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Tristyn Bloom
Matthew Cantirino
Anthony Esolen
Gene Fant
Greg Forster
Matthew J. Franck
Collin Garbarino
Robert P. George
William J. Haun
Leroy Huizenga
Katherine Infantine
Joseph Knippenberg
David T. Koyzis
Robert T. Miller
Matthew Milliner
David Mills
Mark Movsesian
William Mumma
Nathaniel Peters
R.R. Reno
James R. Rogers
Russell E. Saltzman
Matthew Schmitz
Kevin Staley-Joyce
David Talcott
Anna Williams
Rahm Emanuel Turns Homeless Services Over to Catholic Charities
John Byrne, Chicago Tribune
Ratzinger, Vatican II, and the Summer of 1962
Gianni Valente, La Stampa
History as a Hermenutic for Law
Ed Peters, In the Light of the Law
The Joys and Sorrows of Teaching Evolution at an Evangelical University
Dennis Venema, BioLogos
Evangelical Left Plans Pacifist Summit
Mark D. Tooley, Front Page Magazine
August 27th, 2012 | 9:40 am
From “Rahm Emanuel Turns Homeless Services Over to Catholic Charities”:
“The city will use an expected $1.7 million in annual savings from turning over the overnight services to the venerable charity to help provide more beds and support to homeless youth and others, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.
“For half the cost, we can provide the same services in terms of transportation, and then plow that money back into better servicing, more beds and more wrap-around services, both for the kids and adults,” Emanuel said [..]
So perhaps the reason the government funds Catholic charities is because it saves the government money? Because it is cheaper and more effective to have a charity run some social services? So after all, the government is not simply distributing largesse to Catholic charities out of the goodness of its “heart”?
Well, what do you know? I’ve been reading a lot of criticism of Catholic (and other religious) charities that suggest that the charities need the government funds more than the government needs the charities’ services.
This is also quite interesting:
“About 50 city jobs will be eliminated under the switch. The city will work with Catholic Charities to see if the organization will hire those who lose their positions, according to Matt Smith, spokesman for the city agency.”
Just so long as Catholic Charities does not treat them to lunch at Chik-fil-A, which does not past muster on the same sex marriage portion of the “Chicago Values” test.
August 27th, 2012 | 10:31 am
Peg,
What a sour and cynical take on a win-win-win situation! The city of Chicago, Catholic Charities, and the homeless all benefit from Emmanuel’s move, and you seem disgruntled.
As we learned in a recent post here on First Thoughts:
In general, Catholic Charities, Planned Parenthood, and other for-profit and not-for-profit organizations bid for government contracts, and all things being equal, the government chooses the lowest bidder. There is nothing cynical about the process. The good work that the government needs done gets done, the taxpayers’ dollars are used most efficiently, and Catholic Charities and other groups continue to do good works as charitable organizations.
August 27th, 2012 | 10:38 am
“About 50 city jobs will be eliminated under the switch. The city will work with Catholic Charities to see if the organization will hire those who lose their positions, according to Matt Smith, spokesman for the city agency.”
The city workers will have to not only willing to take a pay cut, they have to be willing to pay for their birth control….
August 27th, 2012 | 11:12 am
In July Catholic Charities of Chicago joined the dioceses of Joliet and Springfield’s lawsuit against the HHS mandate. Should they not prevail in court, Cardinal George has said he will shut Catholic Charities down.
Rahm better have a back up plan.
August 27th, 2012 | 11:18 am
I note that the rant’s title, “Evangelical Left Plots D.C. Pacifist Summit,” was softened a bit in your title.
The best quote in the article from one of the ‘leties’: ““Instead of being salt and light, we have embraced a flag-waving patriotism that dulls our conscience to Jesus’ commands …”
I wonder if the author would think that Moody and Surgeon were leftists?
http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Pacifism-Fruit-Narrow-ebook/dp/B005RIKH62/ref=la_B001KMODGY_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1345950547&sr=1-4
August 27th, 2012 | 11:22 am
Huh, that would be “Spurgeon”:
“What pride flushes the patriot’s cheek when he remembers that his nation can murder faster than any other people. Ah, foolish generation, ye are groping in the flames of hell to find your heaven, raking amid blood and bones for the foul thing which ye call glory. Killing is not the path to prosperity; huge armaments are a curse
to the nation itself as well as to its neighbours
August 27th, 2012 | 12:12 pm
Also, I note that Dr. Peters’ post is only the latest of many touching on the issue of Catholic clerical continence—particularly, of the continence (he says) canon law requires even of married permanent deacons.
August 27th, 2012 | 1:42 pm
Should they not prevail in court, Cardinal George has said he will shut Catholic Charities down.
Mrs. Jackson,
According to Cardinal George:
He is mistaken about option 2. The annual fines (or the tax) imposed for not providing insurance are not at all exorbitant. They are substantially less than the cost of providing insurance. One of the criticisms of Obamacare is that it will make it to the advantage of some companies to stop providing insurance and simply pay the tax/fine.
Note the following:
August 27th, 2012 | 1:54 pm
1 Timothy 3:1-5
This saying is trustworthy: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the church of God?
August 27th, 2012 | 1:56 pm
“What a sour and cynical take on a win-win-win situation! ”
Yes, I have been cynical about government/church involvement since the Obama administration pronounced its HHS contraception mandate. I was further soured by discussion of federal funding of Catholic charities—the strings that came with it, and questions of whether or not the charities had much worth since the government was such a generous sugar daddy.
When the likes of Rahm “Chicago Values” Emanuel shows up hat in hand at the rectory door asking for help, well good luck to the archdiocese of Chicago. I hope they counted the silverware before and after he left.
August 27th, 2012 | 3:35 pm
When the likes of Rahm “Chicago Values” Emanuel shows up hat in hand at the rectory door asking for help, well good luck to the archdiocese of Chicago.
Peg,
I know little about the arrangement, but I don’t think it is accurate to say Rahm Emanuel showed up “hat in hand.” Catholic Charities will not be doing Chicago a favor by taking on this task. They will be paid for it. Emanuel is “privatizing” or “outsourcing” an operation that was formerly handled by government workers.
You may not like it, but Catholic Charities operates largely by contracting with the government, with over 60% of their funding coming from federal, state, and local government. One can hardly blame this on the government!
You seem to be disappointed that homeless people will now get better services in Chicago at a lesser cost to the government. I certainly doubt that Emanuel twisted any arms in the Catholic Church to make this happen.
August 27th, 2012 | 11:11 pm
“He [Cardinal George] is mistaken about option 2. The annual fines (or the tax) imposed for not providing insurance are not at all exorbitant. They are substantially less than the cost of providing insurance.”
David, your audacity to correct Cardinal George and then to quote scripture is astounding but not unexpected. Actually by this point in your game, totally expected. So, I guess you must have had a huge problem with the first gay bishop of the Episcopal church, Vicky Gene Robinson being promoted to bishop since Vicky has more than one wife and he had to be sent into rehab for alcoholism while he was an active bishop. But forget that your biblical problems with Bishop Robinson as that is really off topic and let’s return to your whopper of the tax not being exorbitant – it is cited by those actually suing the Administration that the tax for not providing birth control is $100 dollars a day per employee or $36K yearly to be adjusted upward annually by the federal government.
You (and the Obama Administration) may not be aware of this but Catholic Charities does not pay anything close the big salaries Bain does. 36K is probably close if not higher than the average salary at Catholic Charities.
But forget that, unfortunately for you it’s not as simple you insist. You insist it’s a win-win — in Catholic Charities just pays a simple tax that is cheaper than providing actual health insurance. This means the Catholic Charities employee will have to pick up their cost of health insurance now. They will get it through government run groups that will only offer free birth control plans according to our new right (free birth control) in Obamacare. So the government will be trampling on even more religious liberties as it hands out health insurance for a $$$$ for all. Also those government plans are estimated (right now) to cost 14K for a family of 4. Yes, I know people who qualify for aid will get it, which will mean Obamacare will cost more than the 1.2 trillion it is estimated right now. But forget that, let’s return to the religious employers -the ones you suggest this is a win-win for- to keep their valued employees, they like any decent employer will want to help offset the new health care costs. But can they offset it, morally speaking?
Hint -if they could help offset it, then they could provide it. But let’s play along with your game and follow your logic out, with the fines of 36K per employee per year can a non-profit religious employer actually afford to help offset the costs?
Yes, we know you are sure, the government pumps enough money into Catholic Charities to make the paying of this new tax a piece of cake, but the reality is, it doesn’t.
This is why Father Jenkins of Notre Dame took the dramatic step of after honoring Obama with a law degree, to suing Obama for his understanding of law.
August 28th, 2012 | 7:21 am
Re: Comments by David Nickol: Mr Nickol reports that those receiving federal and state funds to be used in serving those in need are chosen through a process by which “all things being equal” the lowest bidder is chosen.
“All things being equal” unfortunately (if I am correct) turns out to mean “equally subservient to the then prevailing moral standards devised by those in power” for whom “legal” appears to mean “right”. In accordance with this political philosophy, HHS rejected the bid of Catholic Charities (known as the group providing highly respected services to the victims of human trafficking at lower costs) to receive federal funds in support of their work.
So, it would seem, if one follows this line of thought, the Dred Scott decision should have been obeyed even by those who considered it wrong, since the requirements imposed by that decision were, by decision of the Supreme Court, legal. So much for the “freedom trail,” and other illegal but right activities of those who opposed slavery as wrong.
I do not think that any of the participants in this discussion are arguing for the rightness of the Dred Scott decision. My purpose is to ask those who so glibly defend removing from the public square all those who do not provide contraceptive, sterilization, or abortion services, although those entities have been proven to provide much good in other ways, to consider that they are inadvertently doing much harm rather than the good they intend.
August 28th, 2012 | 10:11 am
Linda Wolpert Smith,
First, let me say that Catholic Charities does a lot of good work, and it would be a shame to see that brought to an end. I don’t think it will happen.
But nobody is forcing Catholic Charities to take 63% of their funding from the government. It seems to me your complaints are about Catholic Charities allowing themselves to be co-opted rather than about the government.
When Catholic Charities bids for a government contract and then lets it be known it is not willing to do part of the work entailed in that contract, then it shouldn’t get the contract. You may disagree with the government that abortion services to be made available to victims of human trafficking, and Catholic Charities may disagree, but if Catholic Charities is not willing to do the job the government is offering money for, then why in the world should they get a government contract?
August 28th, 2012 | 10:19 am
David, your audacity to correct Cardinal George and then to quote scripture is astounding but not unexpected. Actually by this point in your game, totally expected.
Mrs. Jackson,
I am at somewhat of a disadvantage here, because I am quite convinced that if I respond to you in kind—with my personal opinions of your attitude and your agenda—my messages will not make it through moderation. I say this to explain why I will not be attempting to respond to your messages to me unless you stick to the issues, of which I, personally, am not one.
August 28th, 2012 | 11:07 am
David Nickol: Although you do not “think” that the “good work” done by Catholic Charities will be brought to an end, its work in adoption services in several states and its valued assistance to the victims of human trafficking have been ended by government fiat at this time. What is the basis for your thinking that other services will not be ended as well?
“If Catholic Charities is not willing to do the job the government is offering [the taxpayers including Catholics'] money for, then why in the world should they get a government contract?”
For the simple reason that those persons in the government who make funding decisions have throughout our history until now recognized the value of the dedication and love for others that been demonstrated by members of Catholic service organizations, human failures notwithstanding.
You refer to the fact that Catholic Charities is “not willing to do the job the government is offering money for.” You are correct. No, we will not “do the job” of participating in the planned, systematic exclusion of citizens of faith from participation in the great works of service to those in need. Those persons who were formerly served in a particular way, informed not only by their need but by the commitment to “love of neighbor” that is a specific component of Catholic service, will be the ones to pay the price for this government edict. The Church does not seek government funding as “pay for services”. It seeks to use the funds to serve those in need. But you are correct. “No one is forcing Catholic Charities to take 63% of its [taxpayer supplied] funding from the government.” And if that funding comes with a requirement that Catholics betray their religious convictions, the Church and its service organizations will have to get along without those resources. The church will continue to serve with donated funds in every way possible.
This of course is not the first time that loss of diversity within ordered liberty has been made to seem eminently reasonable.
August 28th, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Linda Wolpert Smith,
I don’t really think I am going out on a limb to say there is just not going to be a titanic conflict between the federal government and the United States in which the federal government is totally victorious and the Catholic Church shuts down its charitable organizations, its hospitals, and its schools. It is a fantasy. I have more faith in American Democracy and more faith in the Catholic Church to believe any such thing will happen.
There will always be tension between the Catholic Church and the government of any pluralistic democracy. You seem to think that the Catholic Church is in a particularly precarious position right now, but in truth, Catholics have never been more “assimilated.” There was a time when having a Catholic on a presidential ticket would have been a liability. Now it is almost certainly a plus. There was a time (before the election of President Kennedy) when Protestants would not support Catholics for public office. Now there is more or less a political alliance between Catholics and Evangelicals. There are six Catholics on the Supreme Court.
Both the federal government and the Catholic Church have too much to lose by becoming mortal enemies. There will be a solution to the issue of the contraceptive mandate. Lawsuits by the Catholic Church are not being taken up by the courts currently because of the issue of “ripeness.” It is too soon to hear lawsuits against HHS regulations that have not been written yet. (This is not what I am saying. It is what the courts are saying.)
Have a little faith in the Church and in American democracy. There are going to be resolutions to the current conflicts.
August 28th, 2012 | 3:45 pm
I have absolute faith in the survival of the Church and need no reassurance that the Catholic Church will endure through time, although as Pope Benedict teaches, the Church will go through ” a process of crystalization and clarification [that] will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek … The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church … .”.
Thinkers much more qualified than I have expressed their concern about the survival of democracy in, for example, Europe [or indeed whether it still exists at this time - see Pierre Manent, "City, Empire, Church, Nation" City Journal, Summer, 2012) and by association our own democracy as well. Others, such as Prof. Daniel Mahoney believe as perhaps you do in the power of the "art of liberty" to prevail in the United States. Others do not agree. Toqueville himself saw the potential danger.
The words of and the actions emanating from the administration of President Barack Obama, especially in unscripted talks and/or actions which contradict his previous commitments are not reassuring.
Surely you are familiar with the teachings of Engels, Marx, Lenin and others, some of which have made their way into modern thinking.
Terry Eagleton writes "Marxism does not advocate banning religions ("persecution is the best means of promoting undesirable convictions") but advocates making religion a private matter."
We "recruit [religious believers], we are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offense to their religious convictions but we recruit them in order to educate them in the spirit of our programme and not in order to permit an active struggle against it.” Lenin
In any case, I hope that you are correct in your more positive assessment of our situation, and that I lack the ability to correctly understand it. I shall consider it a great blessing to be proven wrong.
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