Via the Great Orange Satan, Cardinal Francis George has decided the Catholic church gets to dictate what happens to lady parts of they should just burn it all down:
What will happen if the HHS regulations are not rescinded? A Catholic institution, so far as I can see right now, will have one of four choices: 1) secularize itself, breaking its connection to the church, her moral and social teachings and the oversight of its ministry by the local bishop. This is a form of theft. It means the church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life. 2) Pay exorbitant annual fines to avoid paying for insurance policies that cover abortifacient drugs, artificial contraception and sterilization. This is not economically sustainable. 3) Sell the institution to a non-Catholic group or to a local government. 4) Close down.
Actually, I quite like option #3. Sell it to a non-Catholic group, and use the proceeds to pay back the thousands upon thousands of the Church’s sexual abuse victims around the world.
BGinCHI
And this is bad why?
Hey, Bishop Dude, if you get a say in ours then we get a say in yours. Now, go ahead and pay taxes, bitches, and no discriminating based on gender or anything else. I want some female priests, pronto!
I’ll get back to you about your new uniforms.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
I vote for burn it all down. We can rebuild it later with girl priests.
dr. bloor
For a self-proclaimed “Man of God,” he sure is one manipulative, double-talking fuckwad.
kdaug
Lots of gold and art in the Vatican, no?
Bubblegum Tate
@kdaug:
One of the largest fortunes in the world. Which is why any and every institutional Catholic plea of poverty falls on deaf ears over here.
The Other Bob
Maybe this asswipe can shows us one instance where any of the four options were triggered in any of the 28 states that currently require contrception coverage. Dude, shut up.
Ruckus
@BGinCHI:
I likey.
I like Stuck’s version more. Just burn it down. Salt the earth and all that.
@kdaug:
Had a friend who got a tour of the Vatican but not through the front door, and he told me that there was so much stuff that it was laying around on the floor. Gold, jewel incrusted crosses and the like. If they ever try to cash in the price of gold will be about that of hamburger.
Edit to fix crappy typing.
Mark S.
I’d find all of this a little more convincing if they hadn’t been complying with similar state mandates for the past decade or so.
It’s going to come out in a year or so that the bishops have basically become an arm of the GOP.
Martin
Church of Glibertarianism, they should call it.
gnomedad
I guess JFK’s speech on religion would make George puke, too.
Patricia Kayden
Nice threat. If they don’t get their way, they’ll cease providing medical care to the needy.
Also, isn’t it the insurance companies that must provide contraception to women at no extra cost and not Catholic institutions themselves? Not understanding why this is still an issue.
MikeJ
For an institution that is shrinking everywhere in the world where there is widespread literacy it stunning how they ignored these “insults” until a dusky hued leader suggested them.
Egg Berry
I fail to find a problem with any of those four options.
Pat
I agree. If you want to operate in the secular world, receive the perks of it, along with church tax breaks, then follow the law or pay the penalty. I think they should sell the hospitals, myself. Funny how their defenders don’t talk about those options.
dmsilev
For context, this is the same jackass who recently compared the local gay pride parade to the KKK.
dr. bloor
@Patricia Kayden:
It’s not. At all. And hasn’t been anywhere employees of Catholic institutions have been getting contraception coverage in their insurance plans for years now.
Which is to say, you understand it completely.
jp7505a
aND HERE iN cHAROLTTE, the Church just received 2 million dollars for an afordable housing program. Federal dollars which means my tax money goes to programs that will exclude people in a way that offends my conscience, not that mine matters a wit to the bishops
Zifnab
Institutionalized theft! Trampling my first amendment rights! Tort Reform! Tort Reform! How can it be rape? Did you see how that choir boy was dressed?
gypsy howell
Why are they operating businesses in the first place? I thought they were a church.
MobiusKlein
If a church owned a taco stand, they would still need to pay minimum wage.
Despite their worship of Mammon.
kdaug
Just like Jesus.
freelancer
“If you guys don’t play by my rules, I’m gonna take my ball and go home!”
America: “Don’t forget your dress and your silly
hatehat, bra!”Cave Man
Me like red meat….
BGinCHI
@MobiusKlein: Plus, they make the worst mammon tacos.
Martin
@kdaug:
Yeah, but he wasn’t a Catholic – he was Jewish. Hell, in all of those years he never even mentioned the Pope – not even in passing!
scav
@freelancer: Works all the ways, we don’t want their dresses, hats, hates, bras or burning purses.
ETA: But talk about silly magic underwear. Is the Pope’s bra magic?
David Koch
Yeah, sure — they’re gonna sell Notre Dame.
The Pale Scot
Religion Explained;
Foulmouthed Gaelic Mrs. Brown explains the bible to Mormon doorknockers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarofaycN3c&feature=relmfu
If only this show could play here.
TooManyJens
“5) Recognize that you don’t always get your way when you live in a society with people who are different from you” seems not to have occurred to them.
kdaug
@Martin: You obviously haven’t read the Bible in the original English.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
IIRC, they plan on being more than a little bit bossy about man parts too. No vasectomies, no condoms. Of course the latter are so cheap that canceling health insurance won’t make a difference, but I find it hard to imagine that if they manange to pull off this massive power grab that rolling back Griswold v. Connecticut won’t be firmly in their sights for the next round.
kindness
I vote for closing it down.
Especially since the Bishops have already ceded their moral being by sticking it to little boys like they seem to like to do way too often.
mellowjohn
as a recovering catholic who has spent most of my 65 years living in chicago, i can safely say that – with the possible exception of bernadin – the cardinals of chicago have been an ever downward spiral of dickitude. stritch was an old-school authoritarian, meyer was a corrupt political hack, and george didn’t have to suck up to j-p2 and doesn’t have to suck up to ratzy the nazi, because he’s just like them… if not more so.
p.s. to freelancer: it actually goes: “don’t try to make the rules if you don’t want to play the game.”
Violet
I actually laughed out loud when I read this. “A form of theft”? “The church will not be permitted to have an institutional voice in public life”? Is this a spoof?
Poor little rich bishops. My heart bleeds.
SIA
@The Pale Scot: Hey tanks fer dat. Fecking hilarious,
BGinCHI
Wait a minute, how exceptional and tough is America if it does what a man named Francis who wears robes tells it to do??
USA! USA!
middlewest
Oh no, without the Catholic church, we’d lose the opportunity to be lectured on the virtue of poverty and humility by an old man sitting on a golden throne in robes of silk.
El Cid
I fear that our President will turn out not to be a puppet of the Papists. Clearly this would be a dire blow to American freedom.
BGinCHI
Are we getting a Daytona 500 open thread?
I want to be able to comment if the Santorum car gets rear-ended.
scav
@BGinCHI: you bad bad man . . .
BGinCHI
@scav: So, the Santorum geniuses sponsor a car, which costs a shitload, so that the huge Sunday audience will see it. The 500 then gets rained out, which has a hand of God feel to it, no?
The driver of the 26 car he sponsored?
Tony Raines.
You can’t make this shit up. God is pissed.
gnomedad
@TooManyJens:
This. Although I suspect it occurs them regularly, and is exactly what they can’t abide.
Frank
Just a simple question:
Why were those hypocrites, who are now upset about their so called religious freedom being violated, either protesting the building of or being silent about the Mosque in Manhattan?
cathyx
Where has been the big stink from the Catholic church on the death penalty? They’re against that too, but I don’t hear any bishop screaming about that.
J. Michael Neal
@BGinCHI: In their native language:
Catholico dellenda est.
Jay C
IIJM, or has anyone else noticed how Cardinal George has slipped a major logical fallacy into this overheated blurb?
He starts off:
\OK, but then:
followed by his inane parade of horribles. But what, exactly is the “Catholic institution” he is referring to? The RCC as an entity in and of itself? An individual church or monastic order? A hospital/hospice/clinic run by any of the preceding? An otherwise “secular” public hospital which happens to be partly-owned by a Catholic or Catholic-affiliated business? Or one in some dort of partnership with same?
It seem to me that most of the directly “Catholic institutions” the Cardinal is hyperventilating about already have “religious exemptions” from having to provide services they don’t approve of – he just seems to be extending the principle (call it the “one drop principle” maybe?) that ANY “Catholic” affiliation whatsoever – however distant – obliges any business to allow the Church to dictate its healthcare policies. Or any other “moral” dictates they fell like imposing?
PeakVT
@gypsy howell: The CC was/is operating health and educational institutions as charities, or at least non-profits.
El Cid
Wasilla high school threatened by giant vagina.
cathyx
Catholic Bishops to everyone: If I can’t have sex neither can you.
scav
@BGinCHI: Shouldn’t all those holy eyeballs be on their knees somewhere important on Sunday anyway? Tony Raines, shit, somewhere there’s a very busy butterfly.
Tonal Crow
I had some sympathy with their argument against Obama’s original policy. I have none with their argument against his revised policy. They’re just practicing Republican politics under a religious banner. Why shouldn’t we revoke their tax-exempt status?
BGinCHI
@El Cid: Mama mia, but that’s a perfect analogy for the Church and women’s body parts.
Hand in the vajayjay indeed.
PGFan
I like #3 — sell them off. If the Catholic Church is going to use blackmail in order to get their way, fuck em. The church gets a lot of money from the Feds to help run their hospitals, etc. I’m sure there are other organizations that would happily take that money and comply with the law.
scav
Illinois Catholics got in a similar snit last year over placing foster kids in homes. Stomping about fuming about having to follow the law, throwing lawsuits about, the taking their ball away and not playing apparently. ChiTrib ETA: Seriously, it was like they thought they had a right to the state’s business.
nellcote
Time for a remake/update of Shoes of the Fisherman.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063599/synopsis
SRW1
Didn’t one of them once say “Close it all down, God will sort it out”?
Jennifer
We’ve known for quite some time that dentistry is theft.
Now we have it from one of God’s Own Representatives on Earth that contraception is theft, too.
Peter
Those sound like four perfectly valid and desirable outcomes to me (well, number 2 kinda sucks, but it’s not a real option anyway). What am I missing here?
pseudonymous in nc
I believe the beanie-man will be familiar with the phrase “playing the martyr”.
And as Kay has noted, the Catholic medical-industrial complex seems happy to make adjustments to its status so that it can gobble up all the facilities in certain regions. How about an anti-trust investigation?
It’s not as if their funding comes from Mr Pope’s slipper fund.
John PM
And this among many reasons is why we are leaving the Catholic Church. If only we could get a few million more to leave the CC would be begging to hand out contraceptives.
Btw, purely a pedantic point, but shouldn’t the correct word be “contraconception” or “contraconceptives”?
elftx
as my husband noted…how long do you think he put the 10yr old boy down to write this drivel.
oh and mellowjohn at #32.
I’m from chgo…my dad was excommunicated for marrying my Lutheran mom and not vowing to have us kids baptized Catholic, at least that’s the story I got…and although I have no way of explaining it, have always had an inkling he had been abused as a child. Actually wondered this years before the child rapes etc, came out…and he did grow up to be a good Irish Catholic Alcoholic.
My brother converted to “the faith” several yrs ago after marrying into southside Irish family..and his wife is now running for judge..and I also remember well HOC. Growing up, there was always the “air” of the faith in the neighborhood and city so I feel well what you speak of.
My brother has “unfriended” me lol on FB for all the so called nasty truthiness I mention regarding the Church and politics as he claims both sides do it.
Anya
Shorter Child Rape Enabler Francis George: Hey America, nice hospitals you’ve got there.. hate to see something happen to it!
Billy Beane
Seriously Cole. Can’t you fix this fucked up website you useless cunt!
It just randonly wants to reverse the dates of posts so last post today is first at top.
Sometimes it seems to happen on www, sometimes on the one without. Don’t even get me started on the fact you should have both resolve to one or the other anyways just for search engine positioning.
Fucking amateur hour around here!
cathyx
@Billy Beane: It must be you, because I’m not having that trouble.
Winston Smith
I saw this on Free Republic earlier. The Freepers were of the opinion that Obama wants all hospitals to be government-run, so forcing Catholic hospitals to shut down is his plan.
My wife was telling me about a Catholic hospital in — Arizona? — last year that performed an abortion. A woman came into the ER. She was going to die. The fetus was not viable. They removed the fetus to save her life. It was not a decision they made lightly, but the local Cardinal excommunicated them anyway. Or he said they were no longer Catholic or something. Nothing actually changed. The hospital continued on, just as Catholic as ever.
Freepers are stupid, also too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Frank:
Asked and answered.
Thymezone
Well the Cardinal is a fucking baldfaced liar.
The orgs he talks about are already separated from the church, they are nonprofit corporations, created by, and for, the church, for the very of purpose of MAKING THEM SEPARATE as business interests, and protecting the church legally from the exigencies of the corporation and business world and all of its myriad laws and risks. For pretty much the same reasons that all incorporated businesses are incorporated. Just to give one obvious example, it prevents the church from being hit with a malpractice suit when the hospital kills somebody … which all hospitals do, owing to the nature of their services. The corporation puts a firewall between the secular world and the church, which is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO THE CHURCH.
He’s a fucking liar on so many levels, one doesn’t know where to begin. Fuck him and very much and hard, just fuck him and his bullshit.
Thymezone
Ask the lying c*sucker Cardinal — no pun intended — why so many of these Catholic nonprofits ALREADY comply with the subject laws even in states that don’t have the damned laws … it’s because it’s a business advantage to do so. In some cases they are doing it as a competitive hiring and retention tactic. Hospital skilled workers are in short supply, and they don’t want to be in a noncompetitive position on things like health insurance.
Calouste
@Winston Smith:
Abortion is automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church. Murder… isn’t. I.e. if you want to be a good Catholic, you let the child get out of the womb, then kill it.
Thymezone
@Calouste:
Like button.
Davis X. Machina
I like #3. It’s win-win.
The corporal works of mercy — feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, ransom the captive the imprisoned, bury the dead — don’t include ‘run a health-care conglomerate’.
El Cid
@Calouste: Is that sort of like how it’s considered harmful to catch the small and young fish or hunt the animal young, that they should be at least allowed to survive in nature until it’s more acceptable to capture & kill them when they’re older?
Thymezone
@Davis X. Machina:
Well, they will run them .. because they are huge revenue centers. They want he legal protections of the buffer corporations … and then want to claim that the nonprofits are “religious” organizations when in fact they have nothing whatever to do with religious practice, not even in the remotest sense.
Catholic Healthcare West, one of the largest of these, had a ‘revenue surplus’ of almost $1b in 2011. How close are they to the Catholic Church?
From Catholic Healthcare West to Dignity Health Care
January 23, 2012, 1:32 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
A harbinger of things to come? One of the largest Catholic health care systems in the country has relinquished its formal Catholic identity. I’ve talked to many people who think that the bishops can “make” a hospital be Catholic or close them. But that’s not the legal reality, at least in most cases. What will happen, in most cases, is some type of disaffiliation–the hospital will continue, in some form, although not an official “Catholic” facility. It doesn’t affect tax exempt status, which most hospitals get through their not-for-profit charitable nature, not through their religious nature.
anna
The controversy deliberately stirred up by the Catholic Bishops has an end game in mind….the overturn of Roe. The bishops didn’t go batshit insane when 28 states adopted the same regulation that mandates birth-control coverage in insurance plans, and several large Catholic institutions have contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans….so why have the bishops made a deliberate, political decision to apeshit on Obama? Because in his 2nd term, he may get to appoint one or more Supreme Court justices, moderate justices. But if a Repub is in the White House and has the same opportunity, obviously a conservative justice will be appointed. SCOTUS has recently signaled that it is willing to hear “settled” law, like Affirmative Action and the Voting Rights Act. If they are hearing “settled” law, can Roe be far behind? But they need one or two more conservative justices to overturn Roe. And this is the end game of the bishops…defeat Obama…appoint to Supreme Court…overturn Roe. They can taste it.
xian
Lighten up, Francis.
gocart mozart
@scav:
I hate Illinois Catholics
Jimbo316
@BGinCHI: Awesome! And I was raised as a traditional Catholic.
bob h
In Newark something like eight Catholic schools affecting about 1000 pupils are closing anyway.
aspasia
I see that his beanie-ness calls on the so-called “apostolic succession” to reinforce his authority. The notion that the Pope is a direct successor to Peter, and the bishops to the apostles, was made up in the second century by a pope named Damasus who was tired of bishops rising up here and there and everywhere, claiming to be the big enchilada. (There is no evidence that Peter ever visited Rome, let alone was its bishop). It is to laugh.
Terry
Just voted for Santorum in Lodi Township, MI :)
Bulworth
I have no idea wtf this dude is saying here.