Pope Francis Insists Church Must Help Poor, Not ‘Speak Of Theology’
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, May 18 (Reuters) – Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people on Saturday, telling them he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day and that it “breaks my heart” that the death of a homeless person is not news.
Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering of Catholic associations in St. Peter’s Square.
But he outdid himself in passionately discussing everything from the memory of his grandmother to his decision to become a priest, from political corruption to his worries about a Church that too often closes in on itself instead of looking outward.
“If we step outside of ourselves, we will find poverty,” he said, repeating his call for Catholics to do more to seek out those on the fringes of society who need help the most,” he said from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica
“Today, and it breaks my heart to say it, finding a homeless person who has died of cold, is not news. Today, the news is scandals, that is news, but the many children who don’t have food – that’s not news. This is grave. We can’t rest easy while things are this way.”
The crowd, most of whom are already involved in charity work, interrupted him often with applause.
“We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most),” he said.
To laughter from the crowd, he described how he prays each day before an altar before going to bed.
“Sometimes I doze off, the fatigue of the day makes you fall asleep, but he (God) understands,” he said.
CRISIS OF VALUES
Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, said the world was going through not just an economic crisis but a crisis of values.
“This is happening today. If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy and people say ‘what are we going to do?’ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing. This is our crisis today. A Church that is poor and for the poor has to fight this mentality,” he said.
Many in the crowd planned to stay in the square overnight to pray and prepare for Francis’ Mass on Sunday, when the Catholic Church marks Pentecost, the day it teaches that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles.
On Saturday morning, Francis met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and discussed Europe’s economic crisis.
Apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless “dictatorship of the economy” earlier in the week, Merkel, who is up for re-election in September, later called for stronger regulation of financial markets.
On Thursday, Francis appealed in a speech for world financial reform, saying the global economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries. (Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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Priest will celebrate Mass in Nutley after ordination
Nutley native Carmine Rizzi will be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest on Saturday.
Rizzi, 25, will be one of eight men to be ordained in the ceremony at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark at 10 a.m., according to a notice sent out Monday by the Archdiocese of Newark.
The next day at noon, Rizzi will celebrate his first Mass at Holy Family Church in Nutley.
Rizzi attended the College Seminary at St. Andrew’s Hall, Seton Hall University. From there, he attended the Immaculate Conception Seminary. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Catholic Theology, a MA in Systematic Theology and a Master in Divinity degree.
He did his field education and summer ministry at the parish of St. Francis of Assisi in Ridgefield Park and the Church of the Assumption in Roselle Park.
The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart is located at 89 Ridge Street in Newark.
Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die or Whether You Live? – Truth
(Image: Modern hospital and emergency sign via Shutterstock)What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience? Religious freedom suffers.
In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end-of-life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn’t going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end-of-life patients whether they want it or not.
Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.
In the official language of the bishops, St. John is a “Catholic health care ministry,” their term for all Church-affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publicly licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them, the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollars allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax-exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than 5 percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.
According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the United States. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the US, as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic-owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic-owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations.
In an effort to standardize the rules of Catholic institutions and the advice that priests give laypeople, the bishops have created what they call “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care,” called ERDs for short. When secular and religious institutions merge, the bishops’ directives often restrict services in both. Patients may not realize that a once secular institution named Swedish or Highline is now subject to theology and could impose religious beliefs at odds with those of the patient. Following mergers, changes often are gradual, occurring slowly as staff leave and are replaced with believers, which makes the shift even harder for patients to detect. (Religious hospitals are exempt from non-discriminatory employment practices, somewhat remarkable given that so much of their funding is public.) Hospital administrators may state that they do not interfere in the doctor-patient relationship while at the same time advertising for staff who are “deeply familiar” with the bishops directives.
From a consumer standpoint, one problem with putting religion rather than science in charge of health care is that patients may not know they are being denied the full range of medically appropriate options. They may have no idea when institutional rules prevent doctors and nurses from honoring end-of-life wishes or discussing services that are available in secular settings – services like contraception, abortion, tubal ligation, vasectomy, fertility treatment, or death with dignity. For example, one woman tells of being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy at a religious hospital. She was advised that she needed to have her fallopian tube removed. Fortunately, she consulted her smart phone and realized that elsewhere she could simply obtain a medication to end her nonviable pregnancy. The medication is safer and leaves fertility intact, but the Catholic directives treat this as a direct abortion, while the surgery (which damages long term fertility) kills the fetus indirectly and so is acceptable.
Other countries where Catholic theology limits health options offer a dire warning of what might happen here if the Church had an equal hold on the levers of power. In El Salvador, Catholic theology was written into law in 1998, banning all abortions, even those intended to save the mother. As a consequence, a 22-year-old mother named Beatriz, who carries a nonviable fetus, lies in a hospital bed with her kidneys failing, hoping to be granted an exception by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. She has been waiting for over a month. In Catholic Ireland last October, a young dentist, Savita Halappanavar, died after being refused an abortion.
In an ironic twist, the extremity of Catholic directives leads many people to believe that they couldn’t possibly be implemented here. Consider the case of Beatriz. She is the mother of a young child. Her fetus is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and never will be a person under any circumstance. (Note: Somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of human fertilized eggs self-destruct naturally before a full-term gestation, most before a woman knows she is pregnant, and many because they are defective.) In other words, the Salvadorian anti-abortion law risks the life of a young mother for an incomplete fetus that is a normal failed reproductive product rather than a potential child. For someone who thinks that morality is about well-being, this just sounds crazy. Of course, this could never happen in the United States, right? You may be astounded to learn that a Phoenix nun was excommunicated and her hospital was forcibly disaffiliated from the Catholic Church for allowing an abortion under similarly hopeless circumstances.
In Ireland, after Halappanavar’s unnecessary death, thousands of men and women demanded medical services based on scientific evidence and individual conscience. Halappanavar became the tragic face of an international movement. Even so, given the power of religious institutions and traditions, legal change in Ireland is likely to be minimal. The largely Catholic Irish Medical Association has declined to request abortion rights even in cases of incest, rape and nonviable fetal anomalies. Currently Irish law allows abortion only when a mother’s life is threatened, which is not good enough for a case like Halappanavar’s. A leading obstetrician testified that Halappanavar probably would have survived if she had gotten an abortion during the first three days of her hospital stay. But at that time, there was not a “real and substantial threat to her life.” By the time she met the legal criteria, it was too late.
Patients count on their doctors to know and suggest their best options to protect health and well-being. But as medical options increase, especially at the beginning and end of life, the range of services excluded for theological reasons also increases. Catholic “ethicists” devote millions of dollars to analyzing biomedical technologies in the pipeline and then advocating policy based on theological priorities. They block certain lines of research and prevent affiliated hospitals from participating in clinical studies that require participants to be on contraception, for example a study of a cancer treatment that might cause fetal defects. Procedures opposed by the theologians are likely to be absent altogether from patient-doctor conversations.
Some patient advocates say that mandatory disclosure is part of the solution: Pharmacies that refuse to fill some prescriptions should post the fact that they are not full-service. Church-run abortion diversion centers known as crisis pregnancy centers should post that they are not medical providers. Treatment consent forms should list the scientifically and medically accepted practices that a doctor or hospital refuses to provide so that patients know that these services are available elsewhere. Conversely, providers who sign onto a Patients’ Bill of Rights promising to base care only on medical science and patient conscience could get the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
But disclosure alone won’t ensure state-of-the-art health care for many Americans, especially those living in small towns or rural settings. Sometimes one clinic or pharmacy serves a wide area, or all nearby services are managed by the same religious institution. In these cases, a woman with a painful and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy might not be able just to get in her car and drive to another clinic. Denial of service hits low-income communities hardest because members often have less flexible time off work and more restricted access to transportation and child care. The right of religious doctors and institutions to deny services obstructs the right of patients to receive timely care that meets normal medical practice standards, which are designed to maximize well-being.
That is because Catholic theology isn’t necessarily about well-being; it is about submitting to the perceived will of God. Sometimes these two align, and sometimes they don’t. To serve God’s will, Catholic theologians attempt to derive moral principles that are about the inherent goodness or evil of certain beliefs and behaviors, regardless of their consequences. In this way of thinking, contraceptives or abortions should not be provided because they are “intrinsically evil,” even when contraception or abortion may save a woman’s life.
To make matters worse, Catholic theology values passive submission to harm when it is believed to serve Catholic practice or faith. Saints are heralded for their commitment to theological principle even in the face of outrageous and foreseeable outcomes, including martyrdom. In fact, Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits. This is called redemptive suffering. In the ERDs, it is offered up as an alternative for patients whose unbearable pain leads them to seek death with dignity:
Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death…. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.
Former nun Mary Johnson (author of An Unquenchable Thirst) spent 20 years working with Mother Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, which has been accused of providing substandard treatment and pain management. She explains the sometimes abysmal conditions in their facilities thus:
Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.
The point, in other words, is not necessarily to solve the problem but simply to perform service. Ultimately, it isn’t about real world outcomes for the person on the receiving end, but about eternal outcomes for the person on the giving end. The difference is important. And although Johnson doesn’t mention it, the passage she quotes mentions the ill as well as the hungry and naked. The Jesus of the gospel promises eternal life to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners and care for the ill. When religion and healing are at odds, the way to get to heaven is to offer theologically principled care, even when more compassionate options are available.
This difference in objectives seems like reason enough to separate religion from medicine. Thanks to science, fertility treatment has come a long way from the mandrakes and dove blood prescribed in the Bible. Victims of sexual assault now have options other than being forced to bear rape babies (also the Biblical solution). As we face death, we have alternatives to convincing ourselves that suffering is redemptive. Do we really want theology at the helm of our biggest hospital and clinic systems?
If not, it may be time for ordinary men and women to speak our minds. In Washington State, where the battle over Catholic hospital mergers is heating up, the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Despite that prohibition, one district actually has a line-item in the property tax code to subsidize a Peace Health facility, leaving the local community with no secular alternative. With the Peace Health clinic newly open, the local bishop has already tried to block the now-Catholic system from providing lab work for Planned Parenthood, as was done in the past. Legal challenges may play out in court thanks to a patients’ rights campaign by the ACLU and grassroots groups, but the broader question is this:
When it comes to medical options, whose beliefs count: the bishops’, or the patient’s? Who gets to say whether one woman is forced to incubate a pregnancy gone wrong or another is force-fed at the end of life? Whose version of god gets to dictate how you live and how you die?
Dig into archives sheds light on Pius XII
SOLDIER OF CHRIST: THE LIFE OF POPE PIUS XII
By Robert A. Ventresca
Published by Belknap Press, $35
With Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca has provided a real service, not only to the historical profession but also to the wider community. Part of the story is well-known — Eugenio Pacelli’s birth and early life in his native city of Rome, his poor health that necessitated his living at home while in the seminary, and his early education in canon and civil law. But Ventresca tells even the familiar parts of the story with such fluid strokes that one virtually feels the cobblestones under one’s feet as the young Pacelli walks the streets around St. Peter’s Square.
Except for his time in Germany, he spent his entire life within walking distance of his childhood home. His grandfather and father were members of the “Black Nobility,” the upper classes that remained faithful to the papacy after Italian capture of the Papal States, but while the family was comfortable, it was hardly wealthy.
Ordained in a private ceremony on Easter Sunday, 1899, Pacelli completed doctorates in canon and civil law. He was intent on becoming a parish priest when Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, convinced Pacelli to come to work at the congregation. Pacelli then went to the Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles, the school for the Holy See’s diplomats and later assisted Gasparri as a minutante in drafting the Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1917. By that time, Gasparri was secretary of state under Benedict XV, and Pacelli was nuncio to Bavaria.
Sections of the Vatican Secret Archives opened to scholars in September 2006 enable Ventresca to reveal Secretary of State Pacelli’s reservations toward the Weimar Republic, especially its efforts to maintain a centrist government and the anger of one of the Catholic Center Party’s leaders, Heinrich Brüning (chancellor, 1930-32), toward Pacelli for urging compromise with Hitler to gain a concordat with the government.
Ventresca deciphers the spidery handwritten accounts of Pacelli’s almost daily interviews with Pius XI, which disclose an emerging Vatican policy of leaving it to bishops in countries undergoing persecution to determine the best course of action against government abuses. Therefore, Pacelli and/or the pope accepted the request that the pope issue an encyclical against Nazism from five leading German prelates, including three cardinals. Pacelli’s hand can be easily discerned on the document that developed into Mit Brennender Sorge, published in March 1937. This did not mean, however, that bishops, or even cardinals, were free to pursue their own agenda independent of the Vatican. For instance, in an episode that the author passes over, Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna initially welcomed the Anschluss in March 1938, called for Austrian Catholics to vote for it in a plebiscite, and even signed a letter to the local Nazi leader with “Heil Hitler.” Pacelli summoned Innitzer to Rome, where he had to change his position, for his action undermined what the German bishops were doing.
The war years have caused the most controversy over Pope Pius XII. He did seem to rely too much on diplomatic exchanges and received conflicting advice from some bishops. Like his predecessor Pius XI, Pius XII relied too heavily on concordats, agreements between the Holy See and a government that guaranteed the rights of the church and its members, but did not give the church rights to intervene in the treatment of non-Catholics, as the German church would discover in regard to Jews.
Part of the problem in evaluating Pius XII and his attitude toward the Jews is one of papal rhetoric. Pius would not sign a statement of the Allies condemning Nazi atrocities in December 1942 because it did not mention atrocities of the Soviet Union, one of the Allies. Instead, in his Christmas address that year, he alluded to “the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death.” To the pope — and, incidentally, to the Nazis — this was a clear denunciation of Nazi policy toward Jews. To later generations, however, it was not so clear, but represented “Vaticanese” that preferred generalities to specifics.
Many people, including historians, see a sharp theological break between Pius and his successors. Ventresca, however, points to some of the new theological directions of Pius that would lead to the council. The pope issued three encyclicals during the war: Divino Afflante Spiritu, on the study of Scripture; Mystici Corporis Christi, on the church as the mystical body of Christ; and Mediator Dei, on the liturgy. Each of these documents would pave the way for the Second Vatican Council. But the author also notes the retrenchment that began to take place with Humani Generis in 1951.
In his conclusion, Ventresca suggests that the pope could have done more for the Jews during the war. The pope was not anti-Semitic, but lacked the bold witness to the Gospel that Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher and postwar ambassador to the Holy See, called for. Pius many times did act more the part of a diplomat than the supreme pastor.
As Ventresca points out, the pope admired the German people and certain aspects of German culture — the pope made Mother Pascalina Lehnert, who had worked for him in the German nunciature, the head of his Vatican household and chose two German Jesuits, Robert Leiber and Wilhelm Hentrich, as his confidantes and a third, Augustin Bea, as his confessor. This did lead him to repudiate the Allied policy of assigning collective guilt to the German people, but in this he was not alone.
Ventresca makes every effort to be objective and balanced in his presentation of the controversial wartime pope. In this, he makes a refreshing and needed contribution to what has become a sometimes rancorous debate, which has more assertion of opinion than serious archival research. The author basically sums up his evaluation of Pius XII by citing a remark attributed to Leiber that Pius was a great pope, but not a saint.
[Historian and author Jesuit Fr. Gerald P. Fogarty is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Religious Studies and History at the University of Virginia. His fields include American Catholic history; Vatican-American relations; history of Catholic theology since the French Revolution; and the history of Vatican II.]
Pope Francis Condemns the Cult of Greed, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan Support It
by Brent Budowsky
In recent remarks that were stunning and profound, Pope Francis harshly criticized what he called “the cult of money” and condemned what he called the “dictatorship” of economies that are socially unjust and morally unfair.
These remarks, reported in The Daily Telegraph and highlighted on the Drudge Report (but not in major American media) suggest a papacy with the potential to transform the global economic and financial debate.
Most recent popes, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, raised the same issues that Francis dramatized this week. What makes the Holy Father different today is that he views economic and social injustice as a defining, and possibly THE defining, theme of his papacy.
This is extraordinary, powerful and profound. There are profound differences between the policies of President Obama and Democrats versus the policies proposed by the atheist Ayn Rand and conservative voices such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Rep. Paul Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Republican leaders in Congress.
Francis suggests there should be far more economic and social justice regarding the wealthy and everyone else within the leading industrial nations, and between the leading industrial nations and poorer nations throughout the world.
There is a debate raging in Washington, across Europe and throughout the world pitting the right, which favors cruel austerity at a time of slow growth and high joblessness, versus progressives and moderates who believe harsh austerity today is economically disastrous and morally repellant.
The pope specifically calls on world leaders to address the great economic and financial injustices, and I agree with him completely. The pope uses words like “cult” and “dictatorship” to describe the champions of financial justice and the conditions their policies create, and I fully agree with him about this, as well.
Francis has also put his money where his mouth is. The Vatican Bank has already announced new openness and reforms at his direction, which should interest opponents of financial reform in America, Britain and elsewhere. Paul Ryan is a fervent disciple of Ayn Rand, who was the atheist champion of the culture of greed.
Ryan famously tried to employ Catholic theology on behalf of his budget austerity against the poor, and was quickly forced to retreat as the absurdity of this view became obvious. Various rightist and Republican voices have championed aspects of the cult of money, including Cruz, Ryan, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Republican leaders in Congress and Mitt Romney, who famously ridiculed and demeaned much of the nation on video, championing the cult of money to a room of Republican donors whose money he sought.
It is ironic that these profound and important views of the Holy Father have so far received more attention from the Drudge Report than the leading newspapers of America, the network television news, or cable networks with so much airtime to put to work.
The BBC, Al-Jazeera, The Daily Telegraph and other international media have respected and reported the profound thoughts from Francis, which deserve far more attention here, which is why I write these words today.
Let us advance this great discussion to the center of politics and media throughout America and across the world. For those who disagree with my views, or for whatever reason continue to champion the cult of money and greed, I command to their attention the recent comments from Francis and the timeless words of the Sermon on the Mount.
Brent Budowsky is served as Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, responsible for commerce and intelligence matters, including one of the core drafters of the CIA Identities Law. Served as Legislative Director to Congressman Bill Alexander, then Chief Deputy Whip, House of Representatives. Currently a member of the International Advisory Council of the Intelligence Summit. Left government in 1990 for marketing and public affairs business including major corporate entertainment and talent management.
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Jesuit’s book offers rich insights on celibacy
LIVING CELIBACY: HEALTHY PATHWAYS FOR PRIESTS
By Gerdenio Sonny Manuel, SJ
Published by Paulist Press, $14.95
The election of Pope Francis is not likely to reopen the issue of clerical celibacy and its importance to the health of the church and our bishops and priests. The celibacy requirement in the Roman church will be reaffirmed, but with a fresh emphasis on how to make it work better.
Jesuit Fr. Gerdenio “Sonny” Manuel has written an important book for current and next-generation priests facing the challenges of ministerial effectiveness and personal well-being as celibates. His book is a clear sign of how far we have come from the days when newly ordained priests chose for their ordination cards the famous 19th-century prayer of French priest and orator Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire that spoke of priests as otherworldly and heroic men with “a heart of bronze.”
A licensed psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of San Francisco, Manuel’s formula for successfully “living celibacy” is to embrace rather than escape the psychosexual dimensions of a life that forgoes genital sex and an exclusive intimate partnership for the sake of service to the church. He affirms the obvious: that the sacrifices entailed also bring multiple benefits, not the least of which is the freedom to cultivate a wide circle of professional and personal relationships and to travel light, serving whenever and wherever needed without the obligations of marriage and family.
This is not to say that living celibacy is easy, especially as a priest goes through midlife, when the uncertainties of aging and the crisis of realizing one’s limits hit the panic button.
Manuel proposes a lifelong approach to living celibacy in the form of five “healthy pathways for priests.” They are:
- Live close to God and one’s deepest desires;
- Develop relationships and communities of support;
- Ask for love, nurture others, and negotiate separation;
- Cope with stress and recognize destructive patterns of behavior;
- Celebrate the holy.
Behind each of these summary prescriptions are rich stores of clinical data, analysis and case studies from the social sciences, joined to the deep perspectives of Catholic theology and spirituality. Living Celibacy is both informative and inspiring, making it a valuable tool for screening candidates, for those in formation programs and for newly ordained priests. Veteran priests can benefit from the basic principles the author presents. Each chapter ends with reflection questions for personal or group use.
Manuel affirms what Dominican Fr. Don Goergen risked censure to say in his now classic 1975 book The Sexual Celibate — that “friendship is not detrimental but central to celibate living, that celibate persons are also sexual persons, and that celibate life is a profound and rewarding way of living,” as Goergen wrote. Moving beyond a time when “particular friendships” were forbidden and contact between priests and women was discouraged, Manuel assumes that today’s priests can live chastely and effectively in the real world when grounded in community and in the charism given to them to build up the church.
Priests who use their extraordinary freedom to serve others wholeheartedly will bear witness to the mystery of Christ’s love for his church. Priests who seem preoccupied with their own special needs or automatic status will fail to impress anyone, least of all married people in the thick of life’s demands and sacrifices. As one married woman said to this reviewer in a recent conversation, “The biggest challenge for priests is not celibacy but selfishness.” Too much emphasis on the mystique of celibacy can produce a sense of entitlement that is only likely to extend the cycles of repression and compulsion that have so damaged the reputation of the priesthood for all priests.
Some readers may expect to find more discussion of questions about the value of clerical celibacy, the problems associated with clerical culture, issues regarding celibacy and homosexuality or theories that link sexual immaturity to child abuse. Manuel acknowledges these issues but brackets them from the primary focus of the book, which is to support those who choose priestly celibacy.
Manuel begins his book with a question posed by many people to celibates: “How in the world could you do that to yourself?” He ends by affirming the privilege priests have of nurturing the “close irrepressible connection between God and God’s people” that they share and witness to in their own desire and longing for God.
Living Celibacy reminds us all, married, single or celibate, that true love perfects human sexuality when it is lived passionately and chastely for the sake of others in any lifestyle or vocation.
[Pat Marrin is editor of Celebration, the worship resource of the National Catholic Reporter. Contact him at patrickjmarrin@gmail.com.]
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Kenya’s civil society has reached a turning point
There are four numbers particularly linked with the Holy Spirit, who in Christian theology is understood to be the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son. These numbers are three, seven, 12 and 50.
Three because He is the Third Divine Person, Divine Love Personified who unites the Trinity. His three key attributes are Love, Union and Gift. And his great gift, called sanctifying grace, is ultimately a gift of Himself to us. This grace comes with three principal infused virtues, namely faith, hope and charity, called Theological because they have God as their proper object.
Seven because the Holy Spirit gives seven gifts in Christian tradition: wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord. In Catholic theology, his gift of grace is also associated with seven sacraments.
And 12 because the fruits of the Spirit’s indwelling in the soul are 12, and because he is sent as a gift to give life to the Church, which is in turn founded on 12 apostles.
The feast of Pentecost, ‘fifty days after Easter’, which Christians celebrate today, is the great manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It is the day of Jubilee, which like the year of Jubilee is a time of renewal.
Hence the Church sings “Come, Holy Spirit come! And from your celestial home; Shed a ray of light divine!”
And because the Holy Spirit’s main job is to transform us from within, the Church adds, “Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray.”
This profound latter stanza is relevant to all Christians and people of good will.
Likewise, as Kenyan civil society grapples with an existential crisis, this stanza may help guide their steps to a sure destination.
The elements of the growing crisis of Kenya’s civil society are several. One is a crisis of identity. Are they part of us, or are they foreign agents?
Another is a crisis of alienation. Can they have a prophetic voice, when they reject the outcome of a democratic exercise they claim to believe in?
A third is a crisis of credibility. Can we trust them to walk the talk, or will their partisan political views trump the pursuit of the common good, like when they expressed discontent that Kenyans had chosen peace despite political grievances?
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Pope Francis condemns the cult of greed, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan support it
In recent remarks that were stunning and profound, Pope Francis harshly criticized what he called “the cult of money” and condemned what he called the “dictatorship” of economies that are socially unjust and morally unfair.
These remarks, reported in The Daily Telegraph and highlighted on the Drudge Report (but not in major American media) suggest a papacy with the potential to transform the global economic and financial debate.
Most recent popes, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, raised the same issues that Francis dramatized this week. What makes the Holy Father different today is that he views economic and social injustice as a defining, and possibly THE defining, theme of is papacy.
This is extraordinary, powerful and profound. There are profound differences between the policies of President Obama and Democrats versus the policies proposed by the atheist Ayn Rand and conservative voices such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Rep. Paul Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Republican leaders in Congress.
Francis suggests there should be far more economic and social justice regarding the wealthy and everyone else within the leading industrial nations, and between the leading industrial nations and poorer nations throughout the world.
There is a debate raging in Washington, across Europe and throughout the world pitting the right, which favors cruel austerity at a time of slow growth and high joblessness, versus progressives and moderates who believe harsh austerity today is economically disastrous and morally repellant.
The pope specifically calls on world leaders to address the great economic and financial injustices, and I agree with him completely. The pope uses words like “cult” and “dictatorship” to describe the champions of financial justice and the conditions their policies create, and I fully agree with him about this, as well.
Francis has also put his money where his mouth is. The Vatican Bank has already announced new openness and reforms at his direction, which should interest opponents of financial reform in America, Britain and elsewhere. Paul Ryan is a fervent disciple of Ayn Rand, who was the atheist champion of the culture of greed.
Ryan famously tried to employ Catholic theology on behalf of his budget austerity against the poor, and was quickly forced to retreat as the absurdity of this view became obvious. Various rightist and Republican voices have championed aspects of the cult of money, including Cruz, Ryan, Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Republican leaders in Congress and Mitt Romney, who famously ridiculed and demeaned much of the nation on video, championing the cult of money to a room of Republican donors whose money he sought.
It is ironic that these profound and important views of the Holy Father have so far received more attention from the Drudge Report than the leading newspapers of America, the network television news, or cable networks with so much airtime to put to work.
The BBC, Al-Jazeera, The Daily Telegraph and other international media have respected and reported the profound thoughts from Francis, which deserve far more attention here, which is why I write these words today.
Let us advance this great discussion to the center of politics and media throughout America and across the world. For those who disagree with my views, or for whatever reason continue to champion the cult of money and greed, I command to their attention the recent comments from Francis and the timeless words of the Sermon on the Mount.
Abbott budget reply: mind the gap between rhetoric and reality
Abbott budget reply: mind the gap between rhetoric and reality
How far has our understanding of the Coalition’s fiscal policy advanced as a result of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s budget reply last night?
Answer: not particularly far, and what detail we got tends to confirm what already seemed to be the case. That is, assuming Abbott is being honest, the Coalition will not run a significantly tighter fiscal policy than Labor. This is despite what Abbott claims is a “budget emergency” of sufficient magnitude that he will reluctantly support Labor’s $30+ billion-worth of tax rises and savings.
If there was a true fiscal emergency, the Coalition would be girding its loins for a serious assault on the budget. However, nearly all of the savings measures announced by Abbott last night (which were additional to Labor’s earlier savings, and most of which were re-announcements) will be directed to funding the $4 billion in carbon price tax cuts and handouts that the Coalition says aren’t necessary.
This is shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, just a few weeks ago:
”Let me be very clear, if there is no carbon tax, there is no need for compensation because if you don’t have a carbon tax, you don’t have injury, and by its very design, the carbon tax is meant to cause injury, it’s meant to change behaviour, and that’s why the government compensates.”
Hockey was exactly right, of course, but his logic has been rejected as politically inconvenient by Abbott. The result: a “budget emergency” so bad you can throw $4 billion at taxpayers for no reason.
That decision inevitably makes the overall savings task for the Coalition more difficult. For example, in 2010, Abbott said in his budget reply that his plan to slash 12,000 public servants would “pay for the Coalition’s direct action on climate change policy, the Green Army and the retention of the current private health insurance rebate”.
But last night, Abbott said the 12,000 cut was among his “specific savings” that would “cover keeping tax thresholds and pension rates without a carbon tax to fund them”.
So opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt’s risible Soil Magic / Direct Action scheme now has to be funded from other savings (“it will be costed, capped and fully funded from savings,” a Hockey spokesman said). In a perfect world, this will be a prelude to the Coalition abandoning it altogether, since simply sitting and ignoring climate change would be better than blowing billions on winner-picking nonsense.
“The net result … is a credibility gap between the opposition’s apocalyptic fiscal rhetoric and its proposed response to said apocalypse. But it’s a comforting gap.”
The actual new cut identified by Abbott consists of delaying the increase in compulsory super to 12% — at least, unlike former PM John Howard and then-treasurer Peter Costello in 1996, Abbott hasn’t lied about supporting the increase before the election as a prelude to dumping it afterward. This joins the previously announced 12,000 ex-bureaucrats, axing the low-income super contribution and the reduction in our humanitarian intake. Abbott also “confirmed” he would dump the mining tax-funded Family Tax Benefit supplementary allowance (which Hockey actually backed last year), although Abbott was careful not to use the phrase “Family Tax Benefit” when saying he’d dump it, merely referring vaguely to “people on benefits” which of course sounds much more like a war on dole bludgers than class warfare.
This reduction in Australia’s humanitarian intake, which reverses the recommendation of the government’s Houston panel, is both bad policy and morally reprehensible. The Coalition is proposing that one of the world’s richest countries cut its intake of bona fide refugees by over 30%, while at the same time purporting to be serious about discouraging asylum seekers from trying to reach Australia by boat. Seriously reducing the intake of refugees who seek to be resettled in Australia through appropriate, internationally recognised processes sends a strong signal that you maximise your chances of being resettled here by coming by boat.
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Return to Rome – A Review by David J. Engelsma
Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic
By Francis J. Beckwith
Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009
144 pages
ISBN: 978 1 58743 247 7 (paperback)
List price $15.00
The blurb on the front cover explains this book: ‘Why the President of the Evangelical Theological Society Left His Post and Returned to the Catholic
Church.’
Francis Beckwith was a prominent theologian in evangelical circles in North America. In 2007, he and his wife joined the Roman Catholic Church. At
the time, he held the prestigious position of president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). The ETS is an organization devoted to the study
and promotion of evangelical theology. Some 4,500 of the most prominent, influential theologians, scholars, professors of theology, and churchmen in
many Protestant churches and seminaries are members of ETS.
Since ‘evangelical’ refers roughly to non-Roman Catholic, Protestant proclamation and defence of the gospel of salvation by grace alone, Beckwith’s
defection to Rome caused no small stir in the ETS, as also more widely in Protestant circles.
The book is Beckwith’s defence of his apostasy. It is, at the same time, encouragement to other evangelicals to follow Beckwith’s lead.
The book by Beckwith is, therefore, not groundbreaking. It is only the most recent of the genre. The earliest, and best known, was John Henry
Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua [English translation: An Apology for His Own Life]: Being a History of His Religious Opinions
(originally published in 1865). Newman’s book was his account of his leaving the Church of England, in the nineteenth century, for Rome. More
recently, the erstwhile Presbyterian Scott Hahn has written Rome, Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1993).
Noteworthy Aspects of the Defection
Several aspects of Beckwith’s defence of his abandoning evangelicalism for the Roman Catholic Church are worthy of note. First, none of the various
evangelical churches that Beckwith bounced around in prior to his joining Rome had a strong, solid ecclesiology. None took itself seriously as a
genuine manifestation of the elect body of Jesus Christ, as determined by the infallible marks of the true church listed in Article 29 of the Belgic
Confession. Accordingly, Beckwith felt himself committed to none of them. Whenever it was convenient for him, he would leave a supposedly evangelical
church and join another. In such a church environment, Rome’s claim to be the historic, mother church is irresistible.
For example, one of the churches that Beckwith attended regularly, if he was not a member of it, was a ‘Foursquare Church’ (41). This is the church
founded by the rebel against the prohibition of the apostle that a female not be a preacher, the charlatan and the adulteress Aimee Semple McPherson.
If I were confronted with the choice between the woman-made church of McPherson and the man-made Church of Rome, I would choose Rome, also in view of
the fact that there is no essential difference between the Arminian gospel of the Foursquare Church and the semi-Pelagian theology of Rome.
Second, Beckwith is superstitious. Circumstances in his life speak to him more powerfully regarding church membership than do the truths of Holy
Scripture. Direction from God to join the Roman Catholic Church came in the form of a request from Beckwith’s nephew that Beckwith sponsor the nephew
at the Roman Catholic sacrament of confirmation (19). Beckwith received an important message from God by means of the unusual, accidental switching
of stations on his radio (41). Beckwith was confirmed in his decision to join the Roman Catholic Church by the coincidence that Edith Schaeffer, wife
of the well-known Francis A. Schaeffer, signed his book on the same day that Beckwith was publicly received back into the Roman Church (55, 56).
Assurance of the salvation of Beckwith’s father-in-law, who died outside the Roman Catholic Church, is based on two visions God supposedly gave to
Beckwith’s wife (70, 71).
Rome is the appropriate home of the superstitious.
Third, Beckwith’s admission into the Roman Catholic Church consisted of his involvement in the Roman sacrament of penance. To enter the Church of
Rome, Beckwith had to confess his sins to a priest in the confessional. The climax of the spurious sacrament was Beckwith’s performance of penance.
He performed a work that paid for his sins. Thus, necessarily and appropriately, entrance into the communion of Rome consisted of denying the one
sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sins on the cross.
For Francis J. Beckwith, membership in the Roman Catholic Church took place by way of a public denial of Jesus Christ and his cross.
And the nature of the penance was significant: one public recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and one public recitation of the ‘Hail, Mary.’ ‘The priest
then heard my confession and granted me absolution. I found my way to the main sanctuary, where I did my penance, which consisted of one “Our Father”
and one “Hail Mary”‘ (18).
In the Roman Catholic Church, the grace of pardon is cheap — not free, but cheap. The sinner can purchase this grace, and the purchase price is
ridiculously cheap: rattle off one Lord’s Prayer and one paean to mediatrix Mary.
But the price of forgiveness and of admission to Rome includes adoration of Mary, that is, idolatry. Rome insists on being Rome, even in the case of
the joining by a president of the ETS, who knows full well what the ‘Hail, Mary’ means in Roman Catholic theology and liturgy.
Denying the cross of Jesus Christ as the sole and entire payment of the debt of sin and practicing the idolatry of the worship of and reliance upon
Mary, Francis J. Beckwith is a lost soul. He has plunged himself under the curse of God, and, if he does not repent, will perish forever.
The response of the ETS to the apostasy of its former president did not include any such warning. This lack betrays the weakness of the ETS. An
evangelicalism that cannot condemn the Roman Catholic Church as a false church is not worthy of the name. The evangel is the gospel of Scripture, and
the gospel of Scripture condemns the theology and church that posit another mediator between God and men in addition to Jesus Christ; that judge the
cross of Christ insufficient for redemption; and that attribute salvation to the will and works of the sinner, rather than only to the grace of God,
to say nothing of the rejection of the lordship of the risen Christ over the church by the invention of the papacy.
The Urgent Concern: Justification
If these aspects of Beckwith’s defence of his falling away to Rome catch the attention of every Reformed reader, there is one element of the defence
that ought to be of utmost concern to Reformed and Presbyterian believers today, especially Reformed and Presbyterian officebearers.
This element is Beckwith’s defence of his return to Rome in terms of the doctrine of justification.
Showing a theologian’s awareness of the significance of justification regarding the division between Rome and Protestantism, Beckwith put the
doctrine of justification at the head of the list of issues that had to be resolved in his mind, if he were to join the Roman Catholic Church.
Our questions focused on several theological issues that prevented us from becoming Catholic and seemed insurmountable: the doctrine of
justification, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the teaching authority of the Church (including apostolic succession and the primacy of the Pope),
and Penance (79).
It is Beckwith’s resolution of the issue of justification that ought to concern Presbyterians and Reformed today. He resolved the issue by adopting
Rome’s doctrine of justification and rejecting the doctrine of the Reformation.
What is significant is Beckwith’s presentation and defence of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification to his evangelical critics. It is exactly
the explanation of justification that is given by Norman Shepherd and the theology of the Federal Vision in Reformed circles. If one did not know
that the explanation of justification in Return to Rome is that of Romanizing and Romanist Beckwith, he would attribute it to Shepherd, the
men of the Federal Vision, and those who carry water for the Federal Vision.
Justification, Beckwith came to be convinced, is not exclusively legal and forensic. It is also, and chiefly, ‘transformation’ of the sinner into a
holy and good person by his ‘sharing in the divine life of Christ’ (86).
Justification is not the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the guilty sinner, but the infusing of Christ’s righteousness
into a wicked person so that he becomes increasingly inherently righteous (101, 102).
Justification is not the definitive verdict of God rendering the justified sinner perfectly righteous through faith, but a progressive activity of
God beginning with the infusion of grace at baptism, continuing throughout one’s life, and concluding at the final judgment (101, 102).
In justification, ‘works done in faith by God’s grace contribute to our . . . eventual justification’ (102). Beckwith explains Romans 4:1-8 as
repudiating only ‘the works of the Mosaic law’ for justification (100). Genuinely good works, that is, good works that proceed from true faith, are
taken into account by God when he justifies a sinner.
Justification at the final judgment will take place on the basis of every man’s own good works: ‘Works serve in some way as the basis on which
his [Jesus'] judgment of their eternal fate is made’ (97; the emphasis is Beckwith’s).
Justification is a cooperative effort of God and the sinner. God’s grace enables the sinner to accomplish his own justification, but the sinner must
cooperate with grace by his own free will (112). Such is the reality of this cooperation that it is a possibility that one in whom God has begun the
process of justification may fail to cooperate and, therefore, lose his justification and go lost eternally. In support of this terrifying, God-
dishonouring view of justification, Beckwith appeals to John 15:1-5, Jesus’ teaching of the vine and the branches (95).
And, of course, James 2 is the decisive passage on justification, teaching ‘God’s justification of the Christian’ and teaching that ‘justification is
not by faith alone’ (104, 105).
A Forewarning
In every respect, Beckwith’s doctrine of justification, justifying his journey to Rome, is that of Norman Shepherd and the men of the Federal Vision.
The only difference between Beckwith and the men of the Federal Vision is that Beckwith honestly and openly states, and has acted upon, the
conclusion of his Roman Catholic doctrine of justification: renunciation of the Protestant Reformation and return to Rome.
It does not suit the Federal Vision theologians as yet to declare to their Presbyterian and Reformed audiences that their doctrine of justification,
and their doctrine of a conditional covenant, whence the heretical doctrine of justification springs, imply membership in the Roman Catholic Church.
Shepherd has hinted at the implication of his theology:
Is there any hope for a common understanding between Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism regarding the way of salvation [that
is, especially justification]? May I suggest that there is at least a glimmer of hope if both sides are willing to embrace a covenantal understanding
of the way of salvation [that is, the doctrine of a conditional covenant] (Norman Shepherd, The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates
Salvation and Evangelism, Phillipsburg, New Jersey: PR, 2000, 59).
The bold declaration of a return to Rome is coming.
In the meanwhile, Francis J. Beckwith, formerly president of the ETS, forewarns the members of Reformed and Presbyterian churches where the doctrine
of justification of the Federal Vision will take them and, if not them themselves, their children and grandchildren: Return to Rome.
Taken with permission from the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April 2013.
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While I agree “austerity measures” would be disasterousand the govt’s plan is sensible to say that “Abbott’s reply is appropriate and sensible” is a bit odd. He plans a stupidly generous paid parental leave scheme paid for by increasing tax on business, he plans a ridiculous “direct action” plan paid for from some unknown source of savings, he will repeal both the carbon mining taxes, make low income earners pay more tax on their super, delay perhaps stop an increase on the super guarantee, cut family tax benefit payments and supposedly plans to reverse means test the private health rebate, family tax benefits as well as reverse the tax increase on high income earning superannuation.
All of this will increase the deficit or result in deeper cuts while at the same time redirecting govt support from the most needy to the least – how is that good fiscal policy?
by Jimmy on May 17, 2013 at 1:26 pm
An aspirational speech.
by klewso on May 17, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Abbott argues that deficits are due to excessive spending, something easily fixable by voting in a Coalition government that would cut spending. This means that revenue is perfectly fine. At the same time, he refers to a “budget emergency” necessitating spending cuts that he would not otherwise make. This means that revenue is not fine at all.
Maybe I need to be a Rhodes Scholar to make sense of how both of these can be simultaneously true.
by Sam on May 17, 2013 at 2:03 pm
” if there is no carbon tax, there is no need for compensation…..Hockey was exactly right, of course”
Yes he is so right, business always pass on cost savings to their customers……
by jennatilz mckrackin on May 17, 2013 at 2:03 pm
This is a country in “emergency” according to Abbott
The truth is that Australian economy is doing well – really well. Growth 13% since 2007. Productivity growth is higher now than it was under Howard. The share market is up about 10% this year. Business investment has never been higher.
One of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world. Greece etc are around 30%, USA 9%.
Net debt,as a share of GDP is low. Around 10% of GDP. USA, UK are at around 70%, Greece etc are 100% plus.
Abbott is an economic minnow. This was proven when he compared what Cyprus did to peoples savings in the bank to the implementation of a 15% on superannuation earnings
by AussieAchmed on May 17, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Quote from Budget Rely – “The Coalition’s Plan has two objectives: first, to take the budget pressure off Australian households; and second, to strengthen our economy so that, over time, there’s more to go round for everyone.”
First – take away payments to middle class and low paid – take heart people this will take pressure off your household budget.
Take away the $500 contribution to low income workers superannuation. By the time you notice the effect of this Abbott will be retired on his Parliamentary Pension worth thousands each year
Delay introduction of super increase to 12% – this is only expected to cost the average “joe” around $127,000. I mean in terms of how much the minimum wage is – this is chicken feed – surely the low wage earners wont mind working an extra couple of years – Abbott and his billionaire mates will show support and cheer you on from the side lines in mercs or yachts while sitting on some beach resort – now isn’t that comforting??
by AussieAchmed on May 17, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Bernard, just a small point, but don’t you think referring to “Greg Hunt’s risible Soil Magic / Direct Action scheme” in those terms is the sort of linguistic technique whose home is in Andrew Bolt’s columns and, more particularly, in his comments section?
by Keith Thomas on May 17, 2013 at 2:33 pm
Achmed – You forgot cut off the school kids bonus and FTB bonus payments and give the money to the wealthy by rolling back means testing.
by Jimmy on May 17, 2013 at 2:33 pm
What has happened to the really really big issue the opposition have been so concerned about-stopping the boats! Didn’t hear a word about it in the budget reply, so I’m assuming we can all go back to sleeping soundly. The borders are safe! Phew-that was close.
by Griffiths Karen on May 17, 2013 at 2:42 pm
I am pretty sure that Abbott’s speach was exactly what everyone thought it would be – an appeal to the economically and politically naive demographic that he has so cynically exploted before. If they vote him in they really will get the clueless Government they deserve!
It was good to see Swan say what has been glaringly obvious for a year or more – that Abbott’s ‘turn the boats back’ mantra is in complete contradication to his promise not to send refugees to any country that has not signed the UN Refugee Convention.
Exactly where is he going to send the boats back to? Not to Indonesia, not to Sri Lanka, not to Afghanistan or Iran or Burma … I think New Zealand had better watch out as Abbott has put himself in a position where he will have to tow the boats to Auckland harbour and shove them in there!
Same as the massive crippling debt lie when he says that the country has to live within it’s means …’just like families do’ I would kill to owe just 10% of one year of my income – that 10% being made up of my entire mortgage, car loan, credit cards etc etc. Most familes would owe three, four or five times or more of their clear income for one year. If Australia lived economically as Australian families do the country would owe trillions (or some massively huge debt anyway).
Why does the entire media let him get away with this bullsh#t? If I can see the ridiculousness of what Abbott says, why can’t at least some part of the mass media?
by Thorn on May 17, 2013 at 3:36 pm
With Abbott’s plan to repeal the carbon price legislation there is no guarantee that business will reduce prices in line with the full amount they increased them when blaming the carbon price legislation. Abbott is relying on the honesty and integrity of business…oh look there’s another pig flying by….
We will see a whole lot of reasons why the claimed full amount will not be removed. The door for manipulation of the price(s) was opened by state govts not legislating that it must be shown on an electricity bill
by AussieAchmed on May 17, 2013 at 3:59 pm
While I am not against a review of the GST rate I am against GST being put on basic food. It is already applied to processed food. Any attempt to extend it to fresh fruit and vegetables or basics like flour, suger, milk, fish, meat, etc. should be rejected. People need to be encouraged to eat healthy, not be slugged with an extra tax.
Also it will be interesting to see how much rorting of Abbotts paid parental leave scheme will occur when small business realise they can employ their pregnant relatives on high salaries, then let them take paid leave on the cost of the tax payer.
by Andrew ( ) on May 17, 2013 at 4:30 pm
What are we going to expect for the next 4 years. Abbott seems to have no idea – he is as is well know an economic dummy and his speech in rely could have been a much shorter lecture. We know what’s best for you was the approach but we don’t know what your expecataions are. The basis of economics is that of the definition of values and perception of the values of the electorate. In this instance Swan and Gillard have the high ground with the NIDS and Gonski. Abbott has no such vision with the Paid Parental Scheme as his main focus – its sad really – how do we elevate such people into leadership positions?
by tonyfunnywalker on May 17, 2013 at 4:33 pm
Sam, with regards to holding two opposing ideas simultaneously, don’t forget Abbott is a avid catholic and an ex seminarian. Catholic theology, as with most theology, is an exercise in trying to reconcile opposite principles, facts and ideas to fit in with a system spawned by an irrational ‘faith’ I am sure Abbott would have no problem with being able to entertain two opposing ideas at once. Its not disimilar to the quantum state of a particle which can be resolved in two ways when it interacts with another. Abbott’s mind is like that particle and his mind goes around in the ‘quantum’ state and only resolves when he is asked a question. He will then give what he deems the appropriate response. Ditto for the rest of the catholic cabinet. The smug righteous and certainty of the redeemed.
by Paddy Forsayeth on May 17, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Since his policy is still to “turn back the boats” why didn’t he axe the increase in asylum seeker processing that Swan included? According to Tony, they’re not going to make it here anyway. So, why keep the increased costs?? Of course, if he wins, I would be happy to be coincidentally treading water in the neat vicinity of said vessel just so as to hitch a ride to a better country.
by colin skene on May 17, 2013 at 6:17 pm
I think after such a splendid budget reply, that even managed to make WW2 trivial, the PM should kneel at Abbott’s feet and acknowledge his greatness and resign; thus, showing respect to the voice and wisdom of the people, or at least the MSM, Rupert and Gina. After all, it just a nuisance for all and sundry there is a small thing called an election which is needed to make it formal, isn’t it?
by Julia on May 17, 2013 at 6:27 pm
If the polls are to be believed…low income people in droves seem to want to vote for an Abbott and tax cuts for the wealthy. Yep the average Australian; la, la, la, whgat fun for all when the professed Abbott cuts take place.
by Bill Hilliger on May 17, 2013 at 6:58 pm
What a load of codswallop! We haven’t been softened up that much have we? surely not? perhaps yes? MSM/Murdochracy win, Gold ?
by GF50 on May 17, 2013 at 7:03 pm
I wanted to write something about MM’s speech but.. how does one satirise the already risible? Unfortunately sentience seems to be a rare element if the polls hate radio are any indication.
Only the greedy stupid would vote tory, greedy to want what they proffer and stupid to think that they will get it post election.
ESPECIALLY the PPL – that is beyond parody.
by AR on May 17, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Unfortunately Abbott will get a pretty much free ride all the way as the media are all running scared. Now is not the time to be rocking any boats especially at Mr. Murdoch’s MonkeysRUs publications…
by Mark from Melbourne on May 17, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Throwing $4bn at taxpayers for no reason? No reason??
Throwing $4bn at taxpayers to get elected seems plenty of reason to me.
by David Hand on May 17, 2013 at 7:06 pm
Some people say that when Abbott takes money from the low income earners, they in turn will stop subscribing to Foxtel and News Ltd papers as the discresionary spend is curtailed.
by Bill Hilliger on May 17, 2013 at 7:27 pm