FORT WORTH — Bishops in Texas have told parishes in the state to not to participate in the activities of one of the state’s largest pro-life organizations.
The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops issued a statement on Feb. 22 stating that Texas Right to Life “has implied that the bishops do not faithfully represent Church teaching” and parishes should not host the organization.
“As a bishop, I have a responsibility to teach and to govern and to sanctify. When an organization says that my brother bishops and I are not teaching the authentic magisterium of the Church on matters of life, when they say that and it causes dissension and harm, I have an obligation to speak to that by speaking the truth on these matters,” Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth told Crux.
Olson ordered the bishops’ conference statement be announced from every pulpit in his diocese and be available in the parish bulletin and on the parish website.
The Texas Catholic Conference statement said part of the dispute is rooted in Texas Right to Life’s rejection of incremental pro-life reforms, “which improves the current situation but does not reform the status quo as much as we might desire.”
But the bishops also had more serious concerns.
“The bishops have been compelled to publicly correct Texas Right to Life’s misstatements on end-of-life care and advance directives, in which Texas Right to Life implied that the legislation the bishops were supporting allowed euthanasia and death panels rather than the reality that the legislation reflected the long-standing Church teaching requiring a balance of patient autonomy and the physician conscience protection,” the statement said.
“Finally, Texas Right to Life publishes a scorecard that purports to show which Texas legislators are pro-life. We believe this publication is not based on a fair analysis of a legislator’s work, but rather upon whether the legislator has followed voting recommendations of Texas Right to Life. Unfortunately, a number of legislators who have consistently voted for pro-life and end of life legislation have been opposed by Texas Right to Life,” the bishops said. (more...)
For at least Empower and Texas Right To Life, they pretend that they are grassroots. The reality is they are simply a propaganda machine, with some mega donors and a handful of small individual donors who have been sucked into the myth. #txlege #votetexas— Christopher Tackett (@cjtackett) February 27, 2018
Texas Right to Life is another one of the @EmpowerTexans front groups. Apparently the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops have seen through their lies and disingenuous work. https://t.co/nbdCCEjdk9— Micky Shearon✌❤☕ (@mgshearon) March 1, 2018
Of the top 12 donors to Texas Right To Life from 01/01/17 through 01/28/18, 8 of them are significant Empower Texans donors. The dollars these 8 Empower Texans donors have provided to Texas Right To Life makes up a pretty astounding 94.7% of their total. #txlege pic.twitter.com/W8KNxsmDCP— Christopher Tackett (@cjtackett) February 26, 2018
Gotta sort out the astro turf from the grassroots.
No comments:
Post a Comment