The Health Care Bill Passes. Blah. Blah. Blah. Historic vote. Blah. Blah. Blah. Catholic Church signs off on it…say what?????

By allowing a vote on the amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and other anti-abortion lawmakers, House leaders achieved the latter goal: The Catholic church signed off on the late-night deal and issued a letter early Saturday saying it provide a critical endorsement of the health care package if the amendment is adopted.

Excuse me — but did the POPE sign off on it? Perhaps maybe all the Cardinals in a special, Health-Care Conclave? Someone at the Roman Curia? Or even a Swiss Guard?

No, it was a staff member or spokesperson for the USCCB.  Hmm…could that be the same USCCB that has no real juridical authority in the United States according to Church Law? That same USCCB that has more staff working for it than the Vatican? Oh, in that case…

Sheesh, you’d think journalists (*spit*) might actually get their facts straight.  And don’t get me started on the $1.2 trillion cost that they’re reporting….it’s going to be way, way, way more than that.

The bill is front loaded with taxes, and back-loaded with spending in the first ten years. Since most of the spending in the House bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, the 10-year cost estimates based on the preliminary CBO score (for years 2010 through 2019) only account for six years of new spending under the plan. Once it is implemented (over a full 10-year window from years 2014 to 2023), the giant House health bill carries a price tag of $2.4 trillion, or as much as $2.6 trillion with the “doc fix.”

Thank you Congresscritters — for taxing me, my children and my grandchildren, and most likely, my great and great-great grandchildren, too.

According to multiple news sources, Georgetown University covered over the letters “IHS” on one of its signs when President Barack Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday.

When President Obama gave his economics speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday, several folks noticed something was missing.That “something” was an ancient monogram — the letters IHS — that symbolizes the name of Jesus. It was missing from a wooden archway above the dais in Gaston Hall where the president delivered his 45-minute speech.

The gold-lettered monogram appeared near a painting of three female figures — symbolizing morality, faith and patriotism — and decorative edging along the wall that spelled out the Jesuit motto “Ad majorem Dei gloriam”–”To the greater glory of God.” Georgetown was founded by the Jesuits.

According to Georgetown, the president asked them to cover up the Christian symbolism for his speech. Naturally, that gutless bunch agreed. What is wrong with them? I mean, really: What the freak is wrong with them? 

Caesar wants you to cover up the Christian symbolism in your, ahem, Christian university before he speaks there, you tell Caesar to go find somewhere else to speak. D’uh.  

Yes, I understand that making a background generic is pretty standard for speeches.  Yes, an invited speaker should have some input into the staging.  But going to a Jesuit university and asking them to cover up all symbols other than “flags, pipe and drape” is kind of like going to a Buddhist temple and asking them to cover up all those gold statues of that Asian guy.   If the president had a problem with Christian symbols in the backdrop of his speech, then perhaps he should have given his speech at a non-Christian university.

The Roman Catholic Church recently directed dioceses worldwide not to give parish information to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The move is “an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms,” according to an article reported Friday by Catholic News Service. CNS cites an April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy that directs all Catholic bishops “to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained” in parish registers. 

A main tenet of LDS Church doctrine is to baptize posthumously, by proxy, all who have died without an LDS baptism, to enable them the opportunity to accept the faith in an afterlife. Baptisms for the dead are performed in LDS temples worldwide. The church collects birth, death, christening, marriage and other related information of deceased people, from archives and registers of churches and denominations, when access is permitted. 

The Vatican letter calls LDS baptisms for the dead a “detrimental practice” and directs each Catholic diocesan bishop “not to cooperate with the erroneous practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” CNS reported.

As a genealogist who has spent way too many hours researching ancestors in Mormon Family History Centers, and as a Catholic who takes my faith very seriously, I have very mixed feelings about this entire matter.

On the one hand, the Mormons are preserving old church registers, of which there may be no copies, and many of which are simply deteriorating on damp shelves somewhere, vulnerable to destruction by fire, flood, insects, humidity, and thievery. I’ve encountered this over and over again. The loss of a parish register is a terrible thing — they are a priceless and irreplaceable piece of history.

On the other hand, the Church was not put on this earth so that Mormons could more easily engage in their practice of rebaptism (a decidedly non-Catholic idea — we “acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins” as the Creed states).  To me, the whole idea of baptism by proxy makes no sense. Our ancestors are already dead, for Pete’s sake.  And frankly, I find that attitude a bit snotty – give us your records so we can baptise your dearly departed.  Re-baptising is a disrespect to Catholics — they are already baptised.  Imagine if I went to the Four Square church up the street and asked them for all the names of their dead baptized so I could pray for their souls in Purgatory.  What do you think they’d say? 

And by the way, this isn’t a new issue.  Over the past several years, Jewish groups have objected to the Mormons using Holocaust records to baptise those killed by the Nazis.

Nor was the Church put here to facilitate my investigation into my family tree.  Just because making the records available is useful, doesn’t mean the Church should cooperate and participate in a religious doctrine that it disagrees with.  And believe it or not, the Catholic Church does have computers, and databases, and even websites.  Brother Theophilus isn’t copying everything by hand any more…