Death to Free Speech in the Netherlands

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That's my biggest beef with the situation. Why, if Hawards was considered a threat to the VP, was he not arrested on the spot. Regardless of whether it was 5 or 10 minutes later, he was initially allowed to walk away from the VP. You can walk pretty darn far in 5 minutes. At a brisk pace you could be half way across the mall, or back to your car and driving away if the initial confronation had occurred near an exit. His arrest could be seen as retaliatory.

 

Newest threat to free speech, http://revkharma.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/urgent-first-amendment-under-attack/

http://cga.ct.gov/2009/TOB/S/2009SB-01098-R00-SB.htm
I can see their concern but i can sorta see the other side too.
So what do you esteemed posters think?

 

I'd like to hear a definition of 'corporate' in this context. On the one hand, there's the modern common use of relating to commercial business, as in a corporation, but in churches the term is frequently found in the older use, dealing with a collection of the church body, as in 'corporate worship' wherein the church body gathers together for worship.

If the Catholic Church is conducting some kind of for-profit, or to any extent outside of the Church itself, not-for-profit business with this board, then this may make a bit of sense. If this is simply the governing board of the local church, then I don't think the State (be it Connecticut or Federal) has any right to do this. It's blatand interferance in the free exercise of religion. Can anyone fill me in?

EDIT: A quick googling has turned up almost nothing other than this proposed law in Connecticut. Aparently, this is meant to replace an exiting law governing the same bodies, though I don't know what it entails. Admittedly biassed writers claim that this would essentially take all governing power over the diocese (how to I pluralize that?) away from the Catholic Church's hierarchy. I'm still not sure who it would give it to, but that seems to me to be a blatant violation of the first ammendment. Still, please fill me in if you know more.

 

I heard on the radio this morning that the two guys who sponsored this legislation are basically in hiding after the conservatives outed this. The Hartford Courant (major newspaper) is supposedly also embarrassed as they never published anything about it, until today.

Spoilered for those to lazy to click.

Spoiler

A proposed bill that would take power from Catholic priests and bishops and turn it over to parishioners has sparked outrage among church leaders, criticism from opposition lawmakers and questions about its legality.

"You cannot tell a church how it can govern itself," said Marc D. Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress in New York. "The church is entitled to govern itself any which way it wants."

The bill, which would create lay councils of seven to 13 people to oversee the finances of local parishes, relegating Catholic pastors and bishops to an advisory role, won't get its official public hearing before the legislature's judiciary committee until Wednesday.

But by Monday, a firestorm had erupted: Thousands of Catholics contacted the committee's co-chairmen, Rep. Michael Lawlor, D- East Haven, and Sen. Andrew McDonald, D- Stamford, to register their displeasure; McDonald's in-box was inundated with 3,600 e-mails by 9:30 a.m., an aide said.



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Catholics At Lenten Services Photos Senate Republican leader John McKinney called the proposal "offensive" and "patently unconstitutional." And the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights issued a statement demanding that Lawlor and McDonald be removed from office.

"I was astounded at the reaction in my own parish," said Monsignor John J. McCarthy. Like priests across the state, he discussed the proposal with his parish at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford on Sunday. "People wanted to know, 'How can the legislature do this? Isn't this unconstitutional?' I can't recall seeing such strong reaction to any issue."

Bridgeport Bishop William Lori also condemned the bill, calling it "a thinly veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex marriage."

The proposal is part of a larger struggle within the Catholic Church over the balance of power between the laity and the leadership. "Catholic lay people provide all the funds for the running of the parish, but they have absolutely no executive authority for how those dollars are spent," said Paul Lakeland, director for the Center of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University. "That's a situation that increasing numbers of people are unhappy with."

The issue was brought to McDonald by a Catholic constituent from Greenwich named Tom Gallagher, who is part of a group pressing for parishioners to play a greater role in church governance following two cases of financial impropriety at Fairfield County churches.

McDonald, who is Catholic, said he is keeping an "open mind" and had yet to decide whether to embrace the measure. But he does not regret raising the issue.

"I certainly think it's an appropriate function for legislators to listen to constituents who have been the victims of fraud and take their concerns seriously," he said.

The state already has laws, some dating back more than 140 years, regulating religious denominations. If the new proposal is unconstitutional, McDonald said, perhaps existing laws are as well.

This is not the first time the idea of Catholic governance has been broached. Former Republican state Rep. Claudia "Dolly" Powers of Greenwich said she, too, was approached by constituents seeking a similar bill in recent years. "It's a very difficult issue to try and tackle without crossing some of those lines," she said Monday. "We did give it a shot ... but it just didn't fly."

John Lucarelli is a member of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Greenwich, where the former pastor was forced to resign amid allegations of financial mismanagement, including claims that he kept two bank accounts secret from the diocese. An audit showed $400,000 was missing.

"I love the church, but there is a need for reforms," said Lucarelli, who, along with Gallagher, was active in a group called Catholics for Better Governance. "My hope is that this encourages debate within our parishes to get the laity more involved. It's the only way to get the healing process to begin. ... If parishioners don't stand up and take back their church, these things will continue."

Lucarelli acknowledged that legislative fiat might not be the best way to achieve that goal. But other efforts to convince church leadership to change have been unsuccessful, he said. "You keep banging your head against the wall, but you've got to stop and try a new tack," he said.

Catholic leaders say this is about more than the shape of church bureaucracy. The question of church governance goes to the very core of the faith dating to the apostles who walked with Christ, McCarthy said. "The bishops are charged by divine law according to our faith with the governance of our church," he said. "This proposal is contrary to the apostolic nature of our church."

And it's not only Catholics who should be concerned, McKinney said. "If government can change the Catholic religion, then it can change any religion."

Capitol Bureau Chief Christopher Keating contributed to this story.

 

Ok, one, if Church finances are being used by individuals for individual gains, I'm pretty sure that's illegal and the individuals should be prosecuted according to existing laws. If it isn't illegal, I'm sure the Catholic Church frowns upon it.

Two, if individual parrishoners don't like the way their parrish is spending the money they give it, they should change parrishes (or even not donate at all). Remember, this is an entirely voluntary system. It's like people donating to the Red Cross insisting on having a say in how the money is spent.

Three, it seems to me like it is (and thus the existing laws are) a direct violation, at the least, of the long-touted ideal of Seperation of Church and State, and probably directly of the First Amendment. If the State says that Church X can't exist in this State unless it follows these rules, it sounds like a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. I don't think this will pass, but even if it does, it should be overturned by the Supreme Court (or earlier) quickly.

 

Well, "frowning upon it," and actually doing something about it are two different things in the Catholic Church, if recent history is an indicator.

 

A parish is essentially the geographic area you live in. I don't see many people moving house over the issue.

Other than that I agree entirely with what you say. If you don't like the way an organisation is run you don't have to give it money. So, what business is it of the State to be involved?

 

Yes, Déise, that was pointed out to me recently. I actually didn't realize the Catholic Church was so, well, anal about it. Still, I'll bet you could at least give the money to a different parrish. I doubt they'll complain.

 

While this definition is true, if you don't like your particular church, there's nothing that says you have to give to the specific church (or belong to the specific church) that is in your geographic region. I'm Catholic, and the church I go to is the only Catholic Church within a few miles of where I live. But that choice was made stictly out of convenience for me. If I didn't mind driving 20 miles into Baltimore to go to church, I could certainly belong to and donate money to a different parish from the one in which I live.

I don't know the inner workings of church finance, but your statement seems to imply that if I give money to a Catholic Church outside my immediate geographic area, that my donation would be sent back to my parish. While this may be the case, I have never heard of that happening before.

 

Sorry, it's obvious I wasn't clear in what I meant.

What I was getting at was that very few people would go to the bother of making a 40 mile round trip to church every week unless they had a serious problem with the parish. I'm sure you could if you wanted to.

 

Ah, now I understand what you mean. I concede that point.

 

I'm not sure about the scope of the law in question -- perhaps it is overly intrusive. But fraud is still fraud no matter who commits it. The government is well within its rights to demand that people not lie about the disbursement of funds they receive from donors.

But dictating the composition of a church's regulatory body seems heavy handed, though again I'll say I need to see more about the details of the law.

 

Yeah it seems to be kind of "murky" the way it is written. It leaves to much open to interpretation

 

Fraud is fraud, yes, and should be investigated and prosecuted no matter who commits it, but what this law does is totally different. Making fraud illegal, even making compliance with an investigation a legal mandate, is one thing. Mandating control structures, or anything other than handing over materials, is something entirely different. It is also blatantly unconstitutional.

To put it plainly, from the view of the Constitution and law, this seems to be the same thing as the State taking control of the Church and it's properties. The only difference here is that the State gives it to someone else, in this case the lay members of the Church.

The other thing that worries me is how exactly this board would be elected. I mean, if it's simply an election within the Parrish, what's to stop an outside group from moving in (literally, as it would take several years) and putting their own people in power? This group wouldn't even have to be Christian in anything more than name, just members of the Parrish.

 

For what nefarious purpose would people, who are not really Christians, want to be elected to a governing body of a local Catholic church? There is a heirarchy in the Catholic Church, with the parish being the smallest distinction. A diocese is the next rung up the ladder, usually run by a Bishop. An outside group acquiring governing control of a local church will find that it really doesn't have all that much power.

 

Umm, to control the finances of that local church? To mess with the Church in general? On one hand, there are people that will do just about anything for money. Those probably wouldn't come in any sizable number, but a con could still get them elected. On the other hand, the Catholic Church has a lot of enemies. Extreme leftists, supporters of abortion or gay marriage, other religions (I hear Scientology has a particularly big beef with them), all would love an easy way to mess up the Chruch and give it a bad reputation, even if only locally.

 

OK, I see. I thought you were only looking at it from a financial standpoint. Local parishes pay their operating expenses, and the remainder of money goes up to the diocese level, and so on up the chain. If a church who has for years been taking in, say $1 million in contributions, and a new group takes over and suddenly they only start reporting half a million, the people at the diocese level will know something is up. It would be difficult to siphon off a significant amount of money without the higher-ups noticing.

Now, if you're talking about just causing general mayhem in the Catholic Church, you have a much better argument (this is in response to the second half of your post). However, I still maintain that the Catholic Church does a pretty good job of that by themselves (think priests sodomizing altar boys - an inconvenient truth that has cost the Catholic Church over $1 billion in the last 10 years) without others trying to give them a bad name.

 

Ah, but Aldeth, if the contributions dropped to 1/2 a mil, it'd still be the legitimate actions of the legitimate controllers of the money. That's the thing, it'd be entirely legal, and they couldn't do anything about it.

 

Ok this is about free speech but it is also (sorta) about freedom of religion.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/...eeducation-being-enforced-homeschooling-.html

Just don't know what to say except that i'm ashamed that this judge is in nc.

 

Homeschooling is illegal here and the entire concept of religious schools under strong assault. Both things I support wholeheartedly. All schools need to cover the same basic curriculum and homeschooling, the only people who would want to homeschool their children are people with believes that are very contrary to that of society as a whole.