From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2013
The Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has sent a signal to American bishops at their first national meeting since Pope Francis was elected, that the new president of the U.S. Bishops’ conference should not “follow a particular ideology” and should make Roman Catholics feel more welcome in church.
Addressing the bishops during their meeting at Baltimore, which is also to elect new president, Vigano did not only emphasize on the challenges from broader society to Christian teaching but also cautioned that the bishops’ witness to faith would be undermined if they failed to live simply.
They are to be pastors and not ideologues. This is indirectly indicating to the bishops that they should work towards a laborious process of reshaping the hierarchy to meet the pope’s dramatic shift in priorities.
Almost since his election in March, Francis has signaled that he wants the church to strike a “new balance” by focusing on the poor and on social justice concerns and not overemphasizing opposition to hot-button topics like abortion and contraception and gay marriage.
In a September interview, Francis said Catholic leaders should give greater emphasis to compassion, arguing the church’s focus on abortion, marriage and contraception has been too narrow and alienating.
Under New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, dozens of Catholic charities and dioceses, along with evangelical colleges and others, are suing the Obama administration over a requirement that employers provide health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage. The issue is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
The fact that the opening of the U.S. bishops’ annual fall assembly Monday morning was marked by noted changes in tone and emphasis for the prelates, who have focused extensively in the last two years on a fight against the Obama administration’s implementation of the health care law, is an indication that U.S. bishops are now saying that Obama was right in his health scheme.
Although Cardinal Dolan, who is stepping down this week after three years as the conference’s president, barely mentioned that fight in his presidential address, instead focusing on the issue of religious freedom globally, is a sign that Dolan is still nor happy with Obama’s scheme despite its massive support.
The affordable care act was signed into law to reform the healthcare industry by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012. ObamaCare’s goal is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance, and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the U.S.
The care act expands the affordability, quality, and availability of private and public health insurance through consumer protections, regulations, subsidies, taxes, insurance exchanges, and other reforms.
Up to 82% of nearly 16 million uninsured young U.S. adults will qualify for cost assistance or Medicaid through Obamacare’s marketplaces. This has been opposed by insurance companies who see it as a threat to their businesses.
Already 54 million Americans with private health insurance have access to preventive services with no cost sharing due to the new minimum standards of Obama Care. The care reduces the growth in healthcare spending. The current $2.8 trillion U.S. healthcare system costs almost $9k a year for every man, woman, and child.
Quoting extensively from Pope Paul VI, Viganò urged the American bishops to be witnesses rather than teachers, mentioning a meeting he had with Pope Francis in June, Viganò said the new pope told him that he wants pastoral bishops. Not bishops who profess a particular ideology.”
Viganò also quoted from Francis’ meeting this summer with bishops in Brazil, where the pontiff said, “The church is never uniformity but diversity harmonized in unity, and this is true for every ecclesial reality.” “We should also ask ourselves today a question posed by Pope Francis to the bishops of Brazil,” Viganò pointed out.
Viganò’s references to Francis’ style and tone were not the only ones Monday morning.
Francis was cited and quoted several more times as the bishops moved on to other agenda items, particularly discussions of the Vatican’s request for wide input on a planned global meeting of bishops on the family called for next October and how to address poverty in their strategic planning document.
Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, the secretary of the Synod of Bishops, asked bishops’ conferences in an Oct. 18 letter to distribute the questionnaire “immediately” and “as widely as possible.”
U.S. Catholic bishops will choose new leaders at an assembly in Baltimore this week and possibly signal a new direction for the American church under the influence of Pope Francis.
All eyes will be on whether the new leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops continue vigorous opposition to Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate, or increase their push to help the poor and immigrants given Pope Francis’ emphasis on social justice issues.
In an interview with a Jesuit journal published in September, Pope Francis said the church cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and must become more merciful or risk falling “like a house of cards.”
The conference broke with tradition in 2010, electing the outspoken conservative Dolan to a three-year term as president of the U.S. bishops. It is speculated that Dolan’s former vice president Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, who was seen by some as more moderate could be elected president.
However, conference observers believe bishops will follow tradition this time and choose the current vice president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky. Kurtz is viewed as a reliable conservative who is well liked and effective.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002