Category: Church & State

Posted on

Catholic Church Is Biggest Funder Of MN Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

If you put money in the collection plate at a Catholic church in Minnesota you’re helping to fund a campaign against gay marriage in Minnesota. The Catholic Archdiocese of Minneapolis & St. Paul and the Catholic Dioceses of New Ulm contributed $700,000 last year to support an anti-gay Minnesota constitutional amendment.

The constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman, effectively banning gay or lesbian marriage, is scheduled to be on this November’s general election ballot. Half of that money, $350,000 has been donated to Minnesota For Marriage which is spearheading the push to get the constitutional amendment approved.

Minnesota For Marriage has also received $226,000 from it’s closely related Minnesota Family Council and $250,000 from the National Organization For Marriage fund. Minnesota for Marriage’s report only list seven individuals who donated for a total of $2,119.

The opposition, Minnesotans United For All Families has raised more than $1.2 million, but lists many more individual donors.

Fundraising reports for groups on both sides of the amendment battle were released by the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board today
Minnesotans United For All Families Report
Minnesota For Marriage Report

All reports for ballot initiatives

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Maine Catholic Church versus gay rights advocates

Maine’s Catholic Church and a coalition of gay rights advocates are once again fighting an emotional battle over same sex marriage.

Supporters delivered signatures to the Secretary of State’s office in Augusta Thursday and officially launched a new campaign to give same sex couples the right to marry in Maine.

From Cumberland to Caribou, these boxes contain the signatures of more than 100,000 Maine voters.

All of them gathered by gay marriage supporters who want the issue on the November ballot.

“It is never too late for justice never too late to do the right thing, time to end discrimination against Maine same sex couples and their families,” said Shenna Bellows with Maine’s Civil Liberties Union.

This new campaign comes three years after a stinging defeat for gay marriage supporters when Maine voters overturned a same sex marriage law passed by the legislature.

Back in 2009, gay marriage supporters needed to lobby lawmakers. This time around, they are going directly to Maine voters.

Advocates say they have knocked on more than 100,000 doors in the past year, trying to change hearts and minds one person at a time.

Lucy Bauer and her partner of nearly 20 years, Annie Kiermeyer, are hopeful this more personal campaign will have a different result.

“Nothing will please us more than to have the commitment made to each other acknowledged and honored by people here in our beloved state,” said Bauer.

Maine’s Catholic Church, which played a big role in the campaign to overturn the law three years ago is gearing up for another battle, albeit reluctantly.

“Quite frankly, we don’t think we should have to go through this again,” said Church spokesperson Brian Souchet. “It’s divisive and contentious lot of money spent on both sides.”

Gay marriage advocates believe the campaign will cost their side between four and five million dollars.

They are encouraged by internal polling that shows 54 percent of Mainers now support the issue.

But polls aren’t votes and, over the next 10 months, both sides expect it’s going to be a difficult and emotional debate.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

September trial date set for KC bishop, diocese

The trial of Bishop Robert W. Finn and the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., the first bishop and diocese to face criminal charges in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis, has been set for September.

Finn and the diocese were charged in October by a grand jury in Jackson County, Mo., with separate counts of failing to report suspected child abuse in the case of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a diocesan priest who was arrested last May for child pornography.

Lawyers for Finn and the diocese met with Jackson County Judge John Torrence on Thursday to set a Sept. 24 trial date in the case. Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Speaking to NCR after the meeting, which was held in the judge’s chambers, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker said Torrence also set the next pretrial hearing for March 27, when the court would deal with motions from the defense.

Gerald Handley, one of three lawyers representing the diocese, said the judge had given defense lawyers until early February to file motions in the case, which the prosecution would have to respond to by March 9. Two other lawyers were also present to represent Finn.

News of the trial date comes after the diocese confirmed Wednesday that it placed another diocesan priest on administrative leave pending a review by the diocesan review board into unspecified allegations.

In a press release, no details about that case were available because the review board’s investigation is still under way.

“While this investigation is in a preliminary phase, the diocese urges everyone to understand that further information only can be made available once the facts are known,” the statement reads.

The trial date also comes as Finn is undertaking court-mandated parish visits to parishes in Clay County, Mo., as part of an agreement with the county prosecutor there to avoid charges in the Ratigan case.

The diocesan chancery is located in Jackson County. The parish where Ratigan last served as pastor is in Clay County.

The Clay County agreement between Finn and prosecutor Daniel White allowed the bishop to avoid criminal charges if he agreed to meet with diocesan parishes in that county to outline diocesan reporting procedures for suspected child abuse.

Finn also agreed to meet monthly with White to discuss all reported suspicions of abuse in the county and to appoint a new director of child and youth protection.

The second in a series of visits to county parishes took place Jan. 14 at St. James Church in Liberty, Mo.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

The end of the mystique

A Philadelphia prosecutor has decisively — and good for him — ended 2000-years of unwarranted deference to the Catholic Church.

Prosecutors on Monday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of being an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a clergy sex abuse case and said the Roman Catholic Church fed predators a steady supply of children.

Everybody willing to know the truth has known the truth for a long time: The Catholic Church has masterminded a global criminal conspiracy centered on the sexual abuse of children for a long time.

What is so striking is that now a state prosecutor is saying so, too, instead of a few hundred cranky bloggers. However naturally this may follow from the past decade of revelations, however easily it may be overlooked in the cataracts of abuse stories, this is a milestone.

And it might be that the pews are at last waking-up, too. Notice this comment at Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

It’s funny that you linked to the story regarding the Catholic Church’s position on the birth control under the health care insurance rules. My wife, daughter and I went to mass on Long Island on Saturday night at 5PM, a mass that tends to be an older crowd though some families are mixed in. Our pastor was the celebrant and his sermon amounted to him yelling for 15 minutes about abortion, the administration’s anti-religious attacks, and contraception. He was particularly upset about the contraception rules – yelling about taking money out of his insurance premiums to subsidy the pill – to the point that he took the Lord’s name in vain as he walked in front of the altar. When he was screaming about the money, the only thought that went through my mind was the amount of money I’ve put into the collection box that was used by the Church to cover up pedophile priest cases.

This is the tipping point. Prosecutors will no longer go after just a single priest, but those who protected him, too. And they’re not going to have to worry any longer about public blowback, either.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Minn. archbishop warns priests to toe line

Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt has warned a Minnesota priest to toe the church line in support of a marriage amendment referendum or face the consequences.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Sunday Nienstedt sent a letter last fall to the Rev. Mike Tegeder, the pastor at St. Frances Cabrini and Gichitwaa Kateri churches in Minneapolis who has voice opposition to the proposed amendment to the state Constitution that goes before Minnesota voters in November.

Nienstedt told Tegeder unless he desists in opposing the amendment that would define marriage as a union only between a man and woman he would strip the priest of his “faculties to exercise ministry” and remove him from his “ministerial assignments.”

Tegeder said he doesn’t believe the church should be actively campaigning in support of the amendment. Minnesota has about 1.1 million Catholics.

“That’s not the way to support marriage,” Tegeder said. “If we want to support marriage, there are wonderful things we can do as Catholic churches and ministers. We should not be focused on beating up a small number of people who have this desire to have committed relationships.”

But Nienstedt has told Catholic clergy across the state there is to be no “open dissension” of the church’s support for the measure. As the archbishop sees it, the very existence of marriage hangs in the balance.

“The endgame of those who oppose the marriage amendment that we support is not just to secure certain benefits for a particular minority, but, I believe, to eliminate the need for marriage altogether,” he said in a letter to the state’s clergy.

“As I see it, we have this one chance as Minnesotans to make things right. The stakes could not be higher.”

Nienstedt is marshaling his forces, sending priests and married couples to Catholic high schools to talk about marriage and having parishes organize committees to work for the amendment’s passage, the Star Tribune said.

Complete Article HERE!