I think SCOBA should invite Bishop Tobin to a meeting so he can teach them how to speak out on issues!
]]>R.I.’s Tobin welcomes tussles with politicians
By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | November 12, 2009
PROVIDENCE – The bishop from America’s most Catholic state, and increasingly one of the church’s most provocative prelates, has provided a rather concise explanation for his willingness to clash with politicians: Christians are not supposed to be nice, at least not all the time.
“In confronting moral evil, Jesus wasn’t nice, kind, gentle, and sweet,’’ Thomas J. Tobin, the bishop of Providence, wrote in his diocesan newspaper column earlier this year. “He lived in a rough and tumble world and He took His message to the streets.’’
Tobin has followed his interpretation of Jesus’ demeanor most devoutly, and he is quickly positioning himself at the national forefront of a renewed debate over the role of Catholic orthodoxy in the public square, most recently in a very personal feud with Representative Patrick Kennedy. As the abortion issue has taken on prominence in the national health care debate, Tobin has insisted Catholics get involved in the rough world of politics – even if it means tangling with prochoice Catholic legislators. And he has led by example.
Since his installation in 2005, he has challenged the Republican governor’s crackdown on illegal immigration, inserted himself into last year’s Republican presidential primary with a rebuke of Rudolph Giuliani on the abortion issue (in which he addressed him familiarly as “Rudy’’ in a commentary), and took on President Obama in a mock interview published in another of his columns (in which he facetiously quotes Obama advancing the rights of foreigners “to kill their children and use abortion as a form of birth control.’’)
More …
]]>Guess who’s doing the heavy lifting on the health care debate? Yes, once again, Roman Catholic bishops. This is from “Catholic Church Emerges as Key Player in Legislative Battle” in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
]]>Injecting itself aggressively into the health-care debate, the Roman Catholic Church in America has emerged as a major political force with the potential to upend a key piece of President Barack Obama’s agenda.
Behind-the-scenes lobbying, coupled with a grassroots mobilization of Catholic churches across the country, led the House Saturday to pass an amendment to its health-care bill barring anyone who receives a new tax credit from enrolling in a plan that covers abortion, a once-unthinkable event in Democrat-dominated Washington.
[ … ]
The bishops’ success served as a reminder that Democrats’ strategy over the past two election cycles of recruiting more conservative candidates to run in competitive House and Senate seats can have unwelcome policy consequences for liberals among the party’s base. About 40 House Democrats are opposed to abortion rights.
The bishops have a history of political activism. In the 2004 presidential race, some bishops said they would refuse to grant communion to Democratic nominee John Kerry, a Catholic who favored abortion rights. In 2005, the bishops’ conference backed efforts by then-President George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers to intervene in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. But rarely has the church entered the fray with such decisive force.
“The Catholic bishops came in at the last minute and drew a line in the sand,” said Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy at the abortion-rights advocacy group Planned Parenthood. “It’s very hard to compete with that.”
The Orthodox Hierarch in this country are too scared to make any kind of statement about anything that might get the yelled at by the people with the money.
]]>The EP was in town until 11/6. Ft Hood took place on 11/5.
Likwise, I do not see any Orthodox Jurisdiction noting this huge loss of life. It certainly is a sign of aparthy across the Board. Maybe the EP noted it but it was not part of the written record?
Did I miss something?
Politics aside, a trisagion is certainly in order.
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