In a parable, Jesus tells us that when seed falls on rich soil, it produces fruit, a hundred, or sixty, or thirty fold. (cf. Matthew 13:8) The seeds, of course, are those who hear the word of God, understand it and act in response. Fertile soil and growing seeds are fitting images for
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the Senate to make essential changes its health reform bill in order to keep in place federal law on abortion funding and conscience protection on abortion, protect access to health care for immigrants and include strong provision
On November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major health care reform which reaffirmed longstanding and widely supported policy that no federal funds will be used to pay for elective abortions (the Stupak Amendment). The efforts of the hundreds of thousands of grassroots su
On November 7, Congress gave many observers a big surprise. On a vote of 240 to 194, the House of Representatives approved an amendment to maintain longstanding policies against federal abortion funding in proposed health care reform legislation. What’s more, the House then pass
In the end, the successful battle to include strict language prohibiting funding for abortions, led by pro-life congressional Democrats with the strong support of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is what made the difference in the Nov. 7 House vote to pass a sweeping health ca
The U.S. bishops November 7 urged members of the House of Representatives to vote for an anti-abortion amendment to the health care reform bill now being considered. “The Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Lipinski-Smith Amendment will keep in place current federal law on
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released some additional resources in conjunction with it Nationwide Bulletin Insert about health care reform, including the following prayers:
Health care reform was discussed at a meeting of Pennsylvania’s Catholic Bishops on October 6, 2009. Together, they issue the following statement: Our Catholic moral tradition teaches that every human being, from the moment of conception to natural death, has an innate dignity
Three chairmen of the bishops’ committees working on health care reform urged the U.S. Congress to improve current health care reform legislation, expressing their “disappointment that progress has not been made on the three priority criteria for health care reform”