Catholic Online Forum

PEORIA, Illinois, April 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a stunning homily on the weekend, an Illinois bishop slammed President Obama for his “radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda” and said Catholics must line up against that agenda at the ballot box in November or else lose all her dearly-held institutions.

“This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries—only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down,” said Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria at a gathering of Catholic men on Saturday.

“Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb,” he continued.

The bishop warned that with the Obama administration’s mandate for forcing religious employers to fund contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, America is on a path leading to the state of past dictatorships when Christians were forced to “huddle and hide,” such as Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, Hitler’s Nazis, and Stalin’s Communists.

The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism. And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry. The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil. As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and always be ready to fight for the Faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction. In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.

Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room. In the late 19th century, Bismark waged his “Kultur Kamp[f],” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany. Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path. Now things have come to such a pass in America that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.

A prominent advocate for the separation of church and state filed a formal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service Thursday, accusing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria of violating federal law by intervening in a political campaign.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, alleges that a fiery homily by Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky last Sunday effectively urged Catholics to vote against Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

Jenky’s homily criticized policies proposed by the Obama administration that would require all employers, including religious groups, to provide free birth control coverage in their health care plans. The bishop included Obama's policies in a litany of government challenges the Catholic Church has overcome in previous centuries, including actions by Hitler and Stalin.

“Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care,” Jenky said. “In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama — with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda — now seems intent on following a similar path.”

Lynn has said church-affiliated agencies who operate on taxpayer dollars should follow public policy guidelines or only collect money from parishioners. But remarks delivered later in the homily prompted Lynn’s complaint to the IRS.

“This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down,” Jenky said.

In a letter to the IRS, Lynn wrote that Jenky violated the rules that prohibit issue advocacy and that he had called on Catholics to vote as a bloc at the polls.

Nugent, who told NRA supporters in St. Louis last week that he would be "dead or in jail" next year if Obama was reelected, said in a statement that he had "met with two fine, professional Secret Service agents" in Oklahoma.

Complaint filed with IRS over homily by Peoria Bishop

Looks like rocker Ted Nugent agrees.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0420/Ted-Nugent-Motor-City-Madman-had-solid-meeting-with-Secret-Service

Good grief.

Bishop Who Compared Obama To Hitler Urged To Resign From Notre Dame Board By Members Of Faculty

Meanwhile, Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Illinois wrote a letter he instructed priests to read in parish churches that took President Barack Obama and politicians who favor abortion to task — saying they are rejecting Jesus.

Bishop Jenky instructed priests in the Diocese of Peoria to read a letter to churchgoers that cautions them about President Obama and pro-abortion members of the U.S. Senate who have rejected attempts to make it so the Obama HHS mandate does not force Catholic churches, businesses and organizations to pay for abortion-inducing drugs for women.

“This assault upon our religious freedom is simply without precedent in the American political and legal system,” Bishop Jenky wrote. “Today, Catholic politicians, bureaucrats and their electoral supporters who callously enable the destruction of innocent human life in the womb also thereby reject Jesus as their Lord. They are objectively guilty of grave sin.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation, an atheist group, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday saying the Internal Revenue Service is violating the U.S. Constitution by allowing tax-exempt churches and religious organizations to engage in politics.

People got pretty mad when Saint Paul spoke, too.

I love how certain anti-Catholics always like to malign Pope Pius XII for not speaking out against the Nazis, but now they want Catholics to shut up about the evils of the day.