Word: churchful
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Mercy the bureaucracy denies, for the Church committed a cardinal sin: It didn’t follow procedure. Last March, the diocese spent over $2,000 busing people to a rally in Hartford, where Catholics protested a bill that would have stripped pastors of control over parish finances. In April, the Church again trespassed. On its website, the diocese announced its opposition to a bill that legalized gay marriage and spurred parishioners to “contact your legislator.” OSE christened these three words “lobbying” and warned the diocese against further misbehavior...
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Into purgatorial fire, the United States District Court of Connecticut must cast one of two souls, the state government or the Catholic Church. The Office of State Ethics accuses the Church of breaking Connecticut’s lobbying rules last spring when the Diocese of Bridgeport protested liberal legislation. Distraught, the diocese seeks clemency and asks the court to prohibit OSE from applying these rules to the Church. To quench this inferno, the state legislature should exempt churches from its lobbying rules—because churchgoers aren’t powerbrokers...
...lobbying” per year must register with OSE before he squawks. He also must file financial reports regularly and submit to random audits by OSE. That miscreant who fails to register faces fines worth up to $10,000. In this case, that miscreant was the Church...
...following the letter of the law, OSE is violating the spirit of the law. Connecticut’s lobbying rules intend to shed light on backroom deals, not public protests. And the five firms that the Church uses to lobby the legislature are already registered with OSE. In its defense, OSE says it wants transparency, but it’s hard to miss 3,500 people standing in front of the state Capitol. The legislature already exempts the media from these rules to protect free speech. It should do the same with churches to preserve religious freedom...
...Phelps, pastor of Louisville's Highland Baptist Church, tells TIME he can relate to Pagano's pastoral need to address his members' fears, "but there is nothing in the New Testament - [which] Christians give priority to - to encourage responding to fear with self-defense. To the contrary, the central message of Jesus is that fear should compel us to trust God's mercy in the midst of the fearful situation. In a face-off between the teachings of Jesus and the Constitution, Jesus better win in church...