Old Liberal Bishop of Des Moines Promotes "Medical" Cannabis

Some things just go together

Edit: it's interesting to note how some prelates like Msgr. Pates, camouflage themselves by perfunctory attention to social issues from a Catholic point of view, and spend the rest of their time pushing an overriding modernist agenda.  For example, few people know that Archbishop John Ireland was such a bishop since many of his public acts were irreproachable and even laudatory, but he was an Americanist and even contemplated a schism in the late 19th century.

[Des Moines Register] Des Moines' Catholic bishop is joining with Iowa lawmakers who are pushing to make medical marijuana legal in the state.

Bishop Richard Pates, the influential leader of 100,000 Roman Catholics in southwest Iowa, has asked House and Senate members to approve a comprehensive bill to permit medical cannabis. The Iowa Legislature is in an intense debate over medical marijuana legislation as the final days of the 2016 session wind down.

"I believe now is the time to help suffering Iowans and their families get access to this medicine," Pates said in a letter dated late last week.​

Story from Des Moines Register...
Photo from Spirit Daily...
AMDG

Bishop Tells "Catholic" School They Can't Honor Gomorrist Group

Edit: When aren't "school officials" not clueless. Perhaps in earlier times they were more afraid of the clergy that hired them, now they're as absolutely fearless and insufferably proud as they are clueless. Fortunately, Iowa Bishop Martin Amos of Davenport, knows the Catholic Faith better than they do and stepped in.

The way the anti-Catholic Washington Post tells the story, you'd think that the Bishop was evil incarnate. They seem astounded that a Catholic Bishop would do his job. Many don't, but not in Davenport.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Overruling [clueless] school officials, a Catholic bishop in Iowa said Monday he would not let a group that promotes equal rights for gays and lesbians [Gomorrists] present a college scholarship to an openly gay student during an upcoming award ceremony. [Arguably he should have been expelled and the administrators dismissed, but, brick by brick.]

Bishop Martin Amos in Davenport said the Eychaner Foundation would not be allowed to present the Matthew Shepard Scholarship to Keaton Fuller during the May 20 ceremony at Prince of Peace Catholic School in Clinton, saying the group’s support for gay rights [why even concede that such a thing as gay "rights" even exists?] conflicts with church doctrine.

The announcement comes after a school official signed a document last month that promised to let a representative of the foundation’s scholarship committee present the award to Fuller.

In an open letter released Monday, Fuller said he’s never felt so “invalidated and unaccepted” [Then don't go to schools where your behavior is challenged and questioned.] as he did when he heard that news last week. He said he and his family were asking the school to reverse its decision, and he launched an online petition Monday that was signed by hundreds of supporters within its first hours.
Link to Washington Post...

Bishop Pates of Des Moines is Challenging New Abortionist

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, November 30, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines has not taken lightly the news that a notorious late-term abortionist is seeking to move into his backyard.

The Iowa prelate has issued a call-to-arms to local Catholics against plans by abortionist Leroy Carhart to move his business to the area.

Carhart left his longtime abortion location in Bellevue, Nebraska after the state passed a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation. He has since aroused widespread indignation from Iowa pro-lifers with his plans to resume aborting late-term children in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Read further... 

H/t: Stella Borealis

Bishop Pates puts the Smackdown on Iowa Newman Center

Bishop Pates has been a gay friendly Bishop in the past, so we're suprised to see him take such a principled stand at this. It's unfortnate that there has to be such a public disagreement on the issue. Perhaps the 100 people objecting to this would be more comfortable in the Episcopalian or Lutheran Church where these sorts of things are celebrated. Perhaps a better policy would be to simply ban the Paulists from the Diocese, close the Newman Center and give it to the SSPX?

[Catholic Culture] Nearly 100 laity are boycotting Mass at an Iowa Newman center after Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines fired a transgendered housekeeper who had quietly offered counseling services and formed a transgendered support group there. Bishop Pates told Susan McIntyre, who was born as Jim Ford, that “your unauthorized representation indicating that you are employed by and operating on behalf of the Newman Center as a counselor or social worker” led to the housekeeper’s firing.

The bishop intervened after Father Joel McNeil, recently assigned to St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Student Center at Drake University, “noticed a piece of paper on a copy machine in the parish office,” according to the Des Moines Register. “On it was a counselor's authorization of hormone therapy for a transgendered person about to undergo a sex change. On a letterhead that included the center's name and address.”

The Register added:

There's a sign out front of the church that identifies it as Catholic, McNeil noted. It's a matter of truth in advertising, he said: Would the parish stick by Catholic teachings or have a set of beliefs that went outside the Catholic tent?

"For a person who sees Christianity as fidelity to what Christ began 2,000 years ago, we can't change that teaching," he said.