USCCB Launches All-Out Campaign against Abortion-Funding Healthcare

"For that one reason among many, the United States will suffer unless there is placed into your government a group that fears the Lord if they cannot love the Lord. They will fear Him and find measures to stop the slaughter of the unborn." - Our Lady of the Roses, April 14, 1984

LifeSiteNews.com reported on October 30, 2009:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has launched a bold and sweeping nation-wide campaign against the abortion funding mandate included in healthcare reform legislation currently making its way through Congress. Pro-life leaders are applauding the campaign, with American Life League's Judie Brown describing it as "unprecedented."

USCCB Pro-Life Activities Secretariat Tom Grenchik this week sent an email to parishes across the US, detailing the contents of the plan. At the same time, Cardinal Francis George and other members of the USCCB leadership have asked every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the United States for their personal leadership in ensuring that health care reform does not include funding for abortion.

Much of the campaign involves direct action by parishes and pastors. Grenchik's email states that a pro-life insert should be included in parish bulletins, placed on pews, or distributed at church entrances "as soon as possible." The insert also says that the health-care bills currently being considered by Congress are "seriously deficient on the issues of abortion and conscience," and directs readers to www.usccb.org/action, where they may send emails to their congressmen through the action center of the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment.

The U.S. bishops have also asked that a special announcement be made at every parish at two separate Sunday Masses. Their announcement tells laymen to contact their representatives and senators "immediately" and to "urge them to fix these bills with pro-life amendments," so that "health care reform will be about saving lives, not destroying them."

A special "Prayer of the Faithful" to be used during Mass has also been distributed, which asks both for "health care reform [that] will truly protect the life [and] dignity" of all and that Catholics will raise their "voices to protect the unborn and the most vulnerable and to preserve our freedom of conscience."

The efforts of the USCCB extend beyond church walls, however.

The USCCB has started an ad campaign aimed both at congressmen and at the grassroots. The campaign uses online advertising on various websites such National Review Online, Catholic Match, and Beliefnet, to urge people to oppose the pro-abortion health care bill. The information distributed to US parishes also includes an ad that may be run in Catholic papers.

The bishops themselves are opposing the health care legislation by personal action. Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, with the chairmen of three USCCB committees engaged in health care, has written to the American bishops and asked for their "active and personal leadership" and to "redouble [their] efforts" to ensure that health care does not include abortion.

Cardinal George's letter reads in part that "the outcome [of this debate] will depend not primarily on advocacy done in Washington, but on what we do in our own dioceses and states to make the case clearly and persuasively to influence how our Senators and Representatives vote."

He goes on to ask bishops to personally contact the senators and representatives who serve their diocese, whether by letter, email, personal meeting, or phone, and to tell them that if an amendment is not added to the bill eliminating the possibility of government-funded abortions, that they then must oppose the final bill when it comes to a vote.

Such decisive action has few parallels, according to the American Life League's Judie Brown.
In a statement issued yesterday, Brown said that "We applaud the USCCB's unprecedented action in its national campaign to mobilize parishes against the current versions of the health care bill."

"It has taken an important first step in activating Catholics to take back our health care system and our country from the radical pro-aborts in the legislature and sometimes even in the pulpits."

However, Brown said the USCCB should also point out the other troubling aspects of the bill, such as "its potential to fund Planned Parenthood, to use our tax dollars to indoctrinate children with sex education in schools, to fund euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, human embryonic stem cell research, contraception and health care rationing."

"All of these things are present in all of the current versions of the health care bill. None of these are acceptable according to Catholic teaching," she said.

The USCCB's campaign may be seen as the fulfillment of what they said in letter delivered to Congress on October 8th, in which the bishops said that unless their concerns were relieved they would be forced to strongly oppose the health care bill.

"We sincerely hope that the legislation will not fall short of our criteria," the bishops wrote at the time. "However, we remain apprehensive when amendments protecting freedom of conscience and ensuring no taxpayer money for abortion are defeated in committee votes. If acceptable language in these areas cannot be found, we will have to oppose the health care bill vigorously."
Before this current push, the USCCB had opposed an abortion-funding health care bill through various public statements, but had not made a great effort to move Catholic laymen to oppose it.

See related stories on LifeSiteNews:

USCCB Pro-Life Office: No Health Care Reform while Abortion Mandate Remains

USCCB Pro-Life Office: No Health Care Reform while Abortion Mandate Remains

Head of USCCB Meets with Obama: Also Releases Video Saying Decision on Conscience Protection a Move Towards "Despotism

"The Eternal Father command that you stop these murders at once! You will not destroy the lives of the unborn. Human life is sacred in the eyes of your God. No man has the right to destroy a life. The Father, He sends this life to you, and only He will decide when it will return back to the Kingdom.
"Do not, My children, be deceived by the words of the evil ones about you who cry to you of no space left for man. There is space, for My Father has a plan for every life He sends." - Our Lady of the Roses, August 5, 1971

THE UNITED STATES SHALL FALL
"How can a great country like the United States fall, you say, My child? You ask Me in your heart. I read your heart. I will tell you why. Because they have given themselves over to satan. When a country has lost its morality and seeks the pleasures of the flesh, giving over, themselves over, to all manner of abominations, like homosexuality, and condoning this up the highest courts of the land, then that country shall fall." - Our Lady of the Roses, November 1, 1985

DOCTORS
"Doctors now are profaning their profession, those who have given themselves over to destroying human life in abortions." - Jesus, June 6, 1987

FOULEST OF DEEDS
"Our hearts are torn because of the wanton murder of the young by evil man. Abortion, My children, is murder, the most foulest of deeds, that is punishable by death! And what is worse than death of the soul?
"I say unto you, as your Mother, that any man or woman who performs or takes part of this abomination of the murder of the unborn shall be given a heavy penance upon earth, or if this penance is not given upon earth, that person found guilty in the eyes of his God shall suffer eternal damnation in the fires of hell." - Our Lady, December 28, 1976

DESTROYED
"All who become part of or condone abortion, the murder of the young, shall be destroyed!" - Jesus, June 2, 1979

HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED
"The Eternal Father command that you stop these murders at once! You will not destroy the lives of the unborn. Human life is sacred in the eyes of your God. No man has the right to destroy a life. The Father, He sends this life to you, and only He will decide when it will return back to the Kingdom.
"Do not, My children, be deceived by the words of the evil ones about you who cry to you of no space left for man. There is space, for My Father has a plan for every life He sends." - Our Lady, August 5, 1971

WILL NEVER BE CONDONED
"You will remember, My children and My child, to guard the young. Your clergy have fallen into darkness. Abortion will never be condoned. But We must have others who fervently will go forward and bring out to the minds of those who have actually seduced the country and the children--bring them the knowledge of Heaven, hell and purgatory. Then they will not have free license to sin." - Our Lady, May 28, 1983

GOVERNMENT
"For that one reason among many, the United States will suffer unless there is placed into your government a group that fears the Lord if they cannot love the Lord. They will fear Him and find measures to stop the slaughter of the unborn." - Our Lady, April 14, 1984

NUNS
"That is what makes My heart ache, My child. That is one of the reasons Theresa is crying constantly when she looks into the convents and sees what is going on. Many now believe in abortion, the murders of the children; and many have committed this act upon themselves." - Jesus, October 1, 1988

SIXTY MILLION
"I say this for this reason: the Eternal Father is much disturbed at the numbers of abortions being committed throughout your country and the world. These numbers go upwards to fifty to sixty million in one year throughout the world." - Our Lady, June 18, 1986

TREATED AS GARBAGE
"O My child, My tears fall upon you all when I see all of the innocent little babies being slaughtered . . . cast into garbage pails like nothing but dirt and scum. They are living human beings! And all murderers shall get their just recompense." - Our Lady, March 18, 1983

HOLY SPIRIT
"At the time of conception, the Holy Spirit makes the child, and the breath of the Almighty gives it life." - Our Lady, June 18, 1991

LIMBO
"And what, My children, are We going to do with all the aborted babies? O My child, I know you feel as I do, for I can see the great distress on your face. What are We going to do, My child? Do you understand when they come to Us, they must go to Limbo? They are in Heaven, a happy place, but they cannot see God." - Our Lady, October 2, 1987

SORROWFULLY
"Sorrowfully, the penance that is to come upon the world for the murders of the unborn shall be a chastisement far greater in severity than man has ever witnessed in the past nor ever shall pass through again. Your world is plunging into a deep chasm of suffering and destruction." - Our Lady, May 20, 1978

OATH
"Your once loyal to the oath of a doctor, your once loyal doctors are now butchers! For money they kill the young!" - Our Lady, February 10, 1978

WOE TO THE WOMAN
"Know, My child, this simple lesson, that in these days of the latter times, women will seek to cast off their role as mother and a woman. Women will cast it off under the direction of satan, and murder her children. Woe to the woman who does not repent of this vile abomination! She has walked the road to eternal damnation and hell. Repent, O woman, or forever be lost!" - Our Lady, March 18, 1975

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