The Catholic Church in this country has historically been in bed with the Democrat party. Ironically, while many “Catholics” these days never darken the inside of a church except on very rare occasions, these same “Catholics” often retain an allegiance to the Democrat party as the sole living vestige of their ancestral Catholicism. John Zmirak explains at The Stream how this alliance between the Catholic Church and the Democrat Party has produced poisonous results today as the Democrat party mandates that the Church adopt anti-Catholic stances or be driven from the Public Square:

But how did they dig themselves into such a hole in the first place? How will they, inevitably, dig the next such hole and then the hole after that? I have analyzed both issues, and come up with an eight-step process for destroying a church’s witness.

Distort your church’s doctrine, by pretending that it clearly supports just one side and one solution in a complex political issue that balances the interests and rights of millions of citizens. Instead, side unconditionally and unthinkingly with . . . A particular “victim” group that includes millions of voters, potential church members, or potential clients that can serve as magnets for federal money. Insist that the government help this group by . . . Growing the government and taxing the middle class, while also . . . Directing federal funds to church agencies or institutions. Now instead of performing the “corporal works of mercy” as Christians, they are simply working for pay as federal contractors. This has the added benefit that it will . . . Make the churches partly dependent on the whims of the federal government, whose bureaucrats and leaders are firmly opposed to Christian moral teachings on the sanctity of life and of marriage. Soon these secular leftists will . . . Impose laws and regulations that would force the church to abandon core moral principles. At this point church leaders will . . . Whimper, and flail around, pretending that the First Amendment protects their right to spend federal money however they wish, regardless of the federal government’s preferences. After this, look for . . . One of three results:

a) Church officials and agencies cave completely, and do not even pretend to put up resistance. This happened when the Obama administration decreed that Catholic agencies receiving federal money had to hire gay and “transgender” employees.

b) Church officials and agencies find a loophole through which they can fulfill the letter of church law, while flouting its spirit — for instance, through the HHS “compromise” accepted by the Catholic Health Association, which created a formal “buffer” between Catholic employers and the abortifacients they were effectively paying for.

c) The Church stands up prophetically against the real evils (#6 above) that would be required to obtain federal money (#4 above), and renounces the distortions of doctrine (#1 above) that dug them this hole in the first place.

I wish I had a news link to illustrate option 8c in action.

Go here to read the rest. Welfare States require huge amounts of tax money and huge amounts of government power. The default position of the Church today when confronting any need traditionally filled by private or Church charity, is to scream for Caesar to come fix things. This bastardized parody of the social teachings of the Church inevitably comes back to bite the Church as Caesar will always exact a price for his favors and under the Obama administration that price is for the Church to bend the knee to contraception, abortion and gay marriage. For all too many of our shepherds that is a small price to pay to keep the government largesse flowing. There is a reason why Christ whipped the money changers from the Temple and why He uttered the phrase to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. These days the Church too often seems willing to bow the knee to Caesar, no matter what Caesar demands, so long as the funds from Caesar keep flowing.