Restoring The Primacy of Christian Values in America

by Mark Henry

The fact that America has elected the most pro-abortion and most socialist leaning U.S President and Congress in our Country’s history says much about how far our country has strayed from the traditional Christian values upon which our country was established.

Quo Vadis – where is America headed? With Congress’s passage of the federal health insurance takeover bill, America has lurched down the path of socialism. Emboldened by this victory, the far left leaders of the Democratic party will likely seek to further increase the power of the federal government over the private sector and the individual by way of new laws, regulations and policies.

With the federal health insurance takeover finally completed, a wide array of statist oriented policies are likely to follow which will dramatically expand the role of government and further undermine the important impact that the values of life, faith and family historically have had in America. These new policies will result in the federal government promoting abortion, euthanasia, and non-traditional marriage at an unprecedented level.

Additionally, we will no doubt see new entitlement programs established that will stifle personal freedom and initiative and, instead, will usher in greater citizenry dependence on big government. The unprecedented growth in government that will follow is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic social doctrine of subsidiarity. Essentially, this important Church doctrine states that decisions are best made at a smaller, more local level, rather than issuing forth from a more distant centralized source.

The common thread running through the federal health insurance industry takeover and other statist policies the government is pursuing is a modus operandi to transform America into a post Christian nation. What the majority party leaders seek is to subordinate traditional values like faith, family and personal responsibility and to elevate moral relativism, utilitarianism, narcissism and other secular values. We cannot allow them to do this.

Of course, these striking changes in government policy should not come as a big a surprise to most clear thinking Americans. This is because during his campaign for the Presidency, Barrack Hussein Obama often said that he intended to transform America while he studiously avoided saying just what it was he wanted to change. Regrettably, the mantra of unspecified change was good enough for far too many Americans.

Now it is patently clear what the President and the Democratic leadership plan to do to America and its citizens. What they envision is an America that looks more like the secular and socialistic countries of Europe and nothing at all like the traditional Christian values based country our founders established.

Any serious doubt about this euro-centric direction vanishes when you see that the major policy initiatives of the Obama administration are substantially identical to the statist big government policies followed by the dominant countries of the European Union. This administration’s policies concerning health care, abortion, same sex marriage, global warming and taxation are all in lock step with prevailing European Union policies.

Well, what is so wrong with coming back into the fold and returning to the values of Europe, the land where many of our ancestors hailed from? Well, to begin with today’s Europe is a world apart from the traditional Christian values based civilization of either our forefathers or the Europe which American soldiers died defending in World Wars I and II. Foundational American values like respect for life, traditional families and freedom of religion are on the wane in most of Europe.

Our Constitution’s Bill of Rights expressly protects the free exercise of religion. On the other hand, the Constitution of the European Union intentionally lacks any acknowledgment of the singularly important role that Christianity has had in shaping European civilization. While the ramifications of such a collective rejection of Europe’s Christian heritage is beyond the scope of this article, it suffices to say that our American Constitution and the European Union’s Constitution are oceans apart and America is much better off for it, thank you.

Therein lies the crux of the problem. President Obama and the leftist leadership of the Democratic party would like to build a statist bridge to take America down the path towards the European socialist welfare state.

However, to take America on this transformative journey, Democrat leaders will need to cajole more Americans into sacrificing their traditional values like faith, freedom and personal responsibility and, instead, get Americans to accept these new statist policies and leftist secular values. Faithful Catholics need to join together with increasing numbers of Americans who will oppose these efforts to transform America into a nation the Founders would scarcely recognize.

What Can Catholic Christians Do To Restore America’s Christian Values? With the Democrat leadership’s game plan now more obvious, the only questions unanswered are whether the Catholic faithful are prepared to fight for our country’s Christian heritage and, if so, how are we to wage that battle?

There are critically important actions we the Catholic faithful need to begin taking immediately to restore and preserve America’s Christian heritage for future generations. The strategies we need to pursue run the gamut and include ecclesial, cultural, economic, educational, legal and, most assuredly, political action. More will be said in the next issue in this series of articles; The Fight to Preserve America’s Christian Heritage.

Congressman Massa Tries To Torpedo Obama Healthcare Bill

by Mark Henry

Congressman Eric Massa resigned from office Monday night claiming that Democrat leaders pressured him to resign because he intended to vote “no” on the Senate’s controversial health bill. Massa’s resignation occurred after an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of staffers was made public.

Massa alleges that he was set-up by Democrat leaders who are desperate to reduce the number of yes votes needed to pass the health bill. Massa, a former Naval Commander, admits to using inappropriate "salty" language but that the remaining ethics charges are trumped up.

Last Sunday, on a Hornell, N.Y. radio program Massa spent 90 minutes attacking Democrat leaders including Majority Whip Steny Hoyer and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In his comments, Massa lambasted Emanuel, calling him “the son of the devil's spawn" and said he would "strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive" to get a vote passed through Congress.

Democrat leaders are doing the best to maintain a stiff upper lip and deny Massa’s allegations that they will do “whatever it takes” to pass the unpopular health bill, including destroying the career of one of their own party members. However, Massa’s story has marathon legs and is getting extensive coverage on the radio, television and online media. The story is not only garnering coverage from the predictable conservative programs but is also getting critical attention from leading left of center venues like the Huffington Post.

The details of former Congressmen Massa’s complaints of harsh tactics by Democrat leaders are interesting but not that important. The real story here is the emergence of a clear modus operandi of unseemly deal-making and Chicago thug like intimidation by Democrat leaders intent on doing whatever it takes to get this health insurance bill passed.

Massa is part of a group of centrist and blue dog Democrats who have come under fierce pressure to pass the health bills in the Senate and House. Democrat Bart Stupak has been critical of the Senate bills lack of prohibitions against federal funding of abortions. Others have criticized the Senate bill as an expensive first step towards an eventual takeover of the health insurance industry. Republicans have strongly criticized the Senate bill’s mandate that essentially all Americans purchase health insurance.

These problematic aspects of the health bills, along with the hardball tactics employed by Democratic leaders to win approval of fellow Democrats have resulted in this version of health reform being very unpopular with the majority of Americans.
Given the unpopularity of the health bills, many are wondering why the Democrat leadership is so doggedly determined to pass the bills.

Conservative Commentator Mark Steyn has opined that “Government health care is not about health care, it’s about government.” Steyn asserts that once socialized medicine is put into place it will be next to impossible to get rid of this new entitlement program. This will result in a fundamental change in America with the country having a new and likely permanent left of center entitlement based foundation.

The Senate bill’s encroachment by the federal government into health care insurance is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic social doctrine of subsidiarity. This important Church doctrine states that decisions are best made at a smaller, more local level, rather than issuing forth from a more distant centralized source. Subsidiarity is wholly consistent with principles of limited government and personal freedom. On the other hand, it stands squarely in opposition to the statist welfare state’s core tenets of top down, centralized bureaucratic planning.

With the extreme measures used by Democratic leaders to cajole cooperation by their rank and file, it should come as no surprise when a recalcitrant party member pivots, turns on their ex-leader and shouts out a critique or two as he is shoved out the door. Massa said that if he was forced to resign he would not go quietly.

Massa’s tour de force series of prime time interviews during which he rains down criticism on his party’s leadership may be the torpedo that hits the health insurance cruiser just below the waterline. The only question is whether the next command from Democrat leaders presently steering the ship of state will be "abandon ship" or "all hands on deck". Recent polls suggest that most Americans hope it is the former rather than the later.

Mark Henry is a Catholic writer, speaker and author of “Finish Faithful”, a how to guide on Catholic estate planning. He can be reached at mthenrysaz@gmail.com or http://markhenry-quovadis.blogspot.com/