Catholic Trump supporters respond to Log Cabin GOP endorsement

CNA Staff, May 25, 2020 / 10:54 am (CNA).- As Catholics celebrate Memorial Day this year, they should keep in mind not only the sacrifice of the men and women who gave their lives in service to the country, but also Christ’s sacrifice, which is at the heart of our faith, said Bishop David O’Connell of Trenton.

In a message to the faithful of his diocese, O’Connell noted that Memorial Day is often celebrated with cookouts, swimming, and parades, as well as visits to military cemeteries to honor veterans who have died in service to the country. He called on Catholics to remember the memory and sacrifices of those who have fallen.

“Memorial Day honors those brave women and men who proudly wore the uniform of our armed forces and made the ultimate sacrifices that have become the lifeblood of our republic,” he said. “It is entirely fitting that we remember them with gratitude and pride.”

The faithful can also see in the sacrifice of fallen veterans a reminder of the sacrifice of Christ, and a call to lay down their own lives in service to others, O’Connell said.

“For Catholics, sacrifice and dying for others is the very root of our faith,” he said. “We need look no further than the Crucifix that is the central symbol of our religious consciousness to remember how the Lord Jesus redeemed us through his death and freed us from sin.”

The bishop recalled Christ’s words that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

“The sacrifices made by our countrymen and women throughout American history are a reminder of Christ’s message,” he said.
 

[…]

Washington D.C., May 3, 2017 / 03:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday sent out a text message alert urging Catholics to sign a petition calling on President Donald Trump to issue an executive order protecting religious freedom.

The petition, hosted by Human Life Action, encourages the president to sign such an executive order, which is rumored to be in the works for Thursday.

Religious freedom advocates have warned that, due to various mandates and rules issued during the Obama administration, religious institutions that uphold traditional marriage or do not cooperate with abortions and contraceptive use could soon face federal action if no executive order is issued to protect them.

A draft of such an executive order was leaked earlier this year, but was reportedly scuttled due to the efforts of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

An executive order could help mitigate the effects of the HHS birth control mandate, which caused hundreds of religious non-profits and other employers to sue the federal government claiming the mandate forced them to violate their consciences.

The Trump administration has not yet stopped defending the mandate in court, although White House advisor Leonard Leo told Axios recently that the administration was not planning to defend the mandate indefinitely, but was rather still considering the best “litigation proof” route for lifting the mandate’s burden on religious employers.

Another reason for an executive order would be the protection of health care providers and crisis pregnancy centers from mandates that they perform abortions or cover them in employee health plans, according to religious freedom advocates.

Currently, the Weldon Amendments bars federal funding of states that force employers to provide abortion coverage for employees. But after California ruled that health care plans – including those of churches and religious organizations – had to include coverage for elective abortions, the head of the Office of Civil Rights at the federal Department of Health and Human Services decided last summer that the state had not violated the Weldon Amendment.

Also at stake is the tax-exempt status of schools and other religious institutions which teach that marriage is one man and one woman.

In 2015 oral arguments in the same-sex marriage case Obergefell v. Hodges, President Obama’s solicitor general Donald Verrilli said that the ability of these colleges to retain their tax-exempt status if same-sex marriage is the law of the land is “certainly going to be an issue.”

Another way an executive order could protect religious freedom would be to protect federal contractors, and dioceses and churches that provide military chaplains, from having to comply with mandates that they support same-sex marriage.

The Russell Amendment had upheld this freedom and was included in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act that passed the House, but was removed by Senate Republicans so the bill could pass the Senate.

“Any Executive Order should make it clear that religious freedom entails more than the freedom to worship but also includes the ability to act on one’s beliefs,” the U.S. Bishops’ Conference stated earlier this year on the need for an executive order.

“It should also protect individuals and families who run closely-held businesses in accordance with their faith to the greatest extent possible.”

[…]

Denver, Colo., Mar 2, 2018 / 02:35 pm (CNA).- Pro-life Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois faces a primary challenger backed by pro-abortion rights groups, putting a focus on the priorities of the Democratic Party and its sympathizers.
 
“I think my pro-life beliefs fit in perfectly with standing up for the little guy, the little girl, those who are most vulnerable among us. I think that fits in with the Democratic Party,” Lipinski told CNA March 1.
 
“It used to be, if you go back 40 years ago, there was not at all a partisan split between the parties on being pro-life. There were pro-life Democrats and pro-life Republicans and there were Democrats and Republicans on the other side,” he said. “Just as 40 years ago it made sense for Democrats to be pro-life, it still makes sense today.”
 
The pro-abortion rights groups EMILY’s List, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood have backed Lipinski’s primary challenger, Emily Newman, who has been endorsed by several other Democratic members of Congress ahead of the March 20 primary election in a heavily Democratic Chicago-area district. The LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign has also backed Newman.
 
Some Democrats say NARAL’s activism is a reason Lipinski has not yet been endorsed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is in charge of helping Democratic congressional candidates.
 
NARAL’s chief financial officer, Steven Kravitz, is treasurer of an anti-Lipinski political action committee, Citizens for a Better Illinois, which in the last month has spent over $400,000 to oppose Lipinski, Politico reports.
 
Newman’s camp had its own explanation.
 
“Democratic Party institutions’ reticence(sic) to endorse Rep. Lipinski is understandable — Rep. Lipinski is a Democrat in name only,” said Newman’s campaign manager Erik Wallenius, according to Politico.
 
Lipinski, however, defended his party affiliation.
 
“I’m a Democrat because I think there are times when the government needs to stand up for those who are defenseless, those who need help,” Lipinski said, citing the needs of senior citizens on Medicare or Social Security.
 
Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, said the congressman’s opponents within the party had engaged in a “misinformation campaign” trying to link him to conservative causes.
 
“When you look at his record, he’s not a conservative,” Day told CNA. “He’s been representing his district and the Democrats in his district quite well. Labor, education, environment—he has a 90-something percent lifetime record in those areas.”
 
“The traditional Democratic Party supported labor, supported education, supported working families,” she said. “Now I think the abortion lobby is trying to reinvent what it means to be a Democrat.”
 
Day stressed the importance of Lipinski’s role as co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
 
“He’s been a huge voice for the 21 million pro-life Democrats who see him as our leader,” Day said. “He’s the one we can count on. He’s fighting there for us in Congress in trying to push the Democratic Party to be more understanding and supportive of our point of view.”
 
“His voice there is hugely important in making sure the life issue continues to be bipartisan,” she said, warning that the elimination of pro-life Democrats in Congress would harm the pro-life movement as a whole.
 
In the wake of claims Planned Parenthood violated laws against selling fetal tissue for profit, in 2015 Lipinski voted to defund the organization and transfer its funding to over 13,500 other health clinics–legislation which failed to pass the Senate. He co-sponsored a bill to add the criminal penalty of murder to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
 
In 2010, he was one of the few Democrats to vote against the Affordable Health Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, and later backed legislation intended to address concerns about abortion funding and religious freedom violations enabled by the initial legislation and President Barack Obama’s related executive order.
 
Lipinski attributed his primary challenge to an effort among some Democratic Party activists to create a “Tea Party of the Left.”
 
“They want to have a party that is pure as they define that, and so I think that’s a big reason for that (primary challenge) right now,” he said, warning that efforts to narrow the party would harm its prospects for electoral success.
 
“Democrats need to be a ‘big tent’ party,” he said.
 
“I think it’s terrible for the party at this time when we’ve lost over 1,000 seats nationwide since 2010. At the 2014 election, Democrats in the House were at our lowest point since the Great Depression when Herbert Hoover was president. We’ve come up a little bit since then but we still have a big deficit to make up.”
 
Day also thought campaigns against pro-life Democratic officeholders would harm the political prospects of Democrats, about 30 percent of whom self-describe as pro-life.
 
“I really believe the Democratic Party is listening to the wrong people right now.  Abortion on demand, taxpayer funding, pushing pro-lifers out of the party is not going to be a strategy that’s going to help us build,” she said. “This doesn’t feel like a good long-term strategy to be not backing a loyal Democrat.”

Lipinski said that pro-life Democrats who stand for election face a tough fight.
 
“The issue is more on the outside than inside the party,” he said. “There are activist groups who have a lot of influence in Democratic primaries who are on the other side. They want to defeat pro-life Democrats in primaries. That makes it much more difficult.”
 
“The party needs to step up and say ‘we will support pro-life candidates who want to run for office,’” he added. “I think the pro-life groups need to step up and understand that there’s a need to have pro-life people in both parties, and they need to step up for pro-life Democrats in primaries.”
 
Day said abortion backers will find their own candidates to run against pro-lifers.
 
“The abortion lobby has a history of targeting pro-life Democrats,” she said. In her view, the massive expenditures in a safe Democratic district “shows that the abortion lobby cares more bout their own issue than the health of the party.”
 
Lipinski, a member of the Blue Dog Democrat coalition, has the endorsement of many labor unions, and both major Chicago newspapers. On March 1, he secured the endorsement of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
 
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, as of Dec. 31 Newman had about $236,000 cash on-hand, while Lipinski had $1.6 million. His internal polling numbers put him ahead about 30 points, the Washington Examiner reports.
 
As for Democrats for Life of America, the group will be holding their annual conference in Denver July 20-22 on the theme “We Want our Party Back”
 
“We’re the party that’s supposed to protect those who need assistance, including pregnant women who don’t want to have abortions but feel that it’s their only choice,” Day said. “We want to be representing what we’re historically representing.”

[…]