New Battles for Catholic Clergy from the RED, WHITE, BLUE News:

CATHOLIC CHURCH VOWS WAR ON OBAMA ‘FIGHT IN STREETS’(VIDEO)

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(WSJ) The president signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools—will be required by law, for the first time ever, to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures. If they do not, they will face ruinous fines in the millions of dollars. Or they can always go out of business.
In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can’t be Catholic anymore.
I invite you to imagine the moment we are living in without the church’s charities, hospitals and schools. And if you know anything about those organizations, you know it is a fantasy that they can afford millions in fines.
There was no reason to make this ruling—none. Except ideology.
The conscience clause, which keeps the church itself from having to bow to such decisions, has always been assumed to cover the church’s institutions.

Now the church is fighting back. Priests in an estimated 70% of parishes last Sunday came forward to read strongly worded protests from the church’s bishops. The ruling asks the church to abandon Catholic principles and beliefs; it is an abridgment of the First Amendment; it is not acceptable. They say they will not bow to it. They should never bow to it, not only because they are Catholic and cannot be told to take actions that deny their faith, but because they are citizens of the United States.
If they stay strong and fight, they will win. This is in fact a potentially unifying moment for American Catholics, long split left, right and center. Catholic conservatives will immediately and fully oppose the administration’s decision. But Catholic liberals, who feel embarrassed and undercut, have also come out in opposition.
The church is split on many things. But do Catholics in the pews want the government telling their church to contravene its beliefs? A president affronting the leadership of the church, and blithely threatening its great institutions? No, they don’t want that. They will unite against that.
The smallest part of this story is political. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008 they made up 27% of the electorate, about 35 million people. Mr. Obama carried the Catholic vote, 54% to 45%. They helped him win.
They won’t this year. And guess where a lot of Catholics live? In the battleground states.
There was no reason to pick this fight. It reflects political incompetence on a scale so great as to make Mitt Romney’s gaffes a little bitty thing.
There was nothing for the president to gain, except, perhaps, the pleasure of making a great church bow to him.
Enjoy it while you can. You have awakened a sleeping giant.
Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control.
As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections.
Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.
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Breaking News about Kennedy - no kidding

Click on photo to see this man

On John Simkin's Education Forum, we have had the rug pulled out from us -- in a good way.  In the short video below, you will see the real man who was in the 6th Floor Window.  He's Tan Jacket Man.  Duncan MacRae has blown up a section of the Hughes film that shows the Texas School Book Depository upper windows.  The man's face and hair is unmistakable, as he is seen in a gif afterward and it's the same man. 

IT IS NOT LEE HARVEY OSWALD!

The Parking Lot photo also from Hughes is now working.  You must click on the picture to see the gif of the man who shot out the 6th floor window of the TSBD.  He is identical to the man we see in the 6th floor window.

Kennedy error: Not a man behind the wall in Bell Film

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The Kennedy Assassination.  Around #49 of the Bell film you can see on the left a man trying to stand from behind the retaining wall.  He looks to be wearing a white t-shirt and his head appears bald.  His right shoulder is lifted first.  I was mistaken.  There's a parking lot right behind the grassy knoll.  It is someone's white car that I was seeing.

President Kennedy - the unseen turn onto Elm

Someone destroyed every film taken of Kennedy's limo turn onto Elm St. But this one may tell why. It's of Kennedy receiving the first shot, which possibly may have singed him. Why else does the Zapruder film have footage of the motorcycle cops but is spliced when Kennedy makes the turn onto Elm St.?. Someone said Zapruder turned off his camera and then turned it back on when Kennedy was already on Elm. Watch the way he pulls back his hand and how his fingers fold unnaturally..

Weird Weather

Yesterday, on October 30, 2011 New Jersey received 10 inches of snow. We have never experienced anything like this. A blizzard before Halloween? My feelings are that HAARP is behind it. I don't live in NJ anymore. I live on the Gulf Coast. Large sea turtles and dolphins have been washing up on sections of the shore. This is because of BP's s---load of oil is in the water. I did not go to the beach this year. Our gulf is ruined.

Close up of Kennedy Assassin from 6th floor

Bishop Indicted; Charge Is Failing to Report Abuse

By A. G. SULZBERGER and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: October 14, 2011

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.

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Archdiocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph, via Associated Press

The Roman Catholic bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn.

Related

• Bishop in Missouri Waited Months to Report Priest, Stirring Parishioners’ Rage (August 15, 2011)

• Bishops Won’t Focus on Abuse Policies (June 15, 2011)

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The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.
The case caused an uproar among Catholics in Kansas City this year when Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. During that time, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, is said to have continued to attend church events with children, and took lewd photographs of another young girl.

A decade ago the American bishops pledged to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities — a policy also recommended last year by the Vatican. Bishop Finn himself had made such a promise three years ago as part of a $10 million legal settlement with abuse victims in Kansas City.
Though the charge is only a misdemeanor, victims’ advocates immediately hailed the indictment as a breakthrough, saying that until now American bishops have avoided prosecution despite documents showing that in some cases they were aware of abuse.

“This is huge for us,” said Michael Hunter, director of the Kansas City chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and a victim of sexual abuse by a priest. “It’s something that I personally have been waiting for years to see, some real accountability. We’re very pleased with the prosecuting attorney here to have the guts to do it.” The bishop signaled he would fight the charges with all his strength. He said in a statement: “We will meet these announcements with a steady resolve and a vigorous defense.”
The indictment announced on Friday by the Jackson County prosecutor, Jean Peters Baker, had been under seal since Oct. 6 because the bishop was out of the country. He returned on Thursday night.
In a news conference, Ms. Baker said the case was not religiously motivated, but was about the obligation under state law to report child abuse.

“This is about protecting children,” she said.

If convicted Bishop Finn would face a possible fine of up to $1,000 and a jail sentence of up to a year. The diocese faces a possible fine of up to $5,000.

Ms. Baker said that secrecy rules for grand jury proceedings prohibited her from discussing whether other charges were considered, such as child endangerment, a felony. But she said the fact that the bishop faces a single misdemeanor count should not diminish the seriousness.

“To my knowledge a charge like this has not been leveled before,” she said.

It also may not mark the end of the legal troubles facing the diocese in the case, which includes civil and criminal cases in federal court. Last month Bishop Finn and Msgr. Robert Murphy testified before another grand jury in neighboring Clay County. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office there declined to comment.

The priest accused of taking the lewd photos, Father Ratigan, was a frequent presence in a Catholic elementary school next to his parish. The principal there sent a letter to the diocese in May 2010 complaining about Father Ratigan’s behavior with children. Then, last December, a computer technician discovered the photos on the priest’s laptop and turned the computer in to the diocese. A day later Father Ratigan tried to kill himself. The diocese said that Monsignor Murphy described — but did not share — a single photo of a young girl, nude from the waist down, to a police officer who served on an independent sexual abuse review board for the diocese. The officer said that based on the description it might meet the definition of child pornography, but he did not think it would, the diocese said.

Bishop Finn sent Father Ratigan to live in a convent and told him to avoid contact with minors. But until May the priest attended children’s parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted an Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion, according to interviews with parishioners and a civil lawsuit filed by a victim’s family.

Parents in the school and parishioners — told only that Father Ratigan had fallen sick from carbon monoxide poisoning — were stunned when he was arrested in May after the diocese called the police. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking indecent photographs of young girls.

The new indictment released on Friday said that Bishop Finn and the diocese had reason to suspect that Father Ratigan might subject a child to abuse.

It cited “previous knowledge of concerns regarding Father Ratigan and children; the discovery of hundreds of photographs of children on Father Ratigan’s laptop, including a child’s naked vagina, upskirt images and images focused on the crotch; and violations of restrictions placed on Father Ratigan.”
Bishop Finn said in his statement on Friday that he and the diocese had given “complete cooperation” to law enforcement. He also pointed to steps he had taken since the scandal first became public, including commissioning a report to look into the case, and reinforcing procedures for handling allegations of abuse.

That report found that the diocese did not follow its own procedures. It also found that Bishop Finn was “too willing to trust” Father Ratigan.

The case has generated fury at the bishop, a staunch theological conservative who was already a polarizing figure in his diocese. Since the Ratigan case came to light, there have been widespread calls for him to resign.

Contributing to the sense of betrayal is the fact that only three years ago, Bishop Finn settled lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10 million and agreed to a list of 19 preventive measures, among them to immediately report anyone suspected of being a pedophile to the law enforcement authorities.

France may be the only country where a bishop has been convicted for his failure to supervise a priest accused of abuse, said Terrence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.

A grand jury in Philadelphia indicted a top official in the archdiocese there, Msgr. William Lynn, for mishandling cases of abuse. The former archbishop, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, was not indicted, but he has been called to testify.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 15, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Bishop Indicted; Charge Is Failing To Report Abuse.