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  1. #1
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Priest: Obama Admin. Denied Mass to Catholics

    CBN News
    10/08/2013

    Priest: Obama Admin. Denied Mass to Catholics

    How about trying this one on for size? Here is the press release headline from Congressman Tim Huelskamp’s office this afternoon:

    Obama Administration Denies Mass to Catholics

    Apparently, a priest was denied access to a military chapel this weekend. Father Ray Leonard serves at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia but because of the government shutdown, he wasn’t allowed to go to celebrate Mass this past weekend.

    He is contracted by the Defense Department to meet the spiritual needs of Catholics, but not now. The chapel doors were locked and the sign said, “Shutdown: No Catholic service till further notice.”

    Father Leonard said the following:

    “This is our church, Catholics have an expectation and obligation to attend Mass and we were told, ‘No you can’t go to church this week…“ My parishioners were upset. They were angry and dismayed. They couldn’t believe that in America they’d be denied access to Mass by the government.”

    Rep. Tim Huelskamp had this reaction:

    “Time and time again this Administration demonstrates it is waging a war against the very religious freedoms upon which America was founded. This is exactly why we worked to pass legislation (House Concurrent Resolution 58 this past weekend – to protect the religious liberties of all those who bravely serve in our Armed Forces.”

    The Brody File will follow up.


    http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/ar...catholics.aspx
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  2. #2
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown



    Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown

    In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

    “With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

    According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

    In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.

    Because of the lack of active-duty Catholic chaplains, the military relies on hiring civilian priests to serve as government service and contract ministers. Those civilian priests are not allowed on the bases during a shutdown, Schlageter wrote.

    One Republican lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee told The Daily Caller on Friday that this “crosses a constitutional line.”

    “The constitutional rights of those who put their lives on the line for this nation do not end with a government slowdown,” Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, a graduate of West Point and an Army veteran, said in a Friday statement. ”It is completely irresponsible for the president to turn his back on every American’s First Amendment rights by furloughing military contract clergy.”

    Added Pompeo: “The President’s strategy during the slowdown, just as during the sequestration, is to create as much pain as possible. However, this action crosses a constitutional line of obstructing every U.S. service member’s ability to practice his or her religion.”

    Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/04/pr...#ixzz2hAWZZ100


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  3. #3
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    I have to wonder how if the muslims in the military are being handled differently during obama's war on Christianity?
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  4. #4
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Priests Face Arrest for Performing Mass on Military Bases During Gov't Shutdown


    The federal government has threatened to cancel some religious services at military bases during a so-called government shutdown, a move that prompted the House of Representatives to pass, by a 400-1 non-binding vote, a resolution strongly encouraging the Pentagon to forgo such an action.

    Among those who would be most adversely impacted by the religious service cancellation would be Catholics, who make up some 25 percent of military personnel, according to CBN News, but who are represented by just eight percent of active-duty military chaplains.

    The House resolution says that not having full religious services on military bases “threatens the ability of members of the armed services and their families to exercise their First Amendment rights to worship and participate in religious activities.” The resolution strongly encourages the Pentagon to continue allowing religious services on any property owned or maintained by the Defense Department during the shutdown “in the same manner and to the same extent as religious services are otherwise available.”

    CNSNews.com reported that, because there are only a little over 230 active-duty Catholic priests to serve some 275,000 Catholic military personnel, the government has contracted with non-military priests to help perform Mass and other religious functions. But according to the Archdiocese for the Military Services, these non-active-duty military priests face arrest if they perform Mass or other religious services on military bases during the government shutdown, even if they volunteer their time.

    John Schlageter, general counsel of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, explained in a letter on the archdiocese website that during the shutdown, contract priests hired by the federal government to fill in on military bases when no active duty priest is available “are not permitted to work — not even to volunteer. During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

    Schlageter noted that the the issue could impact Catholic families overseas who have a baptism scheduled or who normally attend Mass at a church on base. Under the government shutdown, they will have to do without because of an unwillingness on the part of federal officials to allow contract priests to perform their duty, even for free. “If you are a Catholic stationed in Japan or Korea and are served by a Contract or GS [government service] priest who is furloughed,” wrote Schlageter as an example, “unless you speak Korean or Japanese and can find a church nearby, then you have no choice but to go without Mass.... Until the Federal Government resumes normal operations, or an exemption is granted to contract and GS priests, Catholic services are indefinitely suspended at many of those worldwide installations served by contract and GS priests.”

    As reported by CatholicVote.org, Schlageter noted that as of Friday, October 4, three Masses had been canceled at Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia. Additionally, he wrote, “a couple that is to be married at an Air Force Base this Saturday and did all of their preparation with a GS priest will now be married by an active duty priest who is being taken in from somewhere else. This means that the priest that the couple got to know over the past few months will not be able to witness their marriage.” Also, he wrote, “one [contract] priest in Virginia Beach will be celebrating Mass in a local park off base,” rather than at the normal chapel on base.

    Ron Crews, a retired military chaplain and executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, expressed his deep concern over the ban, telling Fox News: “Catholic military personnel should not have their religious liberties held hostage by this funding crisis. I find it alarming that these priests cannot even volunteer to provide services without threat of arrest.”

    Ashley McGuire of the Catholic Association, which addresses issues in the public square that impact Catholic Christians, commented that the “idea that a priest would be arrested for or blocked from celebrating Mass for members of the military is something out of a totalitarian horror show. The government should do everything in its power to make sure that our servicemen and women are not punished with religious liberty violations during the government shutdown. This is yet another example of the Obama administration playing politics with our religious liberty.”

    Bill Donohue of the Catholic League told Fox News that “in American history there has been no administration more anti-Catholic than the Obama administration. For them to deny Catholic men and women the opportunity of the sacraments and to deal with their prayerful vocations is really a stunning statement.”

    http://www.thenewamerican.com/cultur...gov-t-shutdown
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  5. #5
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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  7. #7
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Obama Administration attacks Catholic military personnel and threatens their chaplains
    Catholic priests in military face arrest for celebrating Mass

    By Todd Starnes
    The U.S. military has furloughed as many as 50 Catholic chaplains due to the partial suspension of government services, banning them from celebrating weekend Mass. At least one chaplain was told that if he engaged in any ministry activity, he would be subjected to disciplinary action.

    [Let's put this in the customary terms liberals always use when in a debate. The First Gay President's administration wants to HURT people. They are determined to increase pain for the sake of their political agenda. They are gang members in a town they have overrun. They are mafia thugs who shakedown businesses and blackmail people. There. Now liberals will shout "FOUL!" and demand that we turn down the rhetoric and embrace civility, even as they incessantly use terms exactly like that for their opponents.]

    “In very practical terms it means Sunday Mass won’t be offered,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services told me. “If someone has a baptism scheduled, it won’t be celebrated.”
    Show support for chaplains and the Archdiocese for Military Services! Send a donation, even a small one.

    The Archdiocese for the Military Services tells me the military installations impacted are served by non-active-duty priests who were hired as government contractors. As a result of a shortage of active duty Catholic chaplains, the government hires contract priests.

    Broglio said some military bases have forbidden the contract priests from volunteering to celebrate Mass without pay. [They won't let them even volunteer, which priests would want to do anyway. This is crazy. The Obama administration is trying to benefit from the pain people will have. This time I am not kidding. That's what they are doing. They want to make little children cry because they can't visit the Smithsonian. They want to disappoint elderly veterans. They want to ruin the trips of US citizens who want to visit American military cemeteries overseas where their father is buried. They want to ruin vacations - in a time when the economy is difficult - to national parks. The list goes on.]

    “They were told they cannot function because those are contracted services and since there’s no funding they can’t do it – even if they volunteer,” he said. [What if they said they would bring their own candles and not turn on the lights? Is it a matter of the money it costs to open the chapel?]

    John Schlageter, general counsel for the archdiocese, said any furloughed priests volunteering their services could face big trouble.

    “During the shutdown, it is illegal[?!?] for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so,” he said in a written statement. [This president - according to his own whims - decides which laws he wants to enforce and which not, which interest groups receive his benefice and waivers, and which not. Through the president's HHS MANDATE Catholics are to be forced to pay for immoral things and then be denied services. I wonder: Are any rabbis or imams being threatened? I'd like to know.]

    A well-placed source told me that a furloughed Air Force chaplain was threatened after he offered to forgo pay. The chaplain was told he could not go on base or enter his chapel offices. He was also barred from engaging in any ministry activity.

    The source told me the chaplain was told that if he violated those orders he and his supervisor would be subjected to disciplinary action – with the possibility of being fired.

    Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, called those developments disturbing.

    “Catholic military personnel should not have their religious liberties held hostage by this funding crisis,” Crews told me. “I find it alarming that these priests cannot even volunteer to provide services without threat of arrest.” [Maybe some of these chaplains will go ahead and we'll get photos of them being dragged off in cuffs, just like Notre Shame did to a priest who protested the bestowal of an honorary degree on this deeply anti-Catholic president.]

    The archbishop said a priest at Joint Base Langley-Eustis was banned from officiating at the wedding of a couple he’d been counseling. [A baptism is pretty easy to reschedule. A wedding? Not so much.]
    “The wedding could be on the base, [Okay, so it is not a matter of the cost of turning on the lights and AC. It's about the priest. It's about forbidding a priest from acting like the priest for Catholic military personnel.] but the priest can’t do the wedding,” Broglio told me.

    A priest at the Naval Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Va., was told he could not celebrate Mass on base because of the government shutdown. So he discovered a way to circumvent the ban.

    “He’s having Mass in a local park off base,” the archbishop said.
    The archbishop said it doesn’t make any sense to forbid priests from voluntarily ministering to the troops.

    “Most of us don’t look to see that we’re going to be paid before we do something,” he said. “They are not being allowed to volunteer even to meet the needs of the faithful.”

    Bill Donohue, of the Catholic League, told me he’s not surprised by the decision to furlough Catholic priests.

    “In American history there has been no administration more anti-Catholic than the Obama administration,” he said. “For them to deny Catholic men and women the opportunity of the sacraments and to deal with their prayerful vocations is really a stunning statement.”
    Donohue chalked it up to meanness.

    “This idea of punishing Catholics in the military – denying them their priests – is consistent with the animus this administration has demonstrated,” he said.

    It’s not exactly clear who is the final arbiter in the furloughs – but I suspect it’s the same folks who kicked school children out of the White House and elderly veterans out of the World War II Memorial.
    It’s difficult to know who exactly is making these decisions,” the archbishop said. “I’m being told it keeps getting kicked up to a higher level.” [Where, again, is the buck supposed to stop? Wait... I know this one... hang on...]

    I called the Pentagon but no one returned my calls.

    I called the Air Force public affairs office and they told me to reach out to the local bases.

    Surely there must be some way to compromise, to let Catholics practice their faith.

    [MB] I find it odd that the military was able to find enough cash to let their football teams play this weekend – but they can’t scrounge up enough cash for weekend church services.
    “It’s a sad contrast when we can let a football game go on but we won’t let a priest go on base and celebrate Mass,” he said.
    So in President Obama’s world – college football players are essential but Catholic priests are not. [Wait just a moment. It only matters when it is on American soil! ]

    I saw at Stars and Stripes that the troops over seas won’t be able to follow the football game Pres. Obama thinks is more important than the spiritual well-being of the same military personnel.
    However, some key quality-of-life services will be hard hit.
    If a shutdown occurs, personnel at AFN’s broadcast center will face mandatory reductions. AFN’s radio services in Europe will continue to broadcast, however, with military personnel standing in for furloughed civilians.

    The network’s radio-by-satellite feeds, which can be tuned in using an AFN decoder, will also continue to broadcast, with some modifications. With no sports channel, some football games would instead be carried live on “The Voice,” the network’s news, talk and information radio station.

    You might say that this is not really a big deal. I say that if the possibility of the service exists (this isn’t 1970, after all) then people serving the country in the military overseas should have some of these small comforts.

    Just watch: This administration will probably move to shut off the internet access of our troops so that they and their families can’t communicate.

    http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/10/obama...eir-chaplains/
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