Monday, May 21, 2012

Archbishop Broglio Corrects Nancy Pelosi

We certainly have some great, fearless, and knowledgeable shepherds!

His Excellency Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services showed that Congressman Nancy Pelosi was completely off-base (not for the first time). From CNSNews:

"Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees all Catholic priests who serve as chaplains in the U.S. military, says House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defies logic in opposing a provision to the House Defense Authorization bill that protects military chaplains from being forced to violate their religious beliefs.

In an interview with CNSNews.com last Friday, Broglio challenged Pelosi, who on Thursday had called the provision “a fraud.”

“I am a little bit perplexed, because if, according to her, there’s no danger to ministers being forced to act against their conscience, what logical objection could there possibly be to putting that in a law?” the archbishop asked."


Pelosi, and the White House, object to section 536 of the Defense Appropriations bill, which states "that no member of the armed forces may 'direct, order, or require a chaplain to perform any duty, rite, ritual, ceremony, service, or function that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of the chaplain, or contrary to the moral principles and religious beliefs of the endorsing faith group of the chaplain.'”

The article continued:

“Nobody is ordering them to do that,” Pelosi said. “I’ve never seen any suggestion that we’re ordering chaplains to perform same-sex—where is that? I haven’t seen it and I’ve been around this issue for a long time.”

But Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, respectfully but firmly took issue with Pelosi.

“I would suggest that perhaps she’s not very familiar with how the military works,” Broglio said. “While no one might be constrained to act against his or her conscience, you can also have a situation where someone in command makes it very, very difficult for that person, if the command wants him or her to act in a certain way. And I think that the law, the provision in the draft, the provision in the bill, would protect the chaplain from that kind of situation."


And CNSNews pointed out that this has already happened:

"Even the archbishop himself has been subject to interference from the Pentagon – in this case, over another issue on which the administration and the Catholic Church are at odds.

In February, Broglio wrote a letter he wrote for Catholic chaplains to read from the pulpit on a Health and Human Services Department requirement under Obamacare which mandates that all health insurance plans cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions– free of charge.

The Office of the Chief of Chaplains, at first barred the letter from being read.

'That is exactly the kind of situation that should be avoided, because strictly speaking, anything that a Catholic priest does in the context of Catholic worship is not governed by the military, but is governed actually by the Archdiocese for the Military Services, of which I am the archbishop,' Broglio told CNSNews.com. 'So the fact that someone from the Chief of Chaplains office would presume that he could intervene in that situation is actually a violation of the First Amendment.'”

Bravo, Excellency! He then cited chapter and verse, so to speak:

"He added: "And not to be speaking off the top of my head, there was actually a court case in 1999, Perry vs. Rigden, in which the Court agreed with exactly what I just said."

Bless him!

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