More Fool I

Alright, this is just absurd. On the one hand, the USCCB is attacking Obama for forcing them (the bishops) to pay for contraception. On the other hand, the USCCB is pushing forward the idea that taxpayers should pay to extend unemployment insurance (again).

And that's just the beginning of the rich irony.

You see, almost NONE of the parishes in the United States pay unemployment insurance. They get dispensed from the mandate to do so because they are religious organizations. So, if you are employed by a Catholic parish and you get laid off, so long, sucker.

You can't collect unemployment because your bishop hasn't paid into unemployment for you.
And, you'll be lucky to wring a month or two (8 weeks) of severance pay out of them, never mind 99 weeks. When the bishops started complaining about the HHS mandate, I thought they were, perhaps, finally waking up to economic and moral realities.

More fool I.

At the risk of being absolutely gauche, might I point out that if the bishops REALLY wanted unemployment benefits applied, they might try paying into the system themselves?

I mean, isn't it remarkable that a system they are recommending so strenuously to others is something they themselves deliberately refrain from participating in? It's almost as if they really don't care about social justice, isn't it? And if they did pay into the unemployment system themselves, and thereby paid for something which is most assuredly in line with Catholic teaching (preferential option for the poor, don'cha' know), then wouldn't it give them a lot more social capital (pardon the pun) on other issues... like.... oh, I don't know... can anyone think of an issue that's in the news in which the bishops might require some social capital? It might even involve paying for something that is NOT in line with Catholic teaching? Can anyone think of such an issue? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

Better yet, how about the bishops stop volunteering other people's money and double down on being Catholic? That is, how about they use the coffers of the parishes and the dioceses to care for the poor? Again, it may be tactless to point this out, but that's what the Church did for over a thousand years before Bismarck created the welfare state, in what has turned out to be his successful effort to compete with the Catholic Church.

The Church used to boast of saintly bishops who gave up every vestige of personal wealth and offered all of the money to the poor as an example to others. When was the last time that happened?

I want to have rich, opulent churches to worship in - God is Beauty, after all.
But I kind of wonder about million-dollar mansions for the bishops.

There are roughly 300,000 individual Protestant congregations in the United States.
There are 195 Catholic dioceses and roughly 19000 parishes.
There were roughly 45,000,000 poor people in the United States in 2010.

If each Christian congregation adopted 140 people (at four people per family, that's roughly 35 families) and cared for just those 35 families, that would end poverty in America.

The Amish help each other.
The USCCB goes rent-seeking.
Any questions?


Update:
Oh, and for those who are wondering, Sister Keehan, the pro-ObamaCare head of the Catholic Health Association, makes  $962,467 a year.

Isn't it comforting to see that our Catholic religious follow the examples set by the bishops?


UPDATE:
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