Catholic issues in Politics Appears to be the same in certain places Worldwide

I was taking a quick read at the Catholic headlines and was seeing that yes what we American Catholics discuss here is discussed elsewhere.

This Catholic News article entitled "Look beyond personal needs, apply ‘test of common good,’ bishops tell voting Catholics" gives an overview of the Australian Bishops statements right before their political season.

The Australian Catholic Web Site has more including the Bishops letter itself which is can be viewed here in PDF form.

It would be interesting to compare what the Bishops in Australia say with their American counterparts. One is struck how much of it is the same. Including this from the Australain article on this statement-

On healthcare, they call for "significant reform" to make it affordable."Without such reform, involving both the commonwealth and states, Medicare will not be able to keep pace with the steady increase in user charges and fees," the statement says. This includes provision for aged, dental and mental healthcare.

Sounds like here. Of course the real solution is for people to start reproducing.

The Bishops state

""At a time when some argue that religious faith should be removed from politics altogether, we urge Catholics to take their democratic freedoms seriously and become involved in the political process,"

Amen to that. I know little about Australian politics even though I will occasionally listen to ABC on the net. All I know is that I like Prime Minister Howard and hope he does well. Also I am taking a bigger interest in Australia because of the neighborhood they are in. An neighborhood that includes a China that seems to want to expand its Naval Capability in the region. Besides that I am pretty uniformed.

I do know things like Catholic Cardinals being threatened with contempt by legislative bodies because they speak out on Stem Cell research seems troublesome. Again what is happening in other Countries should be the canary in the coalmine for us Catholics here in the US.

For instance in Canada there are real concerns that these human rights commisions are going to prevent the Church from speaking out. In fact even EWTN feels it has to be proceed with caution with what he shows in the UK and Canada. EWTN!!! You would think it was the Playboy channel.

As Alan Alda, who played the President, said in the the movie Canadian Bacon in response to Canada getting rid of the MISS Canada Pagent "What if something like that caught on down here"



Of course we already see signs of it here where US Congress Folks in response to the Pope spreading the Gospel got all miffed because he dared talk about their responsiblities as a Catholic. As we see in this article"

But the Democratic legislators, led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, charged that the Pope's stand (and by implication the laws of the Church) "offend the very nature of the American experiment."
A move to exclude pro-abortion legislators from receiving Communion would be "a great disservice to the centuries of good work the Church has done," the 18 Congressmen argued.
"The fact is that religious sanction in the political arena directly conflicts with our fundamental beliefs about the role and responsibility of democratic representatives in a pluralistic America," the 18 write; "it also clashes with freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution." The group did not specify which Constitutional freedom would be violated by the exercise of internal Church discipline.

Get that!!! That is frightning that people we elect to the US congress even think that way. BY the way the people that signed that were :
Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut
Joe Baca of California
Joe Courtney of Connecticut
Anna Eshoo of California
Maurice Hinchey of New York
Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island
James Langevin of Rhode Island
John Larson of Connecticut
Carolyn McCarthy of New York
Betty McCollum of Minnesota
Jim Moran of Virginia
Bill Pascrell of New Jersey
Tim Ryan of Ohio
Linda Sanchez of California
José Serrano of New York
Hilda Solis of California
Mike Thompson of California

I still am going to get that Americanism post I have promised up but that is a real example of an variant of that heresy.