Bad News in the War on Christian Faith

The war against faith is growing. In New York, Catholics are warning that the state government is on a jihad to tax and regulate the church out of existence.

Democrats have declared war on the Catholic Church, with new laws that threaten to bankrupt Catholic schools, hospitals, charities and parishes. Thus far, the worst attacks have come in New York.

“We’ve taken a lot of hits this year,” Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, the policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, tells Newsmax. “Outside the government, the Catholic Church is the largest provider of health, human services and education in [New York]. But some legislators are so driven by malice that they’re willing to see our charities and schools go under.”

The Empire State’s Democrats are attacking on three fronts.

A proposal to require all hospitals to perform abortions, or lose their state license would put Catholic hospitals out of business. Major funding cuts for Catholic schools by Gov. David Paterson, who continues to force the parochial schools to run state-mandated programs at their own expense. An effort by Democratic lawmakers to abolish the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits against the Church, allowing people to sue over decades-old cases in which the alleged perpetrators are dead.

The proposed sex-abuse law applies only to private institutions such as the Church and the Boy Scouts. Public schools are exempt. Yet sex abuse is more common in public schools than in private institutions.

"The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests”, concluded a 2002 study by Hofstra University scholar Charol Shakeshaft. It estimated that 6 to 10 percent of U.S. public school students had been sexually abused by teachers and school employees.

When you add this to what the federal government is attempting with Mr. Obama's pledge to reverse any "conscience clause" provisions to protect doctors, nurses and other health care professionals from being forced to perform procedures that are against their beliefs, we are truly living in evil times.

If you are a Christian, even if you are not Catholic, the news should give you pause. If government can target one church, it can target them all. The beliefs we hold in common are much more important than the disagreements over the finer points of theology and liturgy, and the freedom that we share is the same freedom that we can all lose if we do not awaken to defend it.