Franciscan University Sues Department of Health and Human Services


“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.” – George Washington

Franciscan University of Steubenville announced today that it has filed a federal lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Obama administration. The lawsuit, which was unanimously approved by Franciscan’s Board of Trustees, challenges the Obama administration’s unprecedented mandate that attacks the freedom to practice religion without government interference.

Under the HHS mandate, employers must provide insurance coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs, as well as contraceptives and sterilization procedures. Franciscan University maintains that the requirement to fund and facilitate such activities violates its core religious and moral convictions as a Catholic university.

“Franciscan University’s mission is and always has been to teach from the heart of the Church,” said University President Father Terence Henry, TOR. “The Obama administration’s mandate is a grave threat to our ability to carry out that mission. It makes it impossible for us to operate freely as a Catholic institution without overbearing and invasive governmental interference.”

- Franciscan Sues For Religious Liberty

The full complaint can be found here.

Your move, Obama.

Distributism versus Classical Liberalism: a dichotomy that needn’t be?


In the face of the great clash between Collectivism and Capitalism of the 20th and 21st century I have come to embrace the often described “third way” economic system of Distributism. At its roots Distributism is, broadly speaking, a capitalist economy – but only broadly speaking. The central theme of Distributism is the decentralization of property among the populace, so that every person in a Distributist society may privately own some part of the means of production in the economy. However, it is an obscure economic system and the theory remains largely undefined and amorphous with its greatest advocates being Catholic theologians, philosophers and writers and not economists. Thus, a great deal of confusion exists among Distributism’s intellectual community with little solidarity of ideas. Some Distributists do recognize the economic theory’s Capitalist roots and thus rightly embrace a free-market approach to Distributism while many others have, with good intention but unfortunate economic ignorance, embraced a path to Distributism dangerously akin to socialism or even corporatism.

This fallacy becomes readily apparent in the writings of Distributists like James Baresel who condemns libertarians for abandoning subsidiarity and the communal aspect of humanity, treating man as unjustifiably individualistic. Citing the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity Baresel states that the common good has priority over individual freedom while libertarians unduly hold individual freedom as the greatest good of all. This would be appalling except that Baresel engages in a false dichotomy. There is absolutely no reason why the concept of individual liberty and the common good should be categorically opposed to one another, as if the increase in one can only occur with the reduction of the other. In fact, a libertarian who remains true to his classical liberal roots values and elevates individual liberty not just as an end but as the means necessitated by the laws of economics to the common good and the betterment of society as a whole. It is precisely because individual liberty contributes to the common good of society as a whole that libertarians demand categorical laws of government protecting and promoting individual liberty above and beyond any kind of invasive government intervention or benevolence program.

Whether one values individual liberty at the expense of government programs more or direct government involvement in the name of benevolence over individual liberty largely determines the difference between, not only Capitalists and Collectivists but also between free-market Distributists like myself and socialist Distributists like Baresel. I believe that upholding and protecting individual liberty is the best way to advance society and establish the decentralization of the means of production amongst the citizenry. Barasel believes that the government must “prioritize” the common good over individual liberty so that liberty must succumb to public interest, as if the two were somehow intrinsically opposed, for those same ends to be achieved. Neither of us, however, believe that strict individualism is the highest good to be sought – it is not. Instead, it is a good that also serves as a means to a still greater good: the common good. Alone, individual liberty cannot achieve societal progress – since free will is a fickle thing – but it is a  necessary prerequisite to such progress. As one great thinker of the 20th century stated:

“For the life of the individual in society is possible only by virtue of social cooperation, and every individual would be most seriously harmed if the social organization of life and of production were to break down. In requiring of the individual that he should take society into consideration in all of his actions, that he should forgo an action that, while advantageous to him, would be detrimental to social life, society does not demand that he sacrifice himself to the interests of others. For the sacrifice that it imposes is only a provisional one: the renunciation of an immediate and relatively minor advantage in exchange for a much greater ultimate benefit. The continued existence of society as the association of persons working in cooperation and sharing a common way of life is in the interest of every individual. Whoever gives up a momentary advantage in order to avoid imperiling the continued existence of society is sacrificing a lesser gain for a greater one.”

Who said this? Was it Pope Leo XIII, champion of Catholic social justice teaching? Or was it the Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton, great advocate of Distributism that he was? No, it was the renowned classical liberal (or libertarian) and Austrian economist Ludgiw von Mises who so wisely stated those words. Because, contrary to the accusations of many of classical liberalism’s critics (whether they be socialist, distributist or other) and contrary even to the beliefs of many self-described “libertarians” themselves the ultimate object of libertarianism is not individualism, where each man is merely an island, solitary and egocentric in his whims and responsibilities. No, true classical liberalism extolls the virtues of individual liberty and, especially, the private ownership of property, not so that selfish individuals may rise above their more humanitarian counterparts but so that all of society may benefit from the fruits produced and enjoyed by each individual that makes up the whole.

I’m a Franciscan Graduate and I Stand with my Alma Mater Against Obamacare


My undergraduate career has ended and I now have my Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. I’ll have some more time to commit to this blog now, at least until late June at which point I’ll be flying up to Alaska for summer work.

In addition to graduating this past week, my now Alma mater announced that they will be dropping their health coverage for students because, due to Obamacare, such coverage will now be mandated to cover birth control in violation of Catholic conscience and will also cause the costs of student health insurance to triple.

Mike Hernon, the school’s vice president of advancement, stated, ”This is putting people in a position where they are having to choose between their faith and their morality, and now an unjust cost, these sorts of regulations from the government are forcing our hand in a way that’s really wrong.”

Hernon also told Fox News on Wednesday that the changes represented a “moral and economic injustice.”

While the left condemns the move as extreme, citing ad nauseum that 98% of Catholic women use contraception I stand with Franciscan University as does the overwhelming majority of its student body, men and women both. Because, as Mike Hernon put it, just because everyone might say that something is okay doesn’t make it morally acceptable.

The “Anyone but Bush” Mentality . . .


. . . gave us Obama. So how can we expect the “anyone but Obama” mentality of the GOP establishment to work out any better?

We need a President of principle; we don’t need an anti-Obama robot anymore than we needed the anti-Bush idol from four years ago (who, funny enough, turned out to be a Bush clone on a plethora of issues – just as Romney is of Obama on many issues).

Pro-Choice White House Requires Registration of Unborn Children for Tours


The Washington Free Beacon has the story:

The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

In response to the security protocol the National Right to Life Committee released a statement highlighting that the “Obama White House recognizes [a] ‘baby that has not yet been born’ for White House security purposes, but tolerates legal abortion to moment of birth in [the] District of Columbia.”

Doesn’t it seem hypocritical that our President is willing to recognize the full humanity of any unborn child for his own security but openly denies that same humanity when it is the child’s security that is at stake?

Poll: U.S. support for Afghan war hits new low


WASHINGTON — Support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a new low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the effort and about half of those who oppose the war saying the continued presence of American troops in Afghanistan is doing more harm than good, according to an AP-GfK poll.

In results released Wednesday, 66 percent opposed the war, with 40 percent saying they were “strongly” opposed. A year ago, 37 percent favored the war, and in the spring of 2010, support was at 46 percent. Eight percent strongly supported the war in the new poll.

Continue reading at Marine Corps Times

Ron Paul wins all of Maine’s GOP delegates


Ron Paul has won Louisiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Nevada, Missouri, Washington and now we can add Maine to the list. Ron Paul needed to win delegate majorities in five states in order to be on the ballot come the GOP convention; now he has seven and his campaign is only gaining more momentum from here.

 

The Huffington Post has the story and while it reports that Ron Paul has merely won the majority of delegates at 21 out of 24 remember that of the other three, one is the state chairman and the other two are national committee members. So, at this point in time Ron Paul has won all of the available delegates in Maine.

Chen Guangcheng Escapes While Hillary Clinton Visits China. CNN Labels Escape an “Awkward” Inconvenience to Hillary’s Visit.


The blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng who speaks out against China’s forced abortion and sterilization laws is apparently considered almost as much an inconvenience by Clinton and the Obama administration as he is by Communist China.

Sadly, Jon Stewart once again does a better job reporting the story than the rest of the media.

Thankfully, Life Site News has also reported on this story without getting hung up on the “inconveniences” it poses for the Obama administration:

Chen’s horrifying discovery: Obama admin just another member of the population control mafia

May 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com)

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who has suffered years of imprisonment and beatings for objecting to forced abortions and sterilizations in his native country, thought he could find shelter and friendship in the United States embassy following his recent escape from house arrest. He is now learning the hard way that the pro-abortion Obama administration, which helps to finance the same “one-child policy” that Chen is fighting, would rather see him disappear.

Chen’s presence in the embassy during the past week was little more than a dangerous irritant for Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The main goal of the agency has long been the promotion and protection of American commercial interests abroad, and “human rights” often provide useful cover for criticizing regimes that are recalcitrant in the face of American economic pressure. The Chen affair, however, only threatens an amicable and highly profitable relationship between the U.S. and China, and presents no “upside” for the American bottom line.

Worse for Chen is his uncomfortable and embarrassing opposition to China’s population control agenda, a policy supported by the Obama administration and in particular the State Department, which is spending tens of billions of dollars on such programs worldwide. Although the administration gives lip-service against coercive abortion and sterilization, it is simultaneously helping to finance the Chinese population control machine with tens of millions of dollars in subsidies to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which helps to administer China’s brutal one-child policy.

Perhaps that is why, according to Chen, his American “hosts” started to sound more like fellow-members of the international population-control mafia that is killing his country, than starry-eyed defenders of “human rights.”

Chen, who says he felt pressured to leave the embassy, adds that he finally decided to do so when American officials informed him that if didn’t, his wife would be beaten by vengeful Chinese officials. Embassy personnel deny the claim, although they admit that they let Chen know that his wife would be taken back to the residence where the couple had been beaten many times.

Even the pro-abortion “Human Rights Watch” admits, in the words of the organization’s executive director, that the “US says it didn’t convey threats to harm Chen’s family but did say they’d be returned to site of abuse. Same thing,”

The American embassy was as friendly as a mob boss who wants a favor from you—in this case, to go away. They “hugged” Chen a lot, and promised to take him on a nice ride to a Chinese hospital, where they would remain with him, he says. Instead, they abandoned him and his wife at the hospital. His desperate calls to the embassy were left unanswered. Suddenly, Chen was persona non grata in the “land of the free.”

“The embassy told me that they would have someone accompany me the whole time,” Chen told reporters. “But today when I got to the ward, I found that there was not a single embassy official here, and so I was very unsatisfied. I felt they did not tell me the truth on this issue.”

After Chen was safely outside the walls of the embassy compound, the U.S. government let him know he shouldn’t bother coming back. “This was an extraordinary case involving exceptional circumstance, we do not anticipate that it will be repeated,” an anonymous Obama administration official told reporters.

Chen says U.S. abandoned him after threats to family forced him out of Embassy: report

BEIJING, May 2, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com)

Chen Guangcheng has confirmed that he was forced to leave the Embassy because Chinese officials are threatening his family members, and says that although U.S. officials promised to accompany him at his departure, they failed to follow through on their promises, according to one British news source.

Channel 4 News reported Wednesday that it spoke directly with Chen, the forced abortion opponent who escaped abuse by the Chinese government after fleeing to the U.S. Embassy last week, who says he went to a Beijing hospital for reasons unrelated to his health.

“No. I came because of an agreement. I was worried about the safety of my family,” said Chen regarding his departure, according to Channel 4. “A gang of them have taken over our house, sitting in our room and eating at our table, waving thick sticks around.

“They’ve turned our home into a prison, with seven cameras and electric fence all around.”

Chen expressed his dismay that no one from the U.S. embassy had accompanied him. “Nobody from the (US) Embassy is here. I don’t understand why. They promised to be here,” he said.

Finally, however, Chen Guangcheng and his family may finally be allowed to flee China:

BREAKING: Chen may be allowed to fly to America: U.S. officials

BEIJING, May 4, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com)

A deal may soon be brokered to allow Chen Guangcheng and his family to leave China to take up a fellowship at an America university, according to U.S. State Department officials.

The agreement was disclosed Friday morning, after the fellowship was offered and Beijing said they would accept Chen’s application to study at a university abroad.

Chen’s wife, who reports having been tied to a chair, beaten, and threatened with death by Chinese officials following her husband’s escape, and Chen’s children would also be allowed to leave the Communist country with him.

Beijing had previously indicated that the blind human rights activist would be free to attend a university and act as a free citizen, but those affirmations seemed less than firm: officials were meanwhile keeping Chen under police lockdown at a local hospital, at one point disallowing visits from U.S. officials.

Human rights advocates and U.S. politicians, including U.S. congressmen and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, had been placing increasing pressure on the Obama administration to ensure Chen’s safety after the whistleblower left the embassy where he had taken refuge after 19 months of brutal, extra-judicial house imprisonment at the hands of the Chinese government.