Liberal pastors have been preaching big government dogma from the pulpit with impunity from the IRS and praise from Democrats for several decades. The liberal media says nothing critical and instead serves as a megaphone for the same message, providing celebrity and approval to those liberal pastors. However if a traditional socially conservative message is delivered from the pulpit all sorts of sputtering about separation of church and state erupts.
An editorial page article in the Moline Dispatch on May 1st by columnist John Donald O’Shea is recommended to our readers for its defense of the true meaning of our religious freedoms. O’Shea refers to a homily by Roman Catholic Bishop Jenky of the Peoria Diocese. Bishop Jenky should be a hero to all people of faith and supportive of freedom. O’Shea makes fine points about the meaning and importance of our first amendment freedoms. We will provide some commentary and useful links to articles of note regarding Bishop Jenky as time goes on.
At least one parish in the Quad Cities apparently decided that the “fortnight for freedom” conflicted with its overall agenda. While the pastor of St. John Vianney has delivered impassioned sermons on the plight of illegal immigrants and a call from the pulpit for understanding of the political activist views and actions of the Sisters of Humility, he defends completely ignoring the US Bishops’ call for a “Fortnight for Freedom” to protest the Obama administration’s mandate that religious affiliated organizations provide free contraception to their employees as “political” with no place in the parish’s mission. The pastor refused to mention from the pulpit at the past two weekends’ Masses, anything about “Fortnight” except to complain at one that he had been “accosted in the worst way” by a parishioner (whose offense was to ask why the Freedom event did not merit any parish recognition…not even a mention in the parish bulletin.)
This is the same pastor who allegedly “accosted” a person in the recent past who attempted to hand out informational literature on various politicians’ positions on abortion to churchgoers as they left Mass. This person was not even on parish property when he was “accosted in the worst way” by the kindly, “apolitical” padre.