Friday, March 19, 2010

We have a winner . . .

... a winner that is of the "Doug Kmiec Award" for 2010.

It's Sr. Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, for giving political cover to a bill that will open the door to federal funding of abortion while mocking the American Catholic bishops and contributing to the division within the American Church, all after spending a few no doubt scintillating moments in the presence of our charming president.

From his speech at Notre Dame to this very moment, Mr. Obama has diligently striven to divide the American Catholic Church and to make those dissenting from its teachings seem as legitimately Catholic as those who adhere to these teachings. His election depended on the success of this strategy, and the success of his political agenda depends on it. Second only to the pom-pom media, the "Catholic" enablers of this agenda, from Speaker Pelosi on down, have betrayed the faith they purport to believe.

The runner up this year is the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, not so much for their leadership as for their drearily predictable cheer-leadership of yet another cause incompatible with Church teachings.

Here's how LifeSiteNews reports the story:
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed to reporters today that President Barack Obama actively promoted the Catholic Health Association's public break with the American Catholic bishops to support his health care legislation.
Gibbs also suggested that the CHA and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' (LCWR) break with the U.S. Bishops has provided legitimate political cover for pro-life Democrats to switch their votes from "no" to "yes."

"I think over the past twenty four hours we have seen strong indications from those in the Catholic Church that support our belief that the legislation is about health care reform, and that it shouldn't and doesn't change the existing federal law [on abortion]. The Catholic Health Association and the order of nun's support is very important," Gibbs told reporters on the White House lawn for Thursday's press conference.

CHA president Sr. Carol Keehan and LCWR sparked an uproar this week after they came out definitively in favor of the Senate health care bill, which top pro-life organizations such as the National Right to Life Committee and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in addition to countless others, have strongly condemned as unacceptable for its abortion funding provisions. Since then, in their quest to woo the final pro-life Democrat holdouts among House lawmakers, party leaders have attempted to paint CHA's support for the bill as a bona fide endorsement from the Catholic community.

So far, the president's strategy appears to have paid off: some lawmakers have evidently already taken the two groups' endorsements as an excuse to switch their vote. 

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