"He so quickly got us," said Andrew Lyke, a participant in the meeting who is now the director of the Chicago Archdiocese's Office for Black Catholics.

The group succeeded in inserting its priorities into the congress's plan for churches, Mr Lyke said, and "Barack Obama was key in helping us do that."

By the time of that session in the spring of 1987, Mr Obama — himself not Catholic — was already well known in Chicago's black Catholic circles.

He had arrived two years earlier to fill an organising position paid for by a church grant, and had spent his first months here surrounded by Catholic pastors and congregations.

In this often overlooked period of the president's life, he had a desk in a South Side parish and became steeped in the social justice wing of the church, which played a powerful role in his political formation.

On Thursday, Mr Obama met with Pope Francis at the Vatican after a three-decade divergence with the church.

By the late 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had taken a conservative turn that de-emphasised social engagement and elevated the culture wars that would eventually cast Mr Obama as an abortion-supporting enemy. Continue reading.

Source: The New York Times

Image: Joe Wrinn, Harvard University/AP Photo

On Saturday, President Obama expressed his desire to "hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons." "Holding accountable," as so many journalists have rightly identified, is loosely-veiled language that disguises the purpose of an American-led military intervention: punishment.

The use of military force as punishment - in this case, for the alleged use of chemical weapons against Syrian rebel forces - was understood as a just use of force by one of the founding figures of western just war theory, St. Augustine of Hippo. Writing in the early-fifth century, Augustine believed that "just wars as defined as those which avenge injuries." Indeed, the view of punishment as a justification for war continued to be given salience in the Catholic moral theology, from which modern just war theories emerged, up until the seventeenth century, where it features in the writings of Hugo Grotius. The justification of these moral theologians' insistence on punishment as a legitimate use of force emerged from:

• the lack of a sovereign authority to pronounce on disputes between states and the need for states to defend themselves; and
• the divine authority of a sovereign to serve as, in the words of thirteenth-century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, "God's minister" in punishing sin.

The first claim explains why states can use force while private citizens cannot. When an individual is wronged by another, "he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior," as Aquinas put it. However, prior to the emergence of international law, if a state sought redress for alleged wrongdoings by another state, it had no authority to turn to for justice. Thus, it had license to pursue its claim directly, exercising its own force in an effort to, in a sense, install itself as a sovereign who could pass (just) judgement over its enemy's wrongdoing. The second claim involves not only the existence of a deity, but a deity who might sanction or even directly command wars in some situations. Augustine held the wars of Moses against the Egyptians as an archetypal just war, for in obeying God's command Moses "showed not ferocity but obedience." Continue reading

Sources

• Religion & Ethics, ABC
• Image: PRI's The World

"Targeted killing should, by definition, be highly discriminatory," said letters from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and members of Congress.

The letters questioning the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were signed by the chairman of the bishops' committee on international justice and peace, Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines.

"The administration's policy appears to extend the use of deadly force to alleged ‘signature' attacks and reportedly classifies all males of a certain age as combatants," Bishop Pates said.

"Are these policies morally defensible? They seem to violate the law of war, international human rights law, and moral norms."

Bishop Pates noted that targeted killings by drones raise "serious moral questions", including concerns related to discrimination, imminence of threat, proportionality and probability of success.

He emphasised the importance of protecting American lives and the danger posed by a terrorist organisation like Al Qaeda, but said the relative low cost and ease of using drones might tempt US leaders to use them to excess, causing them to underutilise "economic, political and diplomatic responses".

"And doesn't the prospect of widespread deployment of UAVs by other nations and non-state actors put a spotlight on our nation as the primary developer and user of UAV armed and unarmed technology?" he asked.

Bishop Pates said the US should exercise leadership in advancing international norms, standards and restrictions for the use of drones.

"An effective counterterrorism policy should employ non-military assets to build peace through respect for human rights and addressing underlying injustices that terrorists unscrupulously exploit," he said.

Bishop Pates said the US should publicly discuss and scrutinise its policy of targeted killings by drones, in order formulate "a more comprehensive, moral and effective policy to resist terrorism".

Sources:

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Full text of letters

Image: The Nation

One recalls in rapid-fire bursts how Father Emil Kapaun sneaked out of the barracks at night, risking his life to bring back morsels of food for his fellow prisoners.

Another remembers seeing the young American priest use a rock and a piece of metal to form a pan and then collect water to wash the hands and faces of the wounded.

A third chokes up when he tells of being injured and having an enemy soldier standing over him, rifle pointed; Kapaun walked up, pushed aside the muzzle and carried off the wounded man.

The military chaplain did not carry a gun or grenades. He did not storm hills or take beaches. He picked lice off of men too weak to do it themselves and stole grain from the Korean and Chinese guards who took the American soldiers as prisoners of war in late 1950.

Kapaun did not survive the prisoner camps, dying in Pyoktong in 1951. The man originally from tiny Pilsen, Kan., has been declared a "servant of God" — often a precursor to sainthood in the Catholic Church. And on Thursday, President Obama will posthumously award Kapaun a Medal of Honor. On hand will be Mike Dowe, 85; Robert Wood, 86; and Herbert Miller, 86.

"People had lost a great deal of their civility," Wood says of life in the POW compound. "We were stacking the bodies outside where they were frozen like cordwood and here is this one man — in all of this chaos — who has kept . . . principles."

Kapaun (pronounced Ka-PAWN) was so beloved that U.S. prisoners of war who knew him began calling for him to receive the military's highest honor on the day they were released from their North Korean POW camp 60 years ago.

"The first prisoners out of that camp are carrying a wooden crucifix, and they tell the story at length," says Roy Wenzel, a reporter at the Wichita Eagle who wrote an eight-part series and a book about Kapaun. "He was internationally famous and made the front page of newspapers." Continue reading

Sources

• The Washington Post
• Image: ABC News

"On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI," Obama said in a written statement.

The president said he "warmly" remembers the meeting he and the first lady had with Pope Benedict in 2009, "and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years." Continue reading

They declared that the Obama administration was making war on religion and not only was the president reelected but Catholics were the only Christian religious body to vote for him.

To make matters worse, after devoting much talk and treasure to combatting the rising tide of same-sex marriage, they got their butts kicked from coast to coast by a populace that voted the other way.

No wonder Cardinal Dolan made penance the theme of his presidential address to the USCCB during their semi-annual fling in Baltimore this week.

The problem was, no one was prepared to point the penitential finger at Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, whose continuance in office after being convicted of failing to report a sexually abusive priest makes a mockery of the USCCB's claims to have addressed the cover-up scandal.

Equally embarrassing was the fate of a letter on poverty that +Dolan pushed to at least get the bishops on the record in re: the recession that started four years ago. The letter did everything in its power to skate over the tradition of advocacy embedded in Catholic social teaching, failing even to mention American bishops' own 1986 pastoral letter, "Economic Justice for All."

It was a document more in tune with Rep. Paul Ryan than Pope Leo XIII-one that sought to fulfill the church's preferential option for the poor via such subsidiary institutions as one-man-one-woman marriage and voucherized schooling.

After being roundly denounced by retired Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston and some other episcopal old-timers, the letter failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote and was pronounced DOA by +Dolan.

The bishops then unanimously decided that this would be a good time to proceed with the canonization of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement who famously declared, "Do not call me a saint."

As a devout anarchist, Day was not a fan of big government social programs-but she had no use whatsoever for the kind of laissez-faire subsidiarity advocated by Ryan & Co. She loved organized labor, bosses not so much. As she wrote after a visit to the farm workers in California:

What I saw when I visited Stockton in December was the problem of the land. How much land does a man need? Surely not the tens of thousands of acres owned by the California Packing Company, the Southern Pacific, the Pacific Gas and Electric, the Bank of America, in addition to some individuals whose families administer their holdings like medieval barons, ruling over vast territories and treating their laborers like serfs. These corporations and individuals make up the Associated Farmers.

Reflecting on Los Angeles Cardinal McIntyre's efforts to squelch the civil rights movement in his city, Day had this comment about the relationship of the laity to episcopal authority:

The way I have felt about Los Angeles is that the lay people had to go ahead and form their groups, "Catholics for interracial justice," form their picket lines, as they are only now doing, and make their complaints directly, to priest and cardinal, demanding the leadership, the moral example they are entitled to.

You figure Day would have preferred it if the USCCB spent less time promoting her cause and more time paying attention to what she had to say.

Sources:

• RNS
• Image: Digital News Portal

- Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Program on Public Values. He joined Trinity College after working as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He writes on news media coverage of religious subject matter.

Like concerns about Romney's conservatism and pro-life record, theological issues have been brushed aside in anticipation of November's election.

According to Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council, 'growing enthusiasm' for Romney's campaign has much to do with the Obama administration's support for same-sex marriage and his Contraceptive Mandate, which forces religiously affiliated organisations such as hospitals and universities to include coverage for contraceptives in their health insurance plans. Read more

Sources

• Zac Alstin in Eureka Street
• Image: HotBedInfo

Zac Alstin is a freelance writer and part-time research officer for Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, Australia.

That this view was swept away in the deluge of sad commentary on Friday was surprising to me, an outsider.

By this standard James Holmes was not a young man armed more heavily than the soldiers the US fields in Afghanistan, but an event, an act of god, to be weathered rather than countered. Read more

Sources

• Nick O'Malley in The Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: International Business Times

Nick O'Malley is the US correspondent of The Sydney Morning Herald

The association said it is "imperative" that the administration abandon its "narrow" definition of religious employer and exempt not only churches but also Catholic hospitals, health care organizations and other Church ministries.

It said it is "deeply concerned" by the administration's approach to "contraceptive services, especially abortifacient drugs and sterilization."

The Catholic Health Association represents over 600 hospitals and 1,400 other health facilities in all 50 U.S. states. It is the largest group of nonprofit health care providers in the U.S.

The June 15 letter from CHA president and CEO Sister Carol Keehan and other association board members addressed the Department of Health and Human Services about the proposed rulemaking to implement the Obama administration's intended accommodation announced on Feb. 10.

However, when the accommodation was initially presented, Sr. Keehan said in a Feb. 10 statement that the Catholic Health Association was "very pleased" with the White House's proposal and that it "protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions."

"The framework developed has responded to the issues we identified that needed to be fixed," she said.

"We are pleased and grateful that the religious liberty and conscience protection needs of so many ministries that serve our country were appreciated enough that an early resolution of this issue was accomplished," Sr. Keehan stated.

The CHA statement was circulated by a White House official before the Obama administration announced the proposed accommodation, a fact that prompted speculation the CHA had input into the proposal.

But in its June 15 letter, the CHA changed its tone. It said the announcement had seemed to be "a good first step" but further study "has not relieved our initial concerns." Continue reading

Most important are evangelical Christians, one of the most powerful and reliable voting blocs in the Republican party. Many of them are unsettled by Romney's Mormon faith.

Obama has turned many evangelicals off with his support for abortion rights and his new backing of same-sex marriage, which are anathema to Christian conservatives. Many fundamentalist Christians consider Romney's religion a sect and not Christian.

Furthermore, Romney's positions on certain social issues like abortion have shifted over the years, fueling doubts among some Republicans about his conservative convictions. He now says he opposes abortion. Continue reading

The move not only escalated an unusual fight between church and state but also threatened to cause splits within the Catholic Church itself.

The Catholic Bishop of Stockton, California, Stephen Blaire, told America magazine that he was concerned the campaign against the mandate was becoming too political.

He said he was worried his fellow bishops were being co-opted by political conservatives. Continue reading

More than 40 Catholic organizations sued the Obama administration over a government requirement that most employers provide birth control coverage as part of their employee health plans.

The mandate forces most employers to provide coverage, either directly or through their insurance companies. The U.S. Health and Human Services Department adopted the rule to expand health care for women. Last year, an advisory panel from the Institute of Medicine recommended including birth control on the list of covered services, partly because it promotes maternal and child health by allowing women to space their pregnancies.

The original rule includes a religious exemption that allows churches to opt-out of the mandate, but keeps the requirement in place for religiously affiliated charities.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said that the compromise reached earlier this year is not sufficient because the exemptions made for churches are too restrictive. He charged that the White House is "strangling" the church over the matter.

"They tell us ... if you're going to be really exempt from these demands of the government, well, you have to propagate your Catholic faith and everything you do, you can serve only Catholics and employ only Catholics," Dolan said.

"We're like, wait a minute, when did the government get in the business of defining for us the extent of our ministry?" Dolan said.

However, a California bishop says he and some other bishops are worried that the church's campaign against the mandate is becoming too political and could hurt the Catholic Church.

Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton expressed concern that there were different groups trying to co-opt the mandate debate and make it into a political issue, "and that's why we need to have a deeper discussion as bishops."

He said that he was "worried that some groups 'very far to the right' are trying to use the conflict as ‘an anti-Obama campaign.'"

Image CBS This Morning

The call comes in response to Jenky's homily in which he denounced President Obama's "radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda," comparing his approach to that of Hitler and Stalin.

"Jenky's comments demonstrate ignorance of history, insensitivity to victims of genocide and absence of judgment," the faculty said in a letter to the university's president and the chairman of the university's board of trustees.

"We accept that Jenky's comments are protected by the First Amendment, but we find it profoundly offensive that a member of our beloved University's highest authority, the Board of Fellows, should compare the president's actions with those whose genocidal policies murdered tens of millions of people, including the specific targeting of Catholics, Jews and other minorities for their faith."

"We request that you issue a statement on behalf of the University that will definitively distance Notre Dame from Jenky's incendiary statement," they added. "Further, we feel that it would be in the best interest of Notre Dame if Jenky resigned from the University's Board of Fellows if he is unwilling to renounce loudly and publicly this destructive analogy."

Bishop Jenky is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which founded Notre Dame, he is a Notre Dame alumnus, a former director of campus ministry and is the sole bishop on both Notre Dame's board of trustees and board of fellows.

Sources

• The Observer
• LifeSite News
• Image: The Inquisitr

Bishop Jenky has come under fire for comparing President Barack Obama to being on "a similar path" as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

In his sermon, Jenky claimed that American Catholics are currently in a "war" due to the Obama administration's ruling on birth control and other issues.

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care," preached Jenky.

"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama, with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path," Jenky added.

"May God have mercy especially on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil."

Patricia Gibson, chancellor of the Peoria Diocese has sought to help clarify the bishop's comments.

"Based upon the current government's threatened infringement upon the Church's religious exercise of its ministry, Bishop Jenky offered historical context and comparisons as a means to prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions," said Gibson.

"Bishop Jenky gave several examples of times in history in which religious groups were persecuted because of what they believed," Gibson said.

"We certainly have not reached the same level of persecution. However, history teaches us to be cautious once we start down the path of limiting religious liberty."

However, Rabbi Daniel Bogard of Peoria's Anshai Emeth congregation said that "casual use of the Holocaust and tragedy in general is really inappropriate."

And, according to the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Bishop Jenky's homily clearly urged people not to vote for Obama in this year's presidential elections, which is in violation of a federal law stating that tax payer-funded organizations should not seek to influence electoral campaigns.

"To be sure, Jenky never utters the words 'Do not vote for Obama,'" Lynn told the Chicago Tribune. "But the Internal Revenue Code makes it clear that statements need not be this explicit to run afoul of the law."

Sources

• Huffington Post
• Chicago Tribune
• Global Christian Post
• Chicago Tribune
• Image: The Inquisitr

Dolan is placed ahead of others like Lady Gaga, Barack Obama, and actor George Clooney.

Described by Time as "The man most likely to give Barack Obama fits on the way to election day," Dolan has been highly critical of the health care mandate from the Obama administration.

However with his crimson cassock, wide grin and rotund good cheer, Dolan is seen as a warm prelate who leads his flock more by charm than fiat.

Putting his church its ideas back in the center of the national political conversation is something Dolan has managed and is something not achieved by other American Roman Catholic leaders in recent times.

While the people vote to get the Top 100, who will be 'The Person of the Year' is now in the hands of the journalists and editors at Time Magazine. The success or failure of the US health care reform and Dolan's role could play a deciding factor.

Source

• Rome Reports
• Time Magazine
• Image: San Antinono

Gates said that the topic of contraception has become a hot topic in recent years, but asked whether it should be.

She believes that many of the world's social change issues depends on ensuring that women are able to control the number of children they have and the rate at which they have them.

Gates said that over 1 billion people will have sex this year and that in her view all these men and women should be free to decide whether they do or do not want to conceive a child, and they should be able to use birth control to help them decide.

"I think you'll have a hard time finding many people disagreeing with this idea," she said.

"They want to power to control their own lives."

Gates said that birth control that is so widely accepted in private brings a lot of opposition in public.

"Birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global agenda, and the victims of this paralysis are the people of sub Saharan Africa and South Asia."

Gates cited statistics that in Germany 66%, El Salvador 66% and Thailand 64% used contraception.

"It's about what you'd expect," she said.

However Gates pointed out some inequalities in using in contraception

• In Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest states in India, only 29% use contraception
• Nigeria 10%
• Chad 2%
• Senegal 12%

Using Senegal as an example, Gates said that rather than using other methods, women in Africa prefer a three monthly injection but every other time they go to the clinic to receive the injection the clinics are out of stock.

As a result 100,000 say they don't want to be pregnant and die in child-birth, and there are another 600,000 who do not want to be pregnant and they give birth, only to have the baby die within the first month of life.

This is not about abortion, nor population control, it's about the equality of fertility choice for women.

"One of the simplest and most transformative things we can do is to give everybody access to birth control methods that almost all Germans have access to, and all Americans.

"As long as we are really clear there is a global movement waiting to happen and get behind this totally uncontroversial idea."

Growing up in a Catholic family and still considering herself a Catholic, Gates said the nuns made service and social justice a high priority in the school.

"Today in the Foundation's work I believe I'm applying the lessons I learned in high school," Gates said.

"In the traditions of Catholic scholars, the nuns also taught us to question received teachings. And one of the teachings we girls, my peers questioned is, is birth control a sin."

Gates says it is fair to ask whether separating sex from reproduction will promote promiscuity, but said her decision to use birth control was not about promiscuity, but about allowing her to fulfill the plan she had for her life.

In this significant talk, Gates makes the case for the world to re-examine the issue of birth control, an issue she intends to lend her voice to for the next decade.

Source

• TED (Video)
• The Gates Foundation
• Image: Impatient Optimists

His five-minute mini-sermon provoked sympathetic laughter from the audience of about 150 clergy and other guests when he talked of the burdens of the presidency.

The survey indicated people are of the view the import of religion in politics is a reasonably recent occurrence, with Democrats and independents being the main culprits.

However, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released last week, in general, Americans continue to think the nation has gone too far in keeping religion and government separate

The poll showed Americans to be more wary of religion's influence on politicians themselves: 63 percent continue to say political leaders should not rely on their religious beliefs in making policy decisions.

Supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, a clearly identified Catholic, take a very different view on religion's role in politics in both polls.

Nearly 60% of Santorum's supporters in the Post-ABC poll say the country has gone too far in keeping church and state separate compared with fewer than 40% of Mitt Romney's supporters or the overall public says this.

While 30 percent of all Americans and 24% of Romney backers say there's been "too little" talk of faith and politics in the Pew survey, that surges to 55% among Santorum's supporters.

Turning the attention of the Poll to US President, Barack Obama, nearly twice as many white Catholics say the Obama administration is unfriendly toward religion as said this two years ago, (up from 17 to 31%).

It is not clear why people are thinking this way, however pollsters suggest it might be the result of the birth control controversy, although Obama's approval rating among white Catholics has changed little since the controversy gained steam.

Source

• Washington Post
• Image: Washington Post

Under attack from the US Catholic Bishops, Catholic hospitals and other institutions, the proposal seeks to shift the cost of providing birth control coverage onto insurance companies and prohibiting insurers from passing additional costs onto employees.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the government would guarantee women access to contraceptives "while accommodating religious liberty interests."

The announcement is the second such conciliatory modification from the Obama administration and follows the US Bishops dialing back its opposition to the administration with a statement released at the end of a two-day meeting of the bishops' administrative committee.

The bishop's statement declared the conference is "strongly unified and intensely focused" and vowed to continue their defense of religious liberty in the courts, Congress and the White House, however it lacked much of the inflammatory rhetoric that has characterized the debate between the bishops and the administration in recent weeks.

The bishops expressed their gratitude to all those who are standing with them in "this unjust and illegal mandate".

Stephen Schneck, a political scientist at The Catholic University of America, who advised Obama on how to reach out to the church says in his view "this definitely moves things forward toward".

He hopes the accommodation is something the American bishops might be more willing to consider.

However Michael O'Dea, executive director of the Christus Medicus Foundation, which promotes Christian healthcare labelled the accommodation as "bogus".

"This does nothing," he said.

The announcement follows weeks of quiet negotiations between the officials from the Church, insurance companies and Obama administration.

The policy comes into force for religious employers on August 1, 2013.

Sources

• US Catholic Bishops
• NY Times
• Chicago Tribune
• Washington Post
• New Orleans LA News
• NCR
• Image: Red Dog Report

Although negotiators have agreed to the broad outlines of the TPP agreement, a new trade issue has created a snag in the process: the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement provisions. Australia has refused to accept the investor-state dispute settlement, and U.S. industry associations are urging President Barack Obama to overcome these objections. These investor-state dispute settlement provisions have been included in U.S. investment treaties and trade agreements with more than 50 countries, and there are over 2,500 of these accords currently on record. These provisions, however, give advantages to large economies and can cripple small island states like Pacific Island nations.

Obama describes the TPPA as a "a trade agreement for the 21st century" that improves on and rectifies past problems in U.S. trade and investment treaties. Nine countries are currently negotiating the TPPA: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. Japan is in preliminary talks, and Canada and Mexico are looking to join. Although the negotiations are being held in secret, leaked documents confirm that the TPPA is a "NAFTA on steroids." Contrary to democratic practice, the documents connected to the negotiations will remain secret for four years after being signed or dismissed.

The United States is leading the negotiations and has a great deal of influence over the outcome of the agreement, which covers a vast range of subject matters, including tariffs on goods, trade in services, labor and the environment, telecommunications, and intellectual property. For Pacific Islands, however, the investor rights chapters may offer the greatest challenge to Pacific Island environmental resources.

Continue reading Vacuuming up the Pacific's resources

Image source: Celsias NZ