Letter to President

The following is a letter from Msgr. Richard Lopez at St. Pius X Catholic High School to President Barack Obama regarding the HHS Mandate. (all italics yellow are Aunty's emphasis)

Dear Mr. President:

My name is Richard Lopez. I am a Catholic priest and a teacher at St. Pius X Catholic High School in Atlanta, GA. I have been ordained for 39 years and assigned as a teacher for 30 years. I am writing on behalf of myself and my students who are seniors here at St. Pius. As the HHS mandate means that the Class of 2012 could be our last graduating class, we respectfully ask that you respond to the following questions:

• Please explain why your administration led our Bishops to believe that conscience rights would be respected during the debate on the Affordable Health Care Act? It now appears that was not your intention.
• Can you explain how the HHS mandate does not violate the Constitution which clearly states: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? The mandate forces us to embrace methods that clearly violate our convictions and morality.
• We have two sayings on our classroom wall. From Socrates we have: It is better to suffer evil than to do evil, and from St. Paul: Never do evil even to achieve good. Do you understand that the mandate forces us to sponsor methods that are immoral based on natural and Divine Law, and that we could never be party to such violations?
• Is it understood by your administration that the consequences of this mandate will be either civil disobedience on our part or the shutting down of our massive educational and health facilities that support thousands of people and employ thousands of people, and that have provided services far better than the government has for 200 years in this nation?

Let me end by pointing out one very typical situation. Besides teaching at St. Pius X Catholic High School for 30 years, I was also in residence at various times for nine years at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home. I continue to visit the Sisters there on a regular basis. Since 1939, the Hawthorne Dominican Nuns have taken care of thousands of dying patients without any cost to the patients or the state. The overwhelming majority of the patients have been non-Catholic as are one-third of the students in our school systems. Do you imagine for one second that these nuns could continue in a conscience compromising situation such as the mandate demands? Is this the reward of the state for these ladies, and thousands like them, who have given service unselfishly and sacrificially for generations? Are they and we to be penalized by this mandate, because we have served, loved and taught non-Catholics?

Mr. President, I appeal to your conscience, will you allow the pressure of those who see abortion and contraception a more important “right” than our constitutional rights and our consciences to destroy our charitable works, our educational works, our hospitals, our clinics and our nursing centers?

Mr. President, my students and I await your response. Mr. President, you once said: “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end with conception.” In your heart of hearts, you must know what science has always taught, that life begins at conception. The Catholic Church does not believe pregnancy is a disease to be prevented; the Catholic Church does not believe any problem justifies the killing of another human being in abortion, the destruction of embryos, or euthanasia. We are united in this conviction, and prepared to defend it with the closing of all those institutions which have made life better for millions of American for hundreds of years.

Sincerely,

Msgr. Richard Lopez, Instructor, St. Pius X Catholic High School

Politics of Religious Freedom

WARNING: Please do not read if you are put off by religious topics.
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press."


Y'all reckon thar's a significance to the fact that the above guarantee is in the FIRST amendment an' is the first of the first amendment rights? Our Forefathers understood full well that a people not free to live accordin' to their consciences is not a free people a'tall!

If you are interested in the political process, the founding fathers provision for religious freedom and the recent crisis over Obama's assault on religious freedom over the issue of abortion, sterilization and contraception, this 11 minute clip is worth yore time.

Aunty ain't here to convert nobody or twist arms on the matter of abortion--thas' yore own conscience. An' I also know and love several women whose views on this I doan share--in short, I'se at great pains to stress that I ain't finger -shakin' at nobody. The purpose of this post is an examination of the current assault on that guarantee quoted above for religious liberty. If religious liberty can be overturned, what other liberty will soon hit the trash heap?

This post ain't about abortion per se, abortion happens to be the example of how the gubmint plans to assault our religious freedom --the content of a law that violates conscience for some of us who cannot be forced by the gubmint to participate in acts that we find to be anti-life.

Still, whatever yore religious affiliation or none, if youse objective an' really do care about a government that doan overreach it's own limits, an' ya care about freedom of conscience, then listen to this 11 minute talk by a lawyer/ Priest. 11 minutes, thas' all.

Obama threatens to force the Catholics of this nation to violate their religious teachings under the enforcement of his Obamacare--an' note the chronology--how Obama gave a promise before his inauguration to the US Bishops that the conscience clause would stand, so, the naive bishops accepted his word--the dunces.

At risk? Every single Catholic nursing home, hospital, day care center, school, university, church, rehab center, shelters for the homeless an' all AIDS hospices.

Please lemme state right out front: no woman who wants contraceptives or an abortion is stopped from that decision --free abortions and free contraceptive medication is available at Planned Parenthood and numerous other abortion providers nationwide. No woman "needs" that type of coverage from any Catholic institution or Catholic employer, she can git it __free--elsewhar' . Or, if Obama is intent on providin' that coverage, how easy it is to simply add that coverage to gubmint agencies already in place to provide medical care to the poor.

This priest sees whar' the real motivation is for Obama--note "the ultimate goal."





Some of y'all will say that Obama has wimmen on his side--the news reports 58% of Catholic women use birth control. First we doan know if that stat is 58% of those who actually go to church or 58% of those who have a Catholic baptismal certificate. No matter--we'll take it as absolute--it does not matter.

Do not think that means 58% are OK with the Obama assault--they assuredly ain't. Why?

Ever said to yore kids/ nephews "do as I say, not as I do"? sure ya' has. What if 58% of Catholics tell lies, do ya think the church should teach that lying is OK? Or what if some % cheat on their taxes? Should the church teach stealing is OK? Course not! These wimmen may live against the grain--live against their church teachings, but they do NOT want the gubmint to interfere in this at all.

Sorry fer the rant--but when y'all is only offered a 30 second sound bite by a liberal pundit, I jes' thought I'd offer another view.

Rant over.