« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Democrats attempt to take control of Connecticut Catholic Church.

Why, yes, that *does* sound like an egregious violation of various constitutions.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 9th, 2009 at 09:18 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Chris Dodd must be annoying people all over Connecticut. The paper didn’t even try to hide political affiliations for this one:

After a priest stole $1.4 million from a church in Darien, state legislators have proposed a law that would regulate how parishes are controlled and operated.

The state’s Catholic bishops rallied opposition from the pulpits at weekend Masses.

The law essentially would strip the dioceses of all financial control of parishes and leave bishops and priests to oversee “matters pertaining exclusively to religious tenets and practices.” A board of elected laypersons would handle parish finances.

The bill, introduced Thursday by the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, chaired by state Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, and state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, caught many Catholics by surprise. They heard about it during Masses.

(Via AoSHQ) Before we go any further, let me quote from Article Seventh of the Connecticut state constitution: “It being the right of all men to worship the Supreme Being, the Great Creator and Preserver of the Universe, and to render that worship in a mode consistent with the dictates of their consciences, no person shall by law be compelled to join or support, nor be classed or associated with, any congregation, church or religious association. No preference shall be given by law to any religious society or denomination in the state. Each shall have and enjoy the same and equal powers, rights and privileges, and may support and maintain the ministers or teachers of its society or denomination, and may build and repair houses for public worship.”

…which should hopefully make sure that people with the reflexive habit of supporting the Democratic Party in any and everything will keep their mouths firmly shut.  Bolding mine: the point here is that even if you assume that the state of Connecticut actually has the right to regulate a religious organization’s hierarchy to this extent, singling out the Catholic Church is a blatant violation of the seventh article – which is what this bill is doing with this legislation.  This should have been obvious from the start, frankly.

In this particular case, it’s probably redundant: state Senator Andrew McDonald (Democrat) and state Representative Michael Lawlor (Democrat) have already repudiated the bill, claiming that they do not endorse it and that its existence is the collective responsibility of the Judiciary Committee. If that sounds like an attempt to evade responsibility, well, it was. Whether or not it succeeds depends in large part over whether the voters of Connecticut are happy at the idea that the Democratic-controlled legislature apparently hasn’t read its own operating manual…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Tags: , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

    The Constitution of the USA ; State Constitutions, Charters, etc…… Our friends on the left will simply do what they want and say “oops” later……….. with the media buying right into all of it.

  • harlan

    …why not the Church.

    Henry the VIII did it and it became the Anglican Church.

    Hmmm…what shall we call it here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.?

    How ’bout the Murican Church, since we’re all Amuricans.

  • Jim

    The arrogance of these thieves in office, who think that society is their play-thing for them to mold and shape as they please! This is flagrant violation of the property rights of the Catholic Church.

    As for that cop-out about the financial shenanigans at the parish in Darien, he was charged with embezzlement and went to jail. It would appear that the laws on the books concerning fraud seem to be working just fine. And I know for a fact that the diocese where that priest was arrested has significantly upgraded and modernized it accounting and financial systems in recent years. In fact, that diocese’s financial model is being examined and emulated by dioceses around the country. And this was done on the diocese’s own initiative without the help of the tyrannical state.

  • Jim

    …is an endeavor undertaken by both parties. The Republicans just do it a little less, and mostly when they are out of power and actually acting like conservatives.

    Hopefully this will wake up some of the Catholics in CT who instinctively vote Democrat to perhaps consider that an entrenched one-party rule is not in their best interests.

  • USNJIMRET
  • nivlem

    But the point was…”no one” did anything about it..we are the “no one’???
    And after the media portrayed all the scandals do you really think anyone will come “to bat’ for the Catholic church.
    It will be the first to tumble according to their plan…
    God help us….we must stop it now…

  • DONTREADONME

    “The Republicans just do it a little less, and mostly when they are out of power and actually acting like conservatives”

    I think you meant this to sound different. The Republicans do it a little less, and mostly when they are in power and not acting conseravite. I could be wrong.

  • spainishirish

    If you think about it, in a way this is just a logical extension of the elimination of the charitable deduction. The Left really thinks it is better at distribution of funds than the private sector. Socialism, hell. This is dimestore Marxism wherein all means of production are taken by the state, including charitable fundraising. Granted it failed, and I have semi-faith the courts would have killed it if this crap made it that far, but the mere fact it was considered has demonstrated what challenges us.

    Wow. Just wow. I don’t even have to get to the equal protection issue to be appalled.

  • papalee

    had done before which resulted in the blowup of 1054. But those whose only idea of Church history is that taken from the Roman schism don’t really have any idea of what happened when or who the players were.

    There was a period of time in my formerly fair city were the Roman archbishop was always able to name the fire chief. Romans simply don’t understand that they have lost control of the Democratic Party and that it now wants to tell them where to get on and to get off.

  • papalee

    have been pushing Marxism just as much as college professors and members of the teachers union. Have none of you heard of Liberation Theology?

  • IJB

    If you’re going to throw a charge like that out, on a *Republican website*, you better have something more to back it up then rhetoric.

    Absolutely, *not* impressed with this.

  • bk

    Imagine if the state could take over Catholic hospitals. Instead of dealing with anti-abortion hospital officials and pesky bishops and archbishops and such, they could just let Planned Parenthood run them all.

    Imagine if the state could take over Catholic schools. It end all that annoying debate over vouchers if the Catholic schools became equal to the rest of the government schools.

    But of course it would be a different story were some legislature to say they want to take over all the mosques for some trumped-up reason like trying to stop the spread of terrorist preaching.

  • renegade

    This is an attempt to weaken the church’s opposition to gay marraige and abortion to get lay people overseeing church operations. Should it be noted that the sponsor of the bill, Andrew McDonald is an openly homosexual legislator that has pushed for recognizing gay marraige in the state.

  • Jim

    ..let’s just continue to kid ourselves into thinking that Republicans have been champions of the Constitution for the past 8 years. Let’s not hold those who claim to be conservatives to their word and to high standards. Let’s be mindless drones who vote for anything with an (R) after their name.

  • Jim

    I got a little tongue tied. You get my point. :)

  • sdan

    that seperation of church and state thing only holds until they found a way to get money out of it.

  • IJB

    If you don’t, read the charter.

    If I were a moderator, I’d ban anyone who tries to tar the Republicans with the same brush as the democrats, because 1) it’s patently untrue, and 2) it doesn’t further the purported aims and goals of this website.

    Your charge is serious, vaguely libelous, and totally unsubstantiated.

    I really have to wonder, as my old headmaster used to say, “if you wouldn’t be happier going someplace else.”

  • Jim

    “The purpose of this site is promote conservative and Republican ideals.”

    When so-called conservatives and RINOs stray from those ideals, they should be called to task. That is called honesty. I am not trying to paint ALL Republicans with the same brush as Democrats, I was merely pointing out that disregard for the Constitution has been done by both parties (often in different ways and on different issues). We all know how crummy the Democrats are on governing in a manner that is in accordance with the Constitution, that part is easy. Of course there are certainly Republicans who are great champions of the Constitution and I applaud them when they do. But party affiliation does not make one immune from abandoning our founding principles. That is all I was trying to point out, and I don’t think that is “serious, vaguely libelous, and totally unsubstantiated.”

    If someone challenges your position on something, and your first instinct is to ban that person and stifle debate, then that is rather sad. I don’t think that it would be beneficial to turn this website into a bunch of “yes men” for the Republican party. Should Erick be banned because he is criticizing the RNC on their lack of transparency and openness?

  • The_Gadfly

    This one is a bit more complicated than Ace of Spades and the rest of the posts suggest.

    I’ve managed to find a link to the actual bill, which makes reference to an existing statute. I haven’t found a link to the existing statute which the bill purports to modify, but according to one of the posts I found on this thread the existing statue starts

    CONNECTICUT
    CHAPTER 598*
    RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS AND SOCIETIES
    (D)
    ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

    Sec. 33-279. Organization as corporation.

    and the existing statute dates back to 1949. So if the legislature can’t pass the change, they should never have been able to pass the 1949 statute. I’m not specifically familiar with the site, so I won’t vouch for the thoughtfulness of the posts there or where they stand politically. But at least the text looks like the sort of thing I would expect to see in a statue.

    We should also be careful about raising this as a constitutional issue. Clearly the state has some authority to regulate the manner in which legal entities within its jurisdiction operate. You wouldn’t want the state to not be able to prevent a religious order from funding terrorist simply because it is a religious order (and in fact, I would like to ensure that WHENEVER a religious order does so the state prosecutes that order to the fullest extent of the law).

    We look as almost as bad as the other idiots if we don’t look at the whole all of the issue in context. I’m not saying the legislators who proposed this aren’t attempting to bash Catholics, or even that the legislation is a good idea. I’m saying don’t paint with too broad a brush in trying to stop it.

  • mrbill

    This is not due to the embezzlement , it is due to the Church Threat to SHUT DOWN Catholic Hospitals if they are forced to perform Abortions by passage of the FOCA Free Choice bill.

    They said they would shut down if the bill passes and they are not allowed to operate as they have always been and not perform abortions

    These Far Left dems are trying to take them over and tell them how to run.

  • DONTREADONME

    that is why I pointed it out, it did not fit with your other comments. :)