United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

 3211 FOURTH STREET NE ? WASHINGTON DC  20017-1194 ? 202-541-3103 ? FAX 202-541-3166

                                   Urgent Memorandum

Date:   March 16, 2010

From:   Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, Secretariat of Pro-Life

            Activities, Office of Migration and Refugee Policy, Office of the Secretary of       Communications

To:       Pastors, Diocesan Pro-Life Directors, Diocesan Social Development Directors,       Diocesan Communications Directors, State Catholic Conference Directors 

Re:      UPDATED Nationwide USCCB Bulletin Insert on Health Care

During October, November, and January, diocesan and parish leaders were asked by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to distribute three consecutive Nationwide Bulletin Inserts on health care reform. Thank you for your great cooperation in that effort. Since that time the following has occurred:

• The U.S. House passed health care reform that reaffirms the essential, longstanding and widely supported policy against using federal funds for elective abortion coverage.

• The U.S. Senate has rejected this policy and passed health care reform that requires federal funds to help subsidize and promote health plans that cover elective abortions. All purchasers of such plans will be required to pay for other people’s abortions through a separate payment solely to pay for abortion. And the affordability credits for very low income families purchasing private plans in a Health Insurance Exchange are inadequate and would leave families financially vulnerable.

• Congressional leaders are now trying to figure out how the rules of the House and Senate could allow the final passage of a modified bill that would satisfy disagreements between House and Senate versions. 

Catholics need to make their voices heard insisting that health care reform protect the lives, dignity, consciences and health of all. Provisions against abortion funding and in favor of conscience protection, affordability, and immigrants’ access to health care must be part of a fair and just health care reform bill. Unless and until these criteria are met, the final bill must be opposed.

The U.S. bishops have asked that the attached USCCB Nationwide Bulletin Insert (Spanish Insert) on health care reform be distributed in any way possible as soon as possible. Final votes may take place as early as this weekend. If your Arch/bishop approved disseminating the earlier bulletin inserts, consider this an update. 

Also included are suggested Pulpit Announcements and a Prayer Petition (Spanish Announcements and Prayer). Please encourage parishioners to pray for this effort as well. More information can be found at www.usccb.org/healthcare.

Thank you for your urgent actions and prayers on behalf of this nationwide effort!

WHAT: Mass for Immigrants

WHEN: March 21 at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE: St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church (Upper Church)—19 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC (corner of N. Capitol and I Streets; Union Station Metro)

WHO: Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles
            Bishop  John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration
            Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Virginia
            Bishop Francisco González, SF Auxiliary Bishop of Washington
            Father  Allan Deck, SJ, executive director, USCCB Cultural Diversity Office

The Mass is organized by the Justice for Immigrants Campaign (http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org/) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Following Mass, organizers encourage Catholics to participate in the “March for America: Change Takes Courage and Faith,” 1-5 p.m. on the National Mall.

Statement by Cardinal Francis George, OMI

The Cost is too High; the Loss is too Great

The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long and consistently advocated for the reform of the American health care system. Their experience in health care and in Catholic parishes has acquainted them with the anguish of mothers who are unable to afford prenatal care, of families unable to ensure quality care for their children, and of those who cannot obtain insurance because of preexisting conditions.

Throughout the discussion on health care over the last year, the bishops have advocated a bipartisan approach to solving our national health care needs. They have urged that all who are sick, injured or in need receive necessary and appropriate medical assistance, and that no one be deliberately killed through an expansion of federal funding of abortion itself or of insurance plans that cover abortion. These are the provisions of the long standing Hyde amendment, passed annually in every federal bill appropriating funds for health care; and surveys show that this legislation reflects the will of the majority of our fellow citizens. The American people and the Catholic bishops have been promised that, in any final bill, no federal funds would be used for abortion and that the legal status quo would be respected.

However, the bishops were left disappointed and puzzled to learn that the basis for any vote on health care will be the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve. Notwithstanding the denials and explanations of its supporters, and unlike the bill approved by the House of Representatives in November, the Senate bill deliberately excludes the language of the Hyde amendment. It expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures. In so doing, it forces all of us to become involved in an act that profoundly violates the conscience of many, the deliberate destruction of unwanted members of the human family still waiting to be born.

What do the bishops find so deeply disturbing about the Senate bill? The points at issue can be summarized briefly.  The status quo in federal abortion policy, as reflected in the Hyde Amendment, excludes abortion from all health insurance plans receiving federal subsidies. In the Senate bill, there is the provision that only one of the proposed multi-state plans will not cover elective abortions – all other plans (including other multi-state plans) can do so, and receive federal tax credits. This means that individuals or families in complex medical circumstances will likely be forced to choose and contribute to an insurance plan that funds abortions in order to meet their particular health needs.

Further, the Senate bill authorizes and appropriates billions of dollars in new funding outside the scope of the appropriations bills covered by the Hyde amendment and similar provisions. As the bill is written, the new funds it appropriates over the next five years, for Community Health Centers for example (Sec. 10503), will be available by statute for elective abortions, even though the present regulations do conform to the Hyde amendment. Regulations, however, can be changed at will, unless they are governed by statute.

Additionally, no provision in the Senate bill incorporates the longstanding and widely supported protection for conscience regarding abortion as found in the Hyde/Weldon amendment. Moreover, neither the House nor Senate bill contains meaningful conscience protection outside the abortion context. Any final bill, to be fair to all, must retain the accommodation of the full range of religious and moral objections in the provision of health insurance and services that are contained in current law, for both individuals and institutions.

This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association. They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote. Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke.

What is tragic about this turn of events is that it needn’t have happened. The status quo that has served our national consensus and respected the consciences of all with regard to abortion is the Hyde amendment. The House courageously included an amendment applying the Hyde policy to its Health Care bill passed in November. Its absence in the Senate bill and the resulting impasse are not an accident. Those in the Senate who wanted to purge the Hyde amendment from this national legislation are obstructing the reform of health care.

This is not quibbling over technicalities. The deliberate omission in the Senate Bill of the necessary language that could have taken this moral question off the table and out of play leaves us still looking for a way to meet the President’s and our concern to provide health care for those millions whose primary care physician is now an emergency room doctor. As Pope Benedict told Ambassador to the Holy See Miguel H. Diaz when he presented his credentials as the United States government’s representative to the Holy See, there is “an indissoluble bond between an ethic of life and every other aspect of social ethics.”

Two basic principles, therefore, continue to shape the concerns of the Catholic bishops: health care means taking care of the health needs of all, across the human life span; and the expansion of health care should not involve the expansion of abortion funding and of polices forcing everyone to pay for abortions. Because these principles have not been respected, despite the good that the bill under consideration intends or might achieve, the Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed.

The billboards refer viewers to AbortionChangesYou.com. The Web site is a safe place separate from politics, labels, and debate. The site includes an interactive grief and loss healing model developed with the help of psychologists. Men, women, and family members can begin the healing process by journaling, exploring emotions, posting artwork and more. Visitors can also connect with support groups and counseling in their local area through the ‘Find Help’ section.

“One in three women will have an abortion in the United States – and many women and men feel isolated and alone after their experience,” says Michaelene Fredenburg, creator of the ads and author of Changed: Making Sense of Your Own or a Loved One’s Abortion Experience, “When I had my abortion I kept it a secret for a long time because I was afraid of how people would react. Few people know how to talk about abortion in a safe way.”

Individuals can experience a range of emotions after their own abortion or the abortion of someone close to them – from feelings of relief, to confusion, to profound grief. The grief associated with reproductive losses (such as abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth) is often minimized, denied, and considered to be outside the normal “grieving rules” of society – especially when it comes to abortion.

“I believe that women, men, and family need a safe place to experience their own range of emotions apart from controversy and debate. That is why I started the Abortion Changes You outreach,” says Fredenburg.

The Abortion Changes You outreach images will remain on billboards on the I-207, Highway 367, I-270, US 40, and I-64 through the first week of April.

http://www.abortionchangesyou.com/

The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project is convening in Rome for the purpose of initiating the critical reception of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s great work, The Nature of Love, published in 2009 for the first time in English translation.

Although the conference is dedicated to the whole of von Hildebrand’s Christian personalism — his philosophy of human nature — the two-day event will explore von Hildebrand’s compelling understanding of love, particularly the love between man and woman.

The conference will take place from May 27-29, 2010 at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.

Renowned philosophers, theologians, political figures, and religious will be speaking. Confirmed speakers include Alice von Hildebrand, Michael Waldstein, John Zizioulas, Michael Novak, and Josef Seifert. To view the complete list of speakers, please visit www.hildebrandlegacy.org.

IPS Senior Scholar Dr. Paul Vitz will also present a paper entitled Applying von Hildebrand’s Concept of Love in Psychotherapy.

A number of IPS students are competing in the essay contest entitled The Nature of Love, to be held in conjunction with the conference. Up to five contestants will be invited to present their papers and will receive an award that covers all of their meals,lodging, and travel expenses.

Please visit www.hildebrandlegacy.org  for more information. For those unable to attend, the conference will be broadcast live via the Hildebrand Project website. To obtain the necessary login information, please visit the conference website.

In a letter [www.cmda.org/hr3590letter] to all Members of the House, CMA CEO David Stevens, MD noted that “The CMA strongly opposes this legislation because it fails to provide strong conscience protections for healthcare professionals, allows direct federal funding of elective abortions in community health centers and allows federal funds to subsidize health plans covering abortions.”

CMA has led a national coalition of 50 organizations, Freedom2Care [www.Freedom2Care.org], to fight for conscience rights for healthcare professionals.

Dr. Stevens noted in the letter, “A national survey of faith-based physicians shows that the failure to protect the rights of healthcare professionals to decline to participate not only in abortion but also in other morally controversial procedures and prescriptions, may cause up to 95 percent of faith-based physicians to leave medicine. Since faith-based physicians provide much of the care for poor patients and those in medically underserved areas, their exodus would lead to a national crisis of access to care of catastrophic proportion.”

Dr. Stevens also wrote, “The CMA strongly supports funding for community health centers, and many of our physicians work full-time, part-time and on a volunteer basis caring for the poor. But we cannot support federal funding for abortions that will result in yet more abortions while violating the clear will of the American people who do not want their tax dollars used to pay for them.”

On the issue of federal subsidy of abortions, Dr. Stevens wrote, “Such funding, however cleverly designed to obscure the result, clearly violates the longstanding Hyde amendment and related laws. Such funding also violates the President’s oft-repeated pledge to maintain the status quo on abortion funding. Besides the obvious moral wrong of funding abortions, this policy will also have negative economic consequences. Incentivized by new insurance subsidies, abortionists will simply raise prices and increase their profits. Increased abortions will rob the country of much of the younger generation that otherwise would help avert the financial strain of a top-heavy older population.”

The letter also noted “government intrusion into physician-patient decision making and the allocation of medical resources, the absence of meaningful tort reform that is desperately needed to prevent the loss of some of our best physicians—especially obstetricians and gynecologists, and the lack of bipartisan and public support that should undergird any legislation of this magnitude.”

Dr. Stevens urged Members to “pursue a new bipartisan, measured and focused approach to true healthcare reform. Seven key principles our members look for in healthcare reform include cost containment, quality assurance, access for the poor, economic fairness, ethical protection, prevention focus and personal responsibility.”

The conference is for Catholics passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with others. The main purpose is to train Catholic leaders how to use Discovering Christ in their parish or ministry.

“Discovering Christ is a seven-week experience to help people encounter Jesus Christ personally,” said Dave Nodar on a recently posted YouTube video on ChristLife’s Web site. The course, produced in 2009, consists of a meal, prayer, video-based teaching, and small group discussion.

“There are many parish programs that offer information about Jesus. Discovering Christ is not one of them. It is a relational course designed to bring people into a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus,” said Fr. Erik Arnold, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) in Ellicott City, MD and speaker on the Discovering Christ series.

One participant of OLPH’s course shared at the end of Discovering Christ: “Before the course I was not involving God in my daily life and felt very unfulfilled and felt like I was failing in life. Now I see that God is with me everyday even when the days are bad. I feel a freedom from the stress and have more clarity.”

Nearly 1000 people have already gone through Discovering Christ in Maryland and five others states. “It is so exciting to see this new movement of evangelization beginning to spread around the nation,” said Pete Ascosi, young adult coordinator at ChristLife.

Conference speakers will include Dave Nodar, founder and director of ChristLife, and Fr. Erik Arnold, pastor of OLPH. The conference will offer complete training in Discovering Christ, prayer and worship, and opportunities to network with others from around the country passionate about making the Lord known.

To find out more about Discovering Christ and the Spring conference visit http://www.christlife.org or call (410) 531-7701.

Extracts from the Message are given below:

“The present 25th Youth Day represents a stage on the journey towards the next World Youth Day, which will take place in August 2011 in Madrid, Spain, where I hope many of you will come to experience that event of grace.

“To prepare ourselves for this celebration, I would like to suggest some reflections on this year’s theme: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”, taken from the Gospel account of Jesus’ meeting with the rich young man, a topic already considered in 1985 by Pope John Paul II in a most beautiful Letter, addressed to young people for the first time”.

1. Jesus Meets a Young Man

“The Gospel narrative effectively expresses Jesus’ great concern for young people. … His desire is to meet with you personally and establish a dialogue with each one of you”.

2. Jesus Looked at Him and Loved Him

“In the evangelical narrative, St. Mark stresses how ‘Jesus looking at him, loved him’. The Lord’s gaze was at the core of that very special encounter, and of all Christian experience. In fact, Christianity is not primarily an ethic, but an experience of Jesus Christ Who loves us personally, young and old, poor and rich; He loves us even when we turn our backs on Him”.

“The awareness that … Christ loves everyone and always … enables us to overcome any trial: … sins, suffering or discouragement. In this love lies the source of all Christian life and the fundamental reason for evangelisation; for if we have truly found Jesus, we cannot but bear witness to Him to those people who have not yet encountered His gaze”.

3. Discovering a Plan for Life

“The rich young man asks Jesus: ‘What must I do?’ The stage of life you are currently experiencing is a time of discovery: discovery of the gifts that God has lavished on you, and of your responsibilities. It is, moreover, a time of fundamental choices to create a plan for your lives. It is a moment, therefore, to question yourselves about the authentic meaning of existence and to ask: ‘Am I satisfied with my life? Is there something lacking?’”

“Do not be afraid to address these questions! … They await answers, answers that are not superficial but able to satisfy your authentic expectations of life and happiness. To discover the life plan that can make you fully happy, listen to God, Who has a plan of love for each one of you.

4. Come and follow me!

“The Christian vocation springs from a proposal of love from the Lord, and can only be fulfilled through a response of love. … Dear friends, following the example of so many disciples of Christ, joyfully accept His invitation to follow, in order to live intensely and fruitfully in this world.

“The sadness of the rich young man of the Gospel is that which arises in the heart when a person does not have the courage to follow Christ, to make the right choice. However, it is never too late to respond to Him!

“In this Year for Priests, I would like to exhort boys and young men to be attentive as to whether the Lord is inviting them to a greater gift … in ordained ministry, and generously and enthusiastically to make themselves ready to accept this sign of special predilection, undertaking with a priest or spiritual director the necessary path of discernment. Do not be afraid, dear young people, if the Lord calls you to the religious, monastic or missionary life, or to a life of special consecration: He is able to give profound joy to those who respond with courage.

“Moreover, I invite all those who feel the vocation to marriage to accept it with faith, committing themselves to laying solid foundations for a love that is great, faithful and open to the gift of life, which is a source of richness and grace for society and the Church”.

5. Oriented to Eternal Life

“To ask ourselves about the definitive future awaiting each of us gives full meaning to existence, because it orients our life plan toward horizons that are not limited or fleeting, but broad and profound; horizons which lead us to love the world so loved by God himself, to dedicate ourselves to its development, but always with the freedom and joy born of faith and hope. These horizons help us not to make absolute values of earthly realities, aware that God is opening greater prospects for us. … Dear young people, I exhort you not to forget this perspective in your own lives: We are called to eternity”.

6. The Commandments, the Way of Authentic Love

“Jesus also asks you if you know the commandments, if you are concerned to form your conscience according to divine law and if you will put it into practice. These are certainly questions that go against the tide of the present-day mentality, which presents freedom as disconnected from values, rules and objective norms, and invites us to reject any limitation to momentary desires”.

“God gave us the commandments because He wants to educate us to true freedom, because He wants to build with us a Kingdom of love, justice and peace. To listen to them and to put them into practice does not mean to be alienated, but to find the path of authentic freedom and love, because the commandments do not limit happiness, but show how to find it”.

7. We Have Need of You

“Young people today find themselves facing many problems arising from unemployment, and from the lack of solid ideals, and of concrete prospects for the future. … Despite the difficulties, do not let yourselves be discouraged and do not give up your dreams! Rather, cultivate great desires of fraternity, justice and peace in your hearts. The future is in the hands of people who know how to seek and discover powerful reasons for life and hope”

“In my recent Encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ on integral human development, I listed some of the great modern challenges, which are urgent and essential for the life of this world: the use of the resources of the earth, respect for ecology, the just division of wealth, the control of financial mechanisms, solidarity with poor countries, … the struggle against hunger in the world, the promotion of the dignity of human work, service to the culture of life, the building of peace between peoples, inter-religious dialogue, and the correct use of the social communications media.

“These are challenges to which you are called to respond in order to build a more just and fraternal world; challenges that call for an exacting and passionate life plan, into which to pour all your richness according to the design that God has for each one of you”.

“In this Year for Priests, I invite you to study the lives of the saints, especially those of saintly priests. You will see that God guided them and that they found their path day after day, in faith, hope and love. Christ calls each of you to commit yourselves, with Him, and to assume your responsibilities to build a civilisation of love”.

As the Pope and the Lutheran pastor advanced towards the altar, a choir of Lutherans and Catholic seminarians sang Mozart’s “Jubilate Deo”.

Following a greeting from the president of the Lutheran community, Pastor Kruse and the Pope both delivered homilies. Benedict XVI gave thanks for the fact that “we are gathered here on this Sunday, singing together, listening to the Word of God, listening to one another and looking towards the One Christ, bearing witness to the One Christ”.

Continuing his homily, delivered off-the-cuff in German, the Holy Father noted how “we hear many complaints about the fact that there are no longer any new developments in ecumenism. Yet”, he insisted, “we can say with gratitude that there are many elements that unite us”.

“We must not content ourselves with the successes of ecumenism over recent years, because we still cannot drink from the same chalice or gather together around the same altar”, he said.

“This”, he went on, “cannot but make us sad because it is a situation of sin; and yet unity cannot be achieved by men. We must entrust ourselves to the Lord, because He is the only one Who can give us unity. Let us hope that He brings us to that goal”.

Recalling words used by Pastor Kruse in his homily, the Holy Father agreed that the main common ground between Lutherans and Catholics “must be the joy and hope we are already experiencing, and the hope that our current unity may become even deeper”.

At the end of his visit the Pope gave the Lutheran community of Rome, which is made up of 350 faithful, a mosaic depicting Jesus Christ, reproduction of an original located under the Altar of the Confession in St. Peter’s Basilica.