OPINION

Hellfire and Brimstone Straight From the Pulpit

Bob Beauprez
Bob Beauprez  |  Mar 24, 2012
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I've long lamented the careful tip-toeing by religious clergy around anything that leftist politicians might construe as "crossing the line." Organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation have been quick to pounce with lawsuits threatening revocation of a church's non-profit status. Timidity from religious leaders has invited an erosion of religious freedom and an increasingly secular society controlled more by an ever more powerful central government than by "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God." 

However, the announcement in January by the Obama Administration that as part of ObamaCare all employer provided healthcare insurance policies – even those of religious organizations – would have to provide contraception, sterilization, and even abortifacient drugs awoke a fervor among people of faith, particularly Catholic clerics, that had been virtually silent for at least two generations. 
 
While the Obama Administration with the cooperation of a largely complicit media tried to make the ensuing fight about "women's health care," church leaders including the Catholic Bishops of America rightly saw it as a direct assault on Religious Liberty and the Constitution. Encouraged by the outspoken leadership of men like Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Archbishop Charles Chaput whom we highlighted last month on these pages, parish priests throughout America delivered homilies the likes of which most people in the pews hadn't heard in their lifetime. 

One of the best we've heard was delivered February 5, 2012 by Fr. Sammie Maletta, Jr., Pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish, St. John, Indiana. The pulpit seems like the perfect place from which the real Good News should flow. While Fr. Maletta's sermon might not be a favorite around the current White House, it is one to make the Founding Fathers proud. And, from the response of his parishioners that you'll hear as you play the link below, they sure approved, as well. Click play below, and enjoy the Good News. 

 

Shameless in Cushing

President Barack Obama waves as he arrives at the TransCanada Stillwater Pipe Yard in Cushing, Okla., Thursday, March, 22, 2012. 

(Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Barack Obama showed up in Oklahoma this week to announce that he approved the construction of an energy pipeline that would connect the oil depots in Cushing with the refineries in the Gulf Coast.   In a side conversation he also offered his approval of Peyton Manning going to the Denver Broncos, the arrival of the first day of spring, and the sun coming up yet again this morning. 

Obama’s photo op exceeds the normal self-ingratiating antics of politicians in full re-election mode.  Even for the most anti-oil and gas President in U.S. history, this is just plain shameless.