Posts Tagged ‘Catholic Church’
Italian government plans to tax commercial property belonging to the Catholic Church. Overdue.
Bed & Breakfast hotel run by a convent in Rome
Over the years, the Italian government has quietly passed scores of laws that benefit the Roman Catholic Church, but it is rare for it to issue a public statement announcing it intends to strip the church of privileges. The government of Prime Minister Mario Monti took that step on Wednesday, telling the European Commission that it intends to change Italian law to ensure the church pays property tax on the parts of its buildings used for commercial ends.
The church owns vast amounts of property in Italy, and the move is aimed at making sure that convents that offer bed and breakfast or church buildings that rent space to shops pay their full share of taxes.
The change — once it is formally drafted and approved by Parliament — could result in revenues of $650 million to $2.6 billion annually, according to municipal government associations. It could also set an example for other debt-strapped European countries — most notably Greece and Spain — where there is growing popular resentment over tax breaks for the church.
It would set an example for the United States – not only for Old World religions but the all-American bible belt crowd.
Even in Catholic Italy, the proposal shows the churchgoing Mr. Monti’s ability to read the national mood. Faced with their own belt-tightening and tax increases, Italians are increasingly fed up with what they see as unfair privileges — be it of the political class or the church. After new austerity measures were passed in December, 130,000 people signed an online petition calling on the government to revoke the church’s tax-exempt status…
Today, many church buildings fall into a gray area, taking advantage of a tax exemption for religious organization’s buildings even if they are largely commercial in use…
Overdue? It’s all overdue.
The only exemptions religions should have from taxation are those befitting non-profit charitable works. Period. End of discussion.
Take the time to discuss this with most folks and even the most thoroughly brainwashed True Believer will generally understand the sense of fairness that should discipline the funding of necessary government. It’s an all-in proposition. Certain work – like charity – might be exempt. Not individuals or organizations just by definition of their belief system.
Republicans and Catholic bishops embrace each other in opposing women’s rights
The bishop knows where to send the check…
The Democratic-led Senate is expected to reject as early as Thursday a largely symbolic Republican challenge to a White House rule guaranteeing free birth control for women who work for religiously affiliated employers.
Even Senate defeat of the legislation would allow Republican lawmakers to take a stand in a rancorous election year debate over a policy that is vehemently opposed by social conservatives and Roman Catholic bishops…
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in January that employers including those with religious affiliations — such as universities, charities and hospitals — would have to provide free birth control coverage for women enrolled in their health plans. Church employees are exempt from the rule…
The birth control coverage requirement infuriated Catholic leaders…who think they have a right to overrule civil law in America…
Roy Blunt’s bill would exempt employers from providing health benefits that conflict with “beliefs and moral convictions.” Anyone standing in line to watch Congress explain their “beliefs and moral conviction”?
Democrats including California Senator Barbara Boxer denounced the measure as too broad, saying it could allow potentially any employer to deny additional types of health insurance coverage on moral grounds.
It’s only been about a day since the last time I said this: I realize Christianity may hold the copyright on hypocrisy; but, today’s Republicans – with appropriate aid from the Kool Aid Party – have perfected the process.
Now we get to witness temporary nutball unity between the 14th Century and the 19th Century in an attempt to turn this nation into a theocracy.
Priests hired their own killers in a lovers’ suicide pact
Two Colombian priests who were found shot dead in the capital Bogota a year ago themselves hired the assassins who killed them, prosecutors say. They said the priests had agreed a suicide pact after one of them was diagnosed with AIDs, but contracted hitmen because they could not bring themselves to carry it out.
Relatives of the dead priests insist they were victims of an armed robbery. They have denied reports that they were involved in a gay relationship.
Two of the alleged killers are being prosecuted after being traced from calls made from the priests’ phones.
Father Richard Piffano, 37, and Father Rafael Reatiga, 35, were found shot dead in a car in southern Bogota in January 2011.
Prosecutors allege they paid the suspected hitmen around $8,500 to kill them and make it look like a robbery attempt.
The two priests had been friends since their training and often celebrated Mass and other religious services together, Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper reported.
In his final church service, Father Reatiga asked parishioners to pray to Santa Marta, the patron saint of lost causes, the paper reported, while Father Piffano asked his to “pray for me”.
Suicide – like homosexual acts – is forbidden in the Catholic Church.
Apparently, the worst sin is love. There are so many sides to this tale that didn’t have to be, that didn’t have to end in death and sadness. All that was required was walking away from the ideology and customs of the Catholic Church.
A great deal of the world is willing to accept love as one of the greatest manifestations of humanity. Enough so, that folks living in societies still influenced by so-called religious morality have already moved in great numbers away from strictures that define love and marriage as something that only happens between one man and one woman.
Divorce is part of the door opening. In most cases freeing a woman from a relationship gone sour.
Understanding that sexuality is a natural part of human life encompassing so much beyond primitive animal reproduction. I don’t expect religious bodies that still require official celibacy and the supremacy of men to get that. But, virtually all Catholics reject silliness like the banning of contraception. Any access at all to sensible science and sociology opens people to a vision of life as the sensual beings we are.
And that sensuality needn’t be limited by anything more than taste and inclination – within acceptable cultural limits of an age of understanding and decision.
These two men should have walked away from a calling that died centuries ago. They should have chosen a new life and enjoyed their love. Death is a decision only left to people without the understanding to change their own lives. Forget the ideology that cannot comprehend change. Or love.
White House compromise still guarantees contraceptive coverage for women — sort of!
Turning their backs on Catholic women
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Seeking to allay the concerns of Catholic leaders and head off an escalating political storm, President Obama on Friday announced an adjustment to the administration’s health-care rule requiring religiously affiliated employers to provide contraceptive coverage to women.
Women still will be guaranteed coverage for contraceptive services without any out-of-pocket cost, but will have to seek the coverage directly from their insurance companies if their employers object to birth control on religious grounds…
Religiously-affiliated non-profit employers such as schools, charities, universities, and hospitals will be able to provide their workers with plans that exclude such coverage. However, the insurance companies that provide the plans will have to offer those workers the opportunity to obtain additional contraceptive coverage directly, at no additional charge.
Churches remain exempt from the birth-control coverage requirement. And their workers will not have the option of obtaining separate contraceptive coverage under the new arrangement.
The administration’s decision to make an adjustment reflected the high political stakes of an issue that had generated intense criticism in recent days from a growing chorus of Catholic and Republicans leaders, as well as some Democrats. In Congress and on the campaign trail, leading Republicans attacked the Obama administration’s position as a war on religion.
The article carries on with the usual blather about even-handedness, reflection, blah, blah, blah.
The decision is one of opportunism and cowardice from a politician without the backbone of Richard Nixon. Nixon may have been a crook – but he signed off on the 1970 Title X Public Health Service Act supporting access to contraception. Obama sounds like he wouldn’t sign it 42 years later.
Republicans may be right-wing ideologues; but, they’re willing to stand up and confront the overwhelming majority of our populace, men and women — and advocate for backwards religious concepts that have nothing to do with civil rights, science or advancing society. Obama hasn’t the courage to defend women, civil rights, science or society.
I thought I was only being pressed to vote against the evil of two lessers in the coming election. It appears I haven’t even that much of a choice. If I only get to choose between a reactionary politician and an opportunist who won’t stand up to reactionary politicians – I can refuse to vote for either one.
Police bust faux-holy water racket – well, one of them!
Italian police have arrested 39 doctors who were selling holy water as a cure for cancer and other diseases…
Those arrested were charged with conspiracy, fraud, personal injury and wrongful practice for selling the holy water, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.
Customers were told online the miracle cure, called “White Light Water,” came from the holy shrines of Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje and cost as much as $263 per vial. Doctors selling the fake holy water often told customers to abandon traditional medical treatment and rely instead on the “frequencies” given off by the blessed water, police said.
Police searched four doctors’ offices in Ancona, Bari, Milan and Venice, where the concoction was bottled and redistributed, plus 4,000 flasks of ready-to-ship water.
Face it. People who believe that water can be changed into something holy that will cure your ills – are ready and willing targets for fraudsters.
The questions before the court – in Italy? Hah! – are these doctors charged with selling phony holy water? What if they sold “official” holy water with a spif to the Catholic Church?
Never mind that last question. I already know the answer to that one. Including the part about not paying taxes on the sale.
Obama rejects Roman Catholic Church plea for exemption from insurance covering birth control
The Obama administration said Friday that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge, and it rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for insurance provided to employees of Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities.
Federal officials said they would give such church-affiliated organizations one additional year — until Aug. 1, 2013 — to comply with the requirement. Most other employers and insurers must comply by this Aug. 1…
Since I’m a devout member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster can I get a similar one-year dispensation, say, from paying my income tax?
The rule takes a big step to remove cost as a barrier to birth control, a longtime goal of advocates for women’s rights and experts on women’s health.
In announcing details of the final rule on Friday, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said it “strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”
“Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women,” Ms. Sebelius said, and “it is documented to significantly reduce health costs.”
Catholic bishops issued a statement saying…“Blah, blah, blah, bladiddy-blah, blah, blah!”…
Italy pressures Catholic Church to start paying property taxes
B&B run by a convent in Rome – tax free to the church
The Roman Catholic Church in Italy is under growing pressure to start paying taxes on its massive property portfolio, in a move that could raise up to 800 million euros a year and help bail the country out of its economic crisis.
Campaigners, most prominently parties on the centre left, say it is deeply unfair that Church-owned properties with a commercial function — for instance convents and monasteries that charge paying guests similar rates to four-star hotels — are exempt from property tax.
As the new technocrat government of Mario Monti seeks to slash the nation’s 1.9 trillion euro debt, attention is turning to the estimated 65,000 buildings owned by the Church.
They include around 50,000 cathedrals, churches and chapels — which would retain their tax-free status — but 11,000 schools, universities and libraries as well as nearly 5,000 hospitals, clinics and other commercial properties would face the tax.
The Monti administration has announced that Italians are to be taxed on their primary residences, reinstating a levy that had been abolished by Silvio Berlusconi, who resigned from his third term in office last month…
With millions of people facing a bleak era of austerity, politicians are now calling for the enormously rich Church to play its part in shouldering the burden.
The potential windfall is enormous. According to an estate agency, Gruppo RE, a fifth of publicly owned properties in Italy are directly or indirectly controlled by the Church.
RTFA. No doubt you anticipate the rationales, whinge and whine, excuses offered by our Lady of Perpetual Hand Grenades.
The tax is just, fair – and overdue.
Is Obama preparing to copout on Birth Control?
Which Democrat is liable to copout on supporting birth control?
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
A dispute has erupted between President Obama and Democrats in Congress over a proposal to broaden the exemption from new rules that require health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women free of charge.
The National Academy of Sciences recommended that the government adopt such a requirement. And Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, announced in August that she had done so. But after protests by Roman Catholic bishops, charities, schools and universities, the White House is considering a change that would grant a broad exemption to health plans sponsored by employers who object to such coverage for moral and religious reasons.
Churches may already qualify for an exemption. The proposal being weighed by the White House would expand the exemption to many universities, hospitals, clinics and other entities associated with religious organizations.
The prospect of such a change has infuriated many Democrats in Congress, who fought hard to secure coverage of birth control under the new health care law. Senators voiced their objections on Thursday in a telephone conference call with Pete Rouse, counselor to the president. House members registered their objections on Friday in a call with Valerie Jarrett, another member of the president’s inner circle.
House members have sent a letter to Mr. Obama urging him not to widen the exemption. Such a change, they said, would keep contraception out of reach for millions of women.
Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said the broad exemption was “an outrageous idea.”
“Millions of women work for colleges, hospitals and health care systems that are nominally religious, but these folks use birth control and need coverage,” said Ms. DeGette, a leader of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus…
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said: “There is not a scintilla of legislative direction in the statute that requires the broadened exemption the administration is contemplating. This change would be a reversal of the progress made in favor of reproductive rights when President Obama took office…”
When the administration announced the requirement for contraceptive coverage, it said the decision was “based on science.” The resulting uproar has forced Mr. Obama to weigh competing claims of Catholic leaders and advocates for women’s rights, including some of his strongest supporters.
You can RTFA if you feel some compelling need to examine the claims of 14th Century ideologues. The National Academy of Sciences is about as safe as houses for any politician grounded in 20th Century progress – much the 21st Century.
Apparently Obama feels the need to give at least lip service to unconstitutional demands by churches and fundamentalist foolishness. Whether he’s silly enough to give up on men and women who support basic women’s rights to court voters who oppose freedoms agreed to by courts and legislation for most of the decades since World War 2 is beyond comprehension.
But, then, opportunism by just another Democrat instead of hard work and principled struggle ain’t exactly a new phenomenon.
Catholic Bishop indicted for failure to report child abuse
“Just leave your wallet or checkbook at the door on the way in!”
A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.
The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.
The case caused an uproar among Catholics in Kansas City this year when Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. During that time, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, is said to have continued to attend church events with children, and took lewd photographs of another young girl.
A decade ago the American bishops pledged to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities — a policy also recommended last year by the Vatican. Bishop Finn himself had made such a promise three years ago as part of a $10 million legal settlement with abuse victims in Kansas City…
“This is huge for us,” said Michael Hunter, director of the Kansas City chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and a victim of sexual abuse by a priest. “It’s something that I personally have been waiting for years to see, some real accountability. We’re very pleased with the prosecuting attorney here to have the guts to do it…”
In a news conference, the Jackson County prosecutor, Jean Peters Baker said the case was not religiously motivated, but was about the obligation under state law to report child abuse.
“This is about protecting children,” she said.
Finally.
American police, American politicians lead the world in cowardice when it comes to addressing crimes of the Roman Catholic clergy. Sad enough these organizations don’t pay their own way, don’t meet the essential responsibility of paying taxes to fund the sustenance of civil society.
That the politicians of our nation kowtow to some mystical higher presence in the face of crime is sickening. That sleazy exploiters go unindicted and protected by the complicity of princes of the church and loyal hacks in government is one of the most disgusting chapters in the history of American politics.
Independent Left party to push for secular Poland
An ultra-liberal party that surged from nowhere to third place in Poland’s election plans to shake up the political system with demands for the repeal of restrictions on individual freedoms and an end to the Catholic Church’s privileges.
Janusz Palikot, a wealthy former vodka tycoon, has stormed into parliament with 10 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election at the head of a motley crew of political novices that includes Poland’s first transsexual lawmaker, Anna Grodzka.
A tired but jubilant Palikot, a former member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling centre-right Civic Platform that has won re-election, said on Monday Poland was ripe for change. “We’re fighting a culture of delegalisation. In Poland, you go to jail for insulting the President, for a word, for insulting religious feelings, insulting an official,” the 46-year-old divorcee and father of four told reporters.
“You go to jail for drinking beer and then walking with your bike. You go to jail for smoking a joint. For abortion. This is a nihilist policy which hurts people.”
Palikot’s Movement, as the party is known, has tapped into a rich vein of disaffection, especially among young people, by supporting gay rights, abortion, public funding for in vitro fertilisation and legalisation of soft drugs…
Palikot has scandalised conservative Poles with stunts such as waving a dildo and a toy gun at a news conference to publicise a rape case against a policeman, and with his outspoken call for an end to the Catholic Church’s privileges…
But Palikot wants to end tax exemptions for priests and public funding for religion classes in state schools.
Bravo!
I haven’t visited Poland in decades; but, it sounds like life is getting exciting. Challenging the Catholic Church not only demands sound analysis and forethought – it also sounds like the time is coming ripe for secular freedom for Polish culture.
