USCCB Hooked on Girl Scouts USA

There has been a substantial amount of negative response from the laity as well as a recent news report from Lifesite, about United States Catholic Council of Bishops [USCCB] and its questionable relationship with the Girl Scouts. Despite the fact that Girl Scouts USA partners with and supports Catholics for choice, there is the typical non-response from the USCCB. They express concern about the the grievances of Catholics involved with the program, but don't actually do anything about it. (http://www.nccgscf.org/NFCYMPositionStatementOnGSUSAIssuesJan282011.pdf), (GSUSA supports "Catholics for Choice" on pg 2 of the article). Here's the non-response:

Many Catholic Girl Scout leaders are feeling torn between their commitment to Girl Scouting

and their commitment to their Catholic teachings because of the real or perceived relationship

between GSUSA and organizations like Planned Parenthood. The NFCYM approach to this

complex issue has been one of engagement, rather than detachment or withdrawal. NFCYM,

through NCCGSCF, needs to stay connected to GSUSA not only because thousands of Catholic

girls and Catholic adult leaders are involved in scouting, but because Girl Scouting—like Boy

Scouting—provides excellent character development for young people through their programs.

NFCYM can only influence secular organizations by staying in relationship with them . . . by

being at the table.

In addition to releasing their public statement, GSUSA has taken two other actions:

1. On Thursday, January 27, GSUSA conducted a conference call with their council

executives to assist them in working more closely with faith based organizations.

NFCYM sees that as a significant action in promoting our religious recognition

programs.

2. GSUSA has agreed to a follow-up meeting between their national leadership and

NFCYM leadership this summer to continue to review and access our relationship and

the critical issues.

NFCYM will continue to closely monitor any new issues that arise and, through our NCCGSCF,

continue to engage GSUSA leadership in their active support of NFCYM religious recognition

programs

More recently, there is another story related to Girl Scouts USA where, true to their essential character, they are making accommodation for a child who is undergoing a sex-change operation. It's indisputable that there are those within the USCCB who have difficulties articulating and acting on the Church's teachings regarding sexuality and it also seems unlikely that any change will take place from within. Here's the recent National Review Story:

‘Bobby identifies as a girl, and he’s a boy,” a Denver mother told a TVstation in a news story about her son, who has been accepted as a Girl Scout.

“He’s been doing this since he was about two years old. He’s loved girl stuff, so we just let him dress how he wants, as long as he’s happy,” she explained.

When she first approached the Girl Scouts’ local troop leader about joining, the answer was pretty sensible: But he’s a boy.

Link to National Review....

Photo stolen from Pro-Life Teen...

Catholic-Oriental Orthodox Dialogue Discusses Proselytism, Other Pastoral Issues Facing Their Churches

USCCB News Release

10-171
September 28, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON (September 28, 2010) —The United States Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation held its 2010 meeting at the Passionist Spiritual Center in Bronx, New York, on September 20 and 21. The meeting, co-chaired by Catholic Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, New York, and the Right Reverend Chor-Episcopos John Meno of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, focused primarily on pastoral issues facing both churches.

They discussed the pastoral responses of the churches to proselytizing efforts—the seeking of converts from members of other Christian communities—of certain Evangelical and Pentecostal groups both in the United States and in the countries where these churches originated. From a Catholic perspective, Father Juan Luis Calderon of the Archdiocese of Newark gave a talk entitled, “The Follower, the Seeker and the Convert: Hispanics and Their Experience of God.” Additional reflections were offered by Father Daniel Findikyan, who focused on the Armenian Church, and by Father Yacob Ghaly, who drew on the experience of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, where such efforts have weakened this ancient church.

The members also heard a report from Brother David Carroll, FSC, on the policy of the Holy See regarding the Holy Land and the final status of Jerusalem. In his talk, Brother Carroll reviewed the history of this issue, the major negotiations that have taken place in recent decades, and the Holy See’s position, which advocates the preservation of the religious characteristics of Jerusalem, equality of rights of the communities of the three major religions found in the city, the preservation of the holy places, and freedom of worship and access to them for residents and pilgrims alike.

Read further at USCCB site...

Outsourcing Catholic Charity

Well, it's a sad day when a non-Catholic outsider seems to understand more about the USCCB and its attendant government and parishoner subsidized programs that promote abortion, birth-control, government overregulation, homosexuality and creeping Alinskyite socialism. It just goes to show you that you don't have to be a Catholic-in-Name-Only to tell the truth about what is going on in the American Church. Rush Limbaugh, who himself was under attack from the USCCB in October, sees things pretty clearly, he writes,

I mean holy carp, folks. Is nothing sacred? They have infiltrated the Catholic Church? Or maybe the Catholic Church has allowed itself to be infiltrated. "According to the newsletter, 'the Archdiocese of Washington's Environmental Outreach Committee has created a particularly useful new tool" and I have a compressed copy of it right there. I'm not going to zoom in here; I haven't got time. That's the calendar. "[A] calendar that lists 40 carbon-fasting measures individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint.' The newsletter provides a link to the full calendar. The calendar contains suggestion for each of the 40 days of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17, with 'Remove one light bulb from your home and live without the light for the next 40 days.'" What a cheap cop-out.

Perhaps we shouldn't expect truth and integrity from Jesuits or even possibly those who work for them, but we always hold out a candle of hope rather than curse the darkness; Henry Karlson who teaches at Fordham University and writes for InsideCatholic once told us that he favoured the Soviet Union over his own country, and since spending so many years at Fordham, we see that his allegiances haven't changed appreciably, as he demonstrates when he shills for the socialistic, anti-Catholic CCHD in an article he writes about the "good that the CCHD does" for Vox Nuova. Henry used to believe aliens were real, perhaps he still does, but it's far crazier and in our opinion a sign of malice, to defend the CCHD.



While he is eager to attack those who are pointing out that there is something systemically wrong with outsourcing Catholic Charity and relying on non-Catholics and anti-Catholics to do the job as using rhetoric and logical fallacies that have never before been used, he engages in some rhetoric himself and tells us, incredibly, that people would die if the CCHD disappeared tomorrow.

Actually, if the CCHD were abolished tomorrow, it would probably save lives, since the various Planned Parenthood and Pro-Abortion organizations which enjoy CCHD support wouldn't receive that support any longer.

Perhaps instead of outsourcing Catholic Charity to non-Catholic and anti-Catholic organizations, the Bishops should take that money to foster vocations to the Monastic orders who have traditionally been the charity arm of the Catholic church in the past, not a pack of United Way style professionals with murky job titles and strange agendas!