According to the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause, the government has no business dictating to religious organizations how they should structure themselves. In Connecticut, though, some lawmakers seem to have skipped over the Constitution. A new bill will require Catholic parishes and dioceses — and only Catholics — to organize their parish leadership in a way that pleases the Connecticut legislature . . . .
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Full disclosure: I am a Roman Catholic. Ed continues:
In other words, bishops would no longer have power over the actions of the parishes. That’s the Connecticut legislature’s vision of Roman Catholicism, but in America, government doesn’t get to structure religious organizations to suit itself. That, in fact, is a form of fascism that we routinely decry in other countries. The State Department objects to China’s insistence on picking Catholic bishops itself to suit their political oppression of religion, and Lawlor’s motion would find a welcome in Beijing as another means to the same end: state control of Catholicism.
And why only the Catholic Church? If Lawlor wanted to improve the lives of Connecticut residents, why not impose this structure on every religious organization? I thought we’d fought the Know-Nothing anti-Catholic bigotry battles a long time ago, but apparently Lawlor is a nostalgic bigot as well as a fascist.
Amen, brother.
Bend over, here comes Change!
This is disgusting.
Why not ban Connecticut chimps from Catholic Church?
But Baptist? Why not? All chimps welcomed.
Full disclosure: I am a former Catholic, in fact a Baptist (not so much a chimp, but perhaps that only applies in CT.) This is self-described as an attepmt to protect citizens from church-based monetary scandels. But they would NEVER presume to involve themselves in matters of doctrine…
Like they would never intrude upon the conscience of an objecter to abortion in the medical field…
Like they would only tax the highest income-earning 5% (never mind the impact of smoking excise taxes on the poorest of the poor)…
It is all about the perpetuation of the victim-class war on religious morality. They can label such morality a hate-crime. Now they are going after the thought-crime.
Hey Orwell, thanks for the warning.
Full Disclosure: I’m a Methodist, and the Nutmeg State is going to be looking at a major lawsuit on so many different possible grounds.
Dale: Only kidding! I was pointing out the ridiculousness of the whole stituation. Then again, Connecticut has an Irish lovin’ Chimp in the Senate.
Why are they suddenly soooooo worried about protecting citizens from church based monetary scandals..?
Perhaps it’s just a useful distraction from the state based monetary scandals that they perpetrate on those same citizens…
And, if scandal is the issue, why not scrutinize Dodd’s mortgage scandal more closely..?
This is unconstitutional at best, and the first step down the long road to statist totalitarian fascism at worst…
And Dale and Techie: I was watching A River Runs Through It the other day and there was that line (attributed to the Presbyterian dad): “Methodists are Baptists who know how to read.”
The biggest difference between Baptists and Methodists: “Baptists don’t make eye contact when they see each other in the liquor store.”
A catholic priest and a rabbi find them sitting next to each other on a long journey, and so after some hesitation start to talk to each other. After discussing the weather and sports, the priest turns to the rabbi and says that he thought it was rather strange that he was not allowed to eat pork, and asked him whether he ever had.
The rabbi replied, “Well, when I was a small boy, I did in fact taste a small piece of bacon.”
“What was it like?” asked the priest.
The rabbi replied: “Not nearly as good as sex.”
Why are they suddenly soooooo worried about protecting citizens from church based monetary scandals..?
They probably don’t like the competition.
I look forward to the cabinet post overseeing Trinity United Church of Christ.
Why are they suddenly soooooo worried about protecting citizens from church based monetary scandals..?
My fear/assumption is that it’s a front. What they really want is for some local boards to get stacked with people who share their views, leading to headlines like this “New Haven Catholic Church Endorses Pro-Choice Candidate”, “Hartford Catholic Church celebrates First Lesbian Marriage”, “Westbury Catholic Church invites Iman to preach for consecutive Sundays in Ramadan”, “Stamford CC to introduce new Mass format, one more “gender, sex, and culturally neutral””.
They can’t force change on Rome, so they’ll try to do it on the individual parishes.
Of course, I could just be paranoid.
Full disclosure: I’m a Presbyterian and have had some involvement in denominational corporate and asset questions with regards to state law.
Lawlor is a liberal idiot. By the way he wants to structure this bill he declares that priests and bishops are incapable of running their own “corporations” (corporations in church hierarchies exist only for the purpose of dealing with land, buildings and other assets) because some parishioners have found a few “untrustworthy.”
Way to paint with the unconstitutional, religiously bigoted broad brush there, asshat.
My feeling is that even if this odious law were to pass, it wouldn’t survive a court fight. Catholic churches have always been found to be hierarchical in nature as the result of other lawsuits regarding property and assets (unlike other denominations in certain states, like Presbyterians and Methodists.)
The fact that someone can’t separate the reality of asset management through a “corporation” and actual authority over those assets is both moronic and scary.
Only if you’re disgusted by, quite literally, about ninety-five percent of non-military US government. Americans are ill-equipped to govern themselves under some old parchment.
And so they shall not. They shall have their thoughts given to them and they shall be governed. Progressivism!
But why can’t Catholics be just like Episcopalians?
If you think the Vatican won’t do something about this, think again. They will get their asses sued over this, and they will lose.
You people just don’t get it, they watched that documentary, The Da Vinci Code, and now they’re just trying to protect the people of Connecticut from the Illuminati.
Just wait until they see that other documentary about hidden Catholic conspiracies, Hudson Hawk. Then they’ll have a bill to outlaw alchemy.
They have to ruin the RCs b/c they’re the only ones what can exorcise BO
*Way to paint with the unconstitutional, religiously bigoted broad brush there, asshat*
Well BJ, as we’ve been told by our progressive betters, all priests are also pedophiles. So it shouldn’t be surprising they can’t run their own business- every catholic priest is too busy chasing little boys.
/sarc
#6 Comment by Joe on 3/9 @ 9:13 am #
No prob. YOU WERE JOKING! I perceived your intent. Actually, I’m insulted that you felt the need to apologize. After all…
OUTLAW!!!
Sorry about your luck…
*runs away quickly*
Da Vinci Code was not a documentary. It was a work of fiction painted as documdrama full of errors and outright lies.
If the clowns producing such drivel read history and try to understand the Fathers of the Church, they might grasp the falsehood in apocryphal gospels and other erroneous parchments, especially the ones written far later than the true Gospels.
Sadly, they have led mean astray already, and not only from the RC church.
Joe: As they say, where you find two Catholics, you’ll find a fifth.
Mea culpa. I swore I got the off tag for italics right.
(wipes tear from eye and cowers)
Full disclosure: I am a Dr. Who fan, but only the revived series, and mostly the tenth doctor.
Now. What was the question?
Full disclosure: I’m Asatru, and this pisses ME off…
Conn. legislators don’t read the Constitution anymore? Idiots!
It makes perfect sense when you consider that government in it’s essence is a charity. Why wouldn’t they discourage competition? They have the intent of making government the only logical method via which you can give “charitable dollars”. Have you ever noticed that even though we have this enormous government machine, there don’t seem to be fewer soup kitchens?
Lord Cthulhu does not approve this legislation.
Ahem.
Totally unacceptable.
(What? I can’t be ecumenical?)
Conn. Needs Lesson On Bill Of Rights…
But you have to wonder what they were thinking.
……
One of my hobbies is helping build and work on race cars, and in most rule books there is a line saying something to the effect that if it doesn’t specifically say you can do something in here, you can’t do it. That was obviously the intent of the founders, but it seems to have been forgotten, the idea know is that if it don’t say we can’t do it then we can. I think we may need an amendment reinforcing the original enumerated powers only notion.
I guess the 1st and the 14th Amendments don’t mean much to the Connecticut Legislature. Let’s see the liberals wrangle out of Incorporation here.
B Moe: see “Commerce Clause Jurisprudence (since the New Deal)”.
Da Vinci Code was not a documentary
Are you serious?!?!
I think we ought to enact a law that authorizes any citizen of a given state to smack any legislator across the face with a shovel who does any material act in his or her official capacity that is this very clearly contrary to the United States Constitution.
Alec, that is a very stimulating idea — and shovel-ready too!
I would amend that law to simply authorizing the public to fling rotten tomatoes at errant legislators.
For some reason, the thought of putrid vegetables colliding with Pelosi’s mug warms the dark cockles of my heart.
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