to task by Christopher Johnson, a non-Catholic Christian who has taken up the blog cudgels for the Church so many times that I have named him Defender of the Faith.

“Barack Obama’s health care plan must be in serious trouble.  The “faith communities” have been called out:

Twenty-five pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders yesterday sent letters to members of Congress urging them not to let misleading information about abortion provisions in the Senate health care bill block passage of sorely-needed reform.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the Senate health bill upholds abortion funding restrictions and supports pregnant women.

Stop right there.  What exactly is Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good?  According to their Mission and Vision page:

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is a lay Catholic organization that promotes increased awareness of Catholic social teaching through the media and provides opportunities for Catholics and citizens of good will to advance the common good in the public square.

We envision a society shaped by the values of justice, human dignity and the common good, where faithful American Catholics can embrace the fullness of the Church’s social justice teachings when participating in democratic society.

As Catholics, we inherit a rich tradition whose inspiration reaches well beyond our own faith community. The papal encyclicals and letters that make up this tradition are based on Jesus’ call to love one’s neighbor and serve the least among us, and the Hebrew Scriptures’ prophetic commitment to justice and righteousness.

Our Catholic tradition calls us to participate actively in public life in the service of human dignity, social justice and the common good. These teachings – to put community before self, principle before profit, and the public interest before political expediency – are central to our Catholic tradition. Catholics in Alliance is committed to creating the necessary conditions for a culture of life that reverences the life and dignity of the human person at all stages over greed, materialism and the politics of division.

Anybody want to take a guess at what “the politics of division” means?  Uh huh.  Stop talking about abortion so much, you’re scaring away the people we need to get our really important issues passed!!

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A Message From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on ObamaCare

The Bishops have drawn a strong line against abortion funding in the Senate version of ObamaCare.  Here is the text of their message:

As long-time advocates of health care reform, the U.S. Catholic bishops continue to make the moral case that genuine health care reform must protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Health care reform should provide access to affordable and quality health care for all, and not advance a pro-abortion agenda in our country. Genuine health care reform is being blocked by those who insist on reversing widely supported policies against federal funding of abortion and plans which include abortion, not by those working simply to preserve these longstanding protections.

•On November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major health care reform that reaffirms the essential, longstanding and widely supported policy against using federal funds for elective abortions and includes positive measures on affordability and immigrants.

Paint By the Numbers Oscar Winner

Hattip to Allahpundit at Hot Air.  At last a trailer that explains to us the true meaning of the term “formulaic”!

Cardinal Newman Development of Doctrine-Third Note-Power of Assimilation

 

Continuing on with my series on the Seven Notes, I would call them tests, which Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman developed for determining whether some aspect of Church teaching is a development of doctrine or a corruption of doctrine.  We began with Note Six-Conservative Action Upon Its Past, and I would highly recommend that any one who has not read the first post in the series read it here before reading this post.  We then proceeded with an examination of the First Note-Preservation of Type here,  and then the Second Note-Continuity of Principles here.  This post will deal with the Third Note-Power of Assimilation.

Ideas according to Newman, other than concepts such as mathematical formulae, as they are carried through human history, will inevitably incorporate new material if they remain living, rather than forgotten, ideas.  The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, incorporated nothing from external sources.

A strong idea has little to fear from assimilation.  The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by their inherent vigour.   I think Christianity and Islam offer useful examples of this point.  Christianity has always engaged current ideas, sometimes accepting them, sometimes combating them, but not shying away from engagement.  Islam on the other hand throughout history has often sought to simply deny that the world is subject to change and frequently has had great difficulty in adapting to new conditions.  The Church of Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle and scruple, when she is but dispensing with forms.

 Newman on the Third Note: