Pope Francis might be going out at night to minister to the poor. And he might be spouting “pure Marxism”. Both of these reports might be true, but since the latter comes out of Rush Limbaugh’s piehole, I think we’re 1 and 1 here.
Religion
Obamacare just won’t die, but US Bishops’ ethical failings keep going like zombies.
It’s like a Walking Dead zombie wearing a motorcycle helmet or a well constructed law, or something.
From Reuters:
U.S. justices decline to hear another Obamacare challenge
The court rejected a petition filed by Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, which had raised various objections to the law, including to the key provision that requires individuals to obtain health insurance.
By rejecting the Liberty University case, the justices left intact a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a May 2013 decision that dismissed the claims made by the college and two individuals, Michele Waddell and Joanne Merrill.
The court will hear two cases which challenge the constitutionality of a requirement for corporations to provide health insurance that includes contraception.
With the House of Representatives only scheduling eight working days between now and the holiday break, any change in the law would have to wait until the new year, which puts the Republicans in the unenviable position of voting to take away people’s health care. I’m sure they’ll do it on what passes for ‘principle,’ but it’s going to look even worse if they do (and if the Dems have the courage–always a questionable prospect–of calling them out.)
In more news on the Women’s healthcare front, the ACLU is suing a the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on the grounds that their religiously based rules caused a patient to suffer a miscarriage. From NBC News:
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan are suing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on behalf of Tamesha Means, 30, of Muskegon, Mich., according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. district court in eastern Michigan.
The lawsuit aims to highlight what ACLU calls the “trauma and harm that Tamesha and other pregnant women in similar situations have experienced at Catholic-sponsored hospitals.”
The suit claims that the hospital knew that the fetus was not viable, and witheld medically indicated care due to restrictions placed upon them by the Conference, and that further those restrictions also prevented the hospital from telling her the truth about her condition or the restrictions themselves that prevented appropriate care. The hospital in question is the only hospital in the county where the patient resided at the time of the events in 2010.
When my daughter is able to make decisions for herself without consulting me, then I will have done my job as her father. When she chooses to consult with me even when she doesn’t have to, then I will have done my job well. I resent the living shit out these people who are trying to run my family in a way that does not comport with my beliefs. I have said before that Pope Francis is saying the kinds of things that I needed to hear before I would consider returning to the Church. Well, words without policy are like faith without works–dead. (James 2:14-26)
Also too, open thread.
I’d rather be the Pope
I have a question for you about the new Pope and his librul bias: how big a difference would it make politically if he got the Catholic Church in the US to stop acting like a wing of the Republican party?
In my view, the effect could be enormous. About 25 percent of Americans identify as Catholic and I have to believe that the constant hammering against reproductive rights and marriage equality, the threats to deny Democratic politicians communion and so on, could easily affect the vote of a reasonable proportion of American Catholics. I would not be surprised if 10% of American Catholics are affected in this way, which would make for a little over 2 percent of the American population.
I realize this is speculative, and that any change will be slow, but the eventual potential for change here is immense. If an enormous institution that currently devotes itself to hating gays and sluts started devoting itself to social justice…..
Something Nice
As an avowed atheist, this still brought a tear to my eye:
Pope Francis saw a seriously disfigured man covered with boils, stopped his motorcade, and went and embraced the man, kissed him on the forehead while cradling him in his arms, and then prayed with him.
I still don’t believe and never will, but I think there is common ground to be found in a church that this man leads. More of this, please.
Kansas Supreme Court Performs a Late Term Abortion on Phil Kline’s Legal Career
You all remember panty-sniffing Phil Kline, the abortion fanatic who also happened to be the Kansas Attorney General? Not his best week:
The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday indefinitely suspended former Attorney General Phillip Kline (R), who investigated abortion doctor George Tiller, from the practice of law in the state.
The court cited “clear and convincing evidence” that Kline committed 11 violations of attorney conduct rules while investigating abortion clinics as attorney general and for his role in a grand jury investigation while serving as Johnson County district attorney.
“Ultimately, we unanimously conclude the weight of the aggravating factors–i.e., Kline’s inability or refusal to acknowledge the line between overzealous advocacy and operating within the bounds of the law and his professional obligations; his selfish motives; and his lengthy and substantial pattern of misconduct–weigh more heavily than the mitigating factors and merit his indefinite suspension,” the court wrote in its opinion.
The court’s findings against Kline, who served as Kansas attorney general from 2003 to 2007, stem from a complaint first filed against him in 2010. As TPM reported at the time, Kline was accused of “dispatching staff to record license plates of women entering George Tiller’s abortion clinic, getting records from a motel where patients stayed, and obtaining state medical files under false pretenses, then retaining them after his term as AG was over and repeatedly lying about it in court.” These alleged actions occurred during Kline’s pursuit of Tiller, who ran Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kan., and who was shot to death in 2009.
The creep should be in jail. This update from his lawyer was kind of otherworldly:
According to Condit, he and Kline are still considering “all options.” Asked whether his client even wanted to practice law in Kansas anymore, Condit said that one issue is that if Kline wants to get licensed in another jurisdiction, and is suspended in Kansas, he likely won’t get the other license.
That’s the entire fucking point, Condit. The man is a menace and a disgrace to the legal profession. The whole point of suspending his license is so he CAN’T practice law.
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Kill that calf and call the family around
Despite the headline of this article — “Conservative Catholics question Pope Francis’s approach” — it also contains a lot of examples of conservative Catholics coming to grips with what their faith is really about:
“Maybe Pope Francis is calling me to love someone whose views I don’t like. And how much better would the world be if we got over all this.”
Gregory Popcak, a marriage and family counselor on the radio and in private practice in Ohio, describes being sent deep into prayer after several clients used Francis’s public words to push back on Popcak when he explained church teachings on sex and love. One client recently quit, saying, “I’m much more of a Pope Francis-Nancy Pelosi Catholic, and you’re an old-school, Pope John Paul II Catholic,” he recalled.
First, he felt frustrated, then ashamed.
The story of the prodigal son came to him, and he saw in himself the good son. “The good kid who stayed behind, did everything his father told him to do, ,” Popcak wrote in a recent online essay that prompted dozens of people to share similar sentiments. “People who left the Church, who hated the Church . . . were suddenly realizing that God loved them, that the Church welcomed them, and all I could do was feel bitter about it.”
Many in the Church hierarchy are scumbags who will surely rot in hell if the God they profess to worship actually exists, but there are also a lot of well-meaning people who go to Church every week, care about those less fortunate, but waste too much time hating on gheys and sluts. To me, people like this (and I’m related to some) are the prodigal sons, and I hope they return to decency and sanity.
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Jesus Loves the Little Children
The highest court in Nebraska has decided that a 16-year-old in foster care must carry her unintended pregnancy to term because she hasn’t proven that she’s “sufficiently mature and well informed” enough to choose to have an abortion. The teen sought to bypass the state’s parental consent law because her foster parents are very religious, and she worried that she would lose her place in their home if she told them she wanted to end her pregnancy.
Not mature enough to have an abortion, but mature enough to raise a kid in a foster home. Have no fear, though, if the Republicans get their way in a grand bargain, I’m sure they won’t cut all the assistance this 16 year old unwed mother in a foster home needs.