Catholic Elites Rebrand as Defenders of Religious Liberty While Feeding at Federal Trough

Top catholics must be secretly rubbing their hands in glee at Obama’s clumsy handling of the requirement that birth control be included in healthcare plans provided by the church’s institutions like colleges. The controversy has given them a opportunity to pave over the years of bad news concerning child-molesting priests and to refurbish their image as noble spiritual fellows who stand foursquare against government intrusion.

Not that bad behavior by priests has gone away. A google news search today of catholic priest sex abuse turned up 13,800 results for one month. It’s ugly stuff too: an ex-priest sentenced for plotting to murder his accuser; five “unsuitable” priests were bounced out of the Philadelphia archdiocese. In April, we learned the church paid out $144 million in abuse claims in 2011.

The catholic hierarchy benefits from media boredom with pervert priest stories, which now show up in local reporting only. The topic does get depressing, but the lack of news doesn’t mean there has been reform within the church.

Newly crowned Cardinal Timothy Dolan has a way with the press, which seems to regard him as a cleric from central casting, blessed with Irish charm and an extrovert personality. He got a glowing Sixty Minutes segment in 2011 where he was called the church’s fix-it guy for years of pedophile priest publicity.

And now Dolan is leading the charge for dozens of lawsuits against the government in the name of “religious liberty.” He gets headlines like “Timothy Cardinal Dolan vows to fight President all the way to Supreme Court over birth control mandate”.

The problem is that same reviled federal government is one of the catholic church’s major funders. The church acts as an agency of government in its Catholic Charities guise, dispensing social services to millions in the areas like housing, schools, food distribution and healthcare.

The screen snap below from Catholic Charities at a glance shows that in 2009, 67 percent of its income came from the government. The cost of the church’s “good works” is paid by the taxpayer, not the collection plate. That 67 percent of $4.3 billion works out to more than $2.8 billion taken from citizens who may not agree with many of the church’s positions.

Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?

When the federal government is supplying the church with billions of dollars every year, it has paid for the right to make some requirements. If the cassocks take the money, then they must follow the rules.

Cardinal Dolan might observe the Tulsa diocese for the lesson that complete religious liberty requires the willingness to be financially independent.

Catholic Charities forgoes government funding, stays true to values, Tulsa World, Dec 17, 2011 Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Tulsa is getting national attention for its rejection of government funding. It’s a position that enables the organization to remain true to its Roman Catholic values and to act swiftly to help people in need without wading through a bureaucratic morass, said executive director Deacon Kevin Sartorius. “We’re very different,” said Sartorius, who was interviewed recently along with Tulsa Bishop Edward Slattery by EWTN, the global Catholic radio, television and news network. Sartorius said he, and people at EWTN, know of no other diocese whose Catholic Charities is funded like the Tulsa Diocese. In nearly all of the 180 Catholic Charities organizations nationwide, one in each of the nation’s Catholic dioceses, most of the budget comes from government contracts, often as much as 80 percent, Sartorius said. [. . .]

The Tulsa Catholic Charities disagreed with the government’s requirement that gay couples be considered as parents in its adoption service. By refusing the big government checks, they can run their agency as they please. No squawks of victimhood, just responsibility for choices.

Cardinal Dolan, by contrast, wants the billions of taxpayer dollars without obligation. He prefers to spin the issue as catholics being poor little victims of religious bigotry, while the church is actually a huge beneficiary of America’s welfare spending.

At the same time, the church works shamelessly to undermine American sovereignty. The Spring issue of Charities USA notes that it provides “Immigration services, which include counseling, legal services, assistance with citizenship and residency applications, family visa petitions, asylum petitions, removal proceeding, and other services.”

The catholic church goes so far as to undermine the rule of law in this country in its advocacy of open borders: e.g. “Catholic Bishops Urge the Public to Disobey Unjust Laws” (Fox News, 4/13/12).

Catholics like to say that they support national sovereignty EXCEPT when poor people might benefit from an illegal border crossing: “Any family in economic need has a right to immigrate, that’s our posture” said Father Michael Seifert of San Felipe de Jesús of Texas. That position is no acceptance of the rights of nation states at all, and suggests the historical attitude from the millennium when the Vatican ruled Europe. Plus, the ideology of a borderless America for the poor would presumably welcome any or all of the five billion people who reside in nations poorer than Mexico.

Of course, anti-sovereignty extremism is an ideology of catholic elites only. Most parishioners want law and borders, as shown by a 2009 Zogby poll in which 64 percent of congregants preferred enforcement to amnesty.

Furthermore, conservative media support Dolan and his media campaign of image rehabilitation just because he is against Obamacare edicts. The cardinal is a charlatan to take billions in tax dollars and refuse secular constraints, while working against this country’s sovereignty, even calling pro-borders Republican efforts “not American.”

It’s all very disturbing to watch.