Christianity is under attack in this country. This is no secret. And the one church that seems to be bearing the brunt of this attack is the Roman Catholic Church.
In the last several years, a very few members of the Catholic clergy have been proven guilty of the most heinous of crimes--sexual abuse of children. These priests and the bishops who covered for them are the lowest of the low and all should be prosecuted for their crimes. They have darkened the reputation of a Church that has done an enormous amount of good throughout the ages. Perhaps these scandals are the justification of the attacks that are now being carried out. I am not certain. But what I am certain of is this: it is time for Catholics who love their faith and the Church that brings that faith to them to stand up for the faith and cry foul no matter who the culprit is.
The most egregious perpetrator is the Federal Government of the United States of America. Namely, President Barack Obama and his administration. Recently, his administration announced that the church and all those religiously affiliated institutions must, within a year, provide ALL contraceptive services up to and including abortion. There are to be no exceptions.
This is an unprecedented move on behalf of the Federal Government. It is the total denial of religious freedom. Catholics are being told that in a year's time they must provide services that the Church roundly condemns. It forces good, dedicated professionals into positions of carrying out procedures that most, if not all, do not believe in and find abhorrent. Under Obamacare, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers will have to provide contraceptive services regardless of what they believe or feel about them.
What happened to the precious separation of church and state that the liberal establishment parades about during the holidays when the annual assault on manger scenes depicting the birth of Christ plays out? How can the government dictate these kind of terms to a religiously based organization? We are told that it is only fair, that this will include all and provide a level playing field. All of this is nothing but a well crafted propaganda scheme hidden behind the cloak of fairness to completely minimize an icon of an institution who has traditionally provided moral guidance to society.
It is time for Catholics in the pews to stand up and state in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable. It is time to call these tactics what they really are: a power grab designed to extinguish any societal influence the church and her teachings have left in society.
Obama lied when he assured Americans that abortion would not be covered under his insurance scam. Certainly, it may not be spelled out in the pages of the massive document! But it is there in the fine print. Obama is determined to eliminate all barriers to this most abhorrent of societal crimes. Cloaked under the guise of "women's reproductive health," this move to provide abortion and other abortifactents is a calculated move on the part of the President to bring secularism into full flower in American society.
A growing number of bishops throughout the country have stood up and voiced their vehement objections to this declaration. Letters from the shepherds of the church have been written to their congregations and have been read from countless pulpits throughout the country. They are insistent that this will not happen and that they will not abide by the administration's ruling. They have told the laity that they cannot accomplish the blocking of this action on their own. They have spelled out to the laity that it is their duty to contact their representatives, senators, and the president himself, vocalizing their objection to this move in no uncertain terms.
Catholic laity must rise! We must make our voices heard. This is an election year and your elected officials will listen with a little more interest because they want to keep their jobs. We must make it crystal clear to them, in no uncertain terms, that if they allow this travesty to come about, the Catholic vote will most certainly turn against them.
We can no longer stand in the shadows and allow the bishops to do all the work. Priests must step up in the pulpit and educate the laity as to what is going on even at the risk of a backlash in the form of diminishing offerings. We all must become defenders of the faith if our faith means anything to us. We can all talk a good game but we must now show that our words have teeth as shown by our actions.
This kind of action should not, however, be limited to Catholics. All Christians are threatened by the Obama administration move. We must all set aside our differences and work to see that this provision of Obamacare never sees the light of day. We all believe in the same God and worship His Son who came to save the world from just such enslavement. We must unite and stand down Obama and his bent towards silencing us.
Another incident just a few days ago also caught my attention. In Rhode Island, a group of Catholic school girls were attending a pro-life rally at the state capitol. Suddenly, wall street occupiers burst on to the scene and began chanting obscenities at the group. One of the members of the occupiers climbed one of the capitol columns and dumped a box of condoms onto the girls. Then, near the close of the event, when a priest tried to end the rally with a prayer, the occupiers surrounded the podium and began shouting again, preventing the priest from even uttering a prayer.
It seems that liberals always proclaim that they want diversity and inclusion. They welcome all points of view and do not interfere with the rights of others. This bunch proved them dead wrong.
Liberals do not like diversity unless that diversity happens to agree with their point of view. They want freedom of speech and while they have every right to voice their opinion on the abortion issue, they simply do not have the right to prevent others from speaking out on their opposing views. They do not have the right to assault someone with condoms.
Did you hear about this story? Probably not because the main stream media has chosen not to utter one syllable of this news. Instead, you have to rely on websites like Fox News and other websites who are not afraid to highlight this depraved act. Had this been a Tea Party tactic, it would have been the lead story on each network newscast and rightly so. But this was the actions of a group backed by President Obama and his administration and so they are granted the mantel of protection of the elite.
Religion in general, and Christianity in particular is under attack in this society. It requires all of us who say we follow Jesus Christ to raise our voices as one and shout as loudly as we can, "No more!" These are serious issues that effect every American and every American had better pay attention to what the government is attempting to do because, I promise, they will not stop with Christianity!
