I am shocked, shocked to find that their is gambling going on in this establishment.
If you have ever seen the movie Casablance, you are familiar with that line. It comes from a French police chief, played by Claude Rains, who has been order to shut down a bar by any means necessary.
Immediately after "discovering" the casino in the back room, Claude Rains says the above line.... and then someone comes right at him, and hands him his winnings....
Recent articles have shown an interesting picture of the heirarchy of the Catholic church and their interactions with the Obama adminstration.
First, New York City's Archibishop becomes a Cardinal; shortly thereafter, he goes after Obama. And then the Pope takes a swipe at Obama. And, now, there's a petition against portions of Obamacare. It would seem like there would have been no pleasant relationship between the Catholic church and President Obama from day one.
However, this is actually a recent development. Last month's, there was a decision that preventive health services will ensure that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range of the Institute of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA -approved forms of contraception. This category includes abortifacients like the “morning after pill.” Notice that the group of health plans provided by “non-profit religious employers” who do not support contraception winnows the field down rather quickly: the Catholic Church or a subsidiary. Last month's decision targets the Catholic Church.
If you thought that this was decades long grudge between the Catholic church and Obama, or even Democrats, you would be mistaken. The priesthood and heirarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in America tend to hail from Democrat constituencies. On one hand, the Magesterium teaches very traditional social values, and on the other, it embraces many a Democratic plan -- they were against both nuclear weapons, deterrence, the "Star Wars" program, making a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan part of future arms treaties, and they even ignored what happened to personal libery under the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as they created a “sanctuary movment”. They embraced the New Deal, and has been on the left side of the aisle ever since.
In short, the Catholic church in America sided with the Kremlin, and the Democratic party -- and the Kremlin had an official anti-church policy. So did FDR.
In official policy: in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, supporting abortion is forbidden. Though few bishops in the nation take steps to discipline pro-abortion advocates and politicians especially when they proclaim themselves to be devout.
However, with President Obama, is in favor of partial birth aboriton, and even retroactively aborting children who survive the abortion procedure. But he was invited to give a commencement address at a Catholic university.
The solution of the Catholic bishops? They issued a document called “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” As first glance it looks like a strong pro-life statement which would not have helped Obama, or any other elected Democrat for that matter, until one reads deeper.
34. Catholics often face dificult choices about how to vote. This is why it is so important to vote according to a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among moral goods. A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.
35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.
In other words: if the candidate is pro-abortion, you can morally vote for him as long as that isn't the reason you're voting for him. If you oppose the war in Iraq, or labor unions, or any other “morally grave reasons” you can vote for the pro-abortion politician.
American Catholics gave a majority of their votes to Obama.
Then came Obamacare.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops was heartbroken and gobsmacked, or gobsmacked and heartbroken, when they got the bad news about the elimination of an exemption for religious conscience in health plans.
President Obama telephoned Archbishop Dolan on Friday morning to tell him of the decision, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The pair had discussed the issue during a November meeting, during which the archbishop “got the message that they could work together,” said the spokeswoman, Sister Mary Ann Walsh.
The issue was likely to form the “backdrop to future relations,” she said. “It’s too big to ignore… the elephant is tramping around in the sanctuary.”
And then came the announcement.
They were shocked, shocked!
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