http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/ en Copyright 2008 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:12:02 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss group from Monroe and others from across the state also traveled the 9500 miles to attend the liturgy with Pope Benedict and accompanying festivities. Most spent the week before the festival camping out in tents in a "global village" with young people from countries around the world. Temperatures dipped below freezing, which may have been harder on attendees from more temperate climates. See full article in The Michigan Catholic Meanwhile, a crowd of young people from Catholic churches in Detroit, Gaylord, Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids attended a stand-in local conference organized in Sidney, Ohio, as detailed in the Toledo Blade. ]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/07/michiganers_attend_australian.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/07/michiganers_attend_australian.php Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:12:02 -0500 For more details.]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/06/conservatives_cant_break_their.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/06/conservatives_cant_break_their.php Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:19:46 -0500 A spokesperson for the US Bishops' Conference offered special praise to Rep Bart Stupak (D-MI) for his role in advancing the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (H.R. 493), which passed unanimously in the Senate on April 24 and then passed overwhelmingly in the House. The bill bars employers and health insurers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their own or their family's genetic information. Rep Stupak had championed one dimension of the bill that would bar discrimination on the basis of pre-natal diagnostic testing. The bill was originally authored by Rep Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and championed in the Senate by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) among others. Deirdre McQuade, Assistant Director for Policy and Communications at the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-life Activities, said, "Today the Senate took a stand for some of the most vulnerable members of the human family, whether born, yet to be born, or placed for adoption. No one should be discriminated against on the basis of genetic testing." http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/05/rep_stupak_and_sen_kennedy_adv.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/05/rep_stupak_and_sen_kennedy_adv.php Sun, 04 May 2008 19:32:21 -0500 Congressional resolution on April 9 welcoming Pope Benedict to the United States. In his comments on the House floor related to the resolution, he took special pains to emphasize that the Pope's message was essentially the same as the Republican mantra of personal freedom: "It was not passion alone that allowed for the founding of our free republic; [the founding fathers] also used their reason to find their way to express how those rights could be guaranteed against government, and how individual citizens could live together with their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is no different than the message that the Holy Father brings today. The Holy Father has said that faith and reason are concomitant blessings from God which allow us to find him not only in ourselves but in each other." The Congressman's voting record in support of the Iraq War and in opposition to any non-punitive solutions to the immigration problem in the US seemed directly at odds with the wording of his Papal welcoming resolution. The document praised the Pope because he "has made repeated calls for peaceful resolution to international conflicts" and because he "has affirmed the dignity of the human person with respect to refugees, exiles, evacuees and other migrant persons." Rep McCotter does have some redeeming qualities, having played a leading role in trying to hold the Chinese government to account for its brutal human rights record. But his own record on domestic issues borders on the inhumane. He has publicly labeled the S-CHIP expansion bill as an effort that was "unscrupulously using children as props in a soulless script replete with ironic appeals to an apparently socialist Almighty," despite studies that have shown that lack of health insurance results in child deaths from asthma and disability from other chronic conditions that go untreated. He has advocated cutting off all services to undocumented immigrants, in direct opposition to the stance of the US Bishops Conference. He has unwaveringly supported the Bush war in Iraq, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of nearly 20% of their population. In short, Rep McCotter has a very narrow view of what Catholicism is about, characterized by the use of violence in international affairs, the absence of a collective responsibility for the wellbeing of more vulnerable members of society, and the villanization of immigrants. It would be one thing if Rep McCotter's views were those of an outlying ideologue, but he is the Chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee. It is a harbinger of the Republican approach to the 2008 elections that they are willing to praise the Church and be photographed with its leaders, while having little interest in public policy that would advance the cardinal Catholic virtues of mercy and generosity of heart. Patrick Whelan Exec Director Catholic Democrats]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/04/rep_mccotters_praises_the_pope.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/04/rep_mccotters_praises_the_pope.php Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:38:34 -0500 Archdiocese of Detroit News Office -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Links: Cardinal Maida says slain Iraqi archbishop "was a good shepherd whose life was needlessly sacrificed by extremists" Local Catholics pray for kidnapped Iraqi archbishop Iraqi Dominicans tell of dangers, difficulties ]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/03/cardinal_maida_condemns_death.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/03/cardinal_maida_condemns_death.php Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:45:45 -0500 Catholic social teaching address a number of issues that exemplify the mission of the Church. As the State of Michigan continues to witness an alarming number of mortgage foreclosures, an increase in the number of families living without health insurance, high unemployment rates adn job loss, the time is now for a more focused public policy attention to the plight of Michigan's poor and suffering population. Read full analysis, in the current MCC Focus.]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/03/bishops_issue_new_analysis_of.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2008/03/bishops_issue_new_analysis_of.php Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:33:38 -0500 formal April 2007 statement: ]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2007/12/statement_of_roman_catholic_bi.php http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/MI/2007/12/statement_of_roman_catholic_bi.php Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:45:10 -0500