by Staff
Members of the National Council of Churches met with Obama on All Saints' Day to thank him for his leadership and passage of the health care bill. No Roman Catholic or Anglican representatives were present, other than Katharine Shori, Presiding Bishopess of the Episcopal Church of the USA. The delegation also pressed him to work more for families facing hunger and poverty. What is most unusual about this meeting is that health care was praised as an accomplishment, despite it vast number of problems from a Christian moral standpoint.
According to Church doctrine, the provisions of "Obamacare" that appear to provide for the funding of abortions, require death counseling, provides for care to illegal aliens and other government mandates are contrary to the notion of individual liberty and freedom of conscience, as well as right to life, and therefore contrary to Christian morality. And then there is the potential for massive and excessive taxation to fund the program, the details of which are still not even clear. "That leaders of "mainline" denominations would travel to Washignton D.C. and meet with Obama in person to praise his actions of inflicting this travesty on us is extremely disturbing to me. I think it says a lot about their character. It also is very telling who did not attend this meeting. I don't think any Anglo-Catholic or Roman Catholic leaders went, and I certainly can't see them praising him on these issues," Father X, an Anglo-Catholic priest said, speaking anonymously.
The delegation included Bishop Johncy Itty of Church World Service, Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Bishop John R. Bryant of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Rev. Sharon Watkins of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr. of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Mr. Stanley J. Noffsinger of the Church of the Brethren, Archbishop Khajag S. Barsamian of the Armenian Church of America, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church, Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Church of America, Rev. Gradye Parsons of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Rev. Dr. Betsy Miller of the Moravian Church, Thomas Swain of the Religious Society of Friends, Rev. Wesley S. Granberg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America, Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader of the United Methodist Church, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, Rev. Geoffrey Black of the United Church of Christ, and Dr. Walter L. Parrish III of the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
