Word: letters
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...theater, but here smell becomes crucial—the rotting dinner in the Macduffs’ dining room, the crisp trees of Birnam Wood, the wood-chip floor in the basement speakeasy. Touch also plays its part—you can rummage through desks or pick up a letter Macbeth wrote to his wife. These new sensations create a world, one that is in turn mystifying and unsettling...
...decades, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been one of the most steadfast advocates for health reform, arguing that "access to basic, quality health care is a universal human right, not a privilege." And yet on Oct. 8, a trio of leaders representing the USCCB wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate warning that they would have to "vigorously" oppose health-reform legislation unless certain changes were made. The issue most likely to stand in the way of the bishops' support is one that could have been predicted months before debate even began: abortion. (See new fronts...
...late as mid-summer, it appeared that Democrats and the bishops were on track to work out an understanding. In late July, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, who at the time was heading the USCCB's pro-life committee, sent a letter to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that appeared to signal that there was room to accommodate Catholic concerns. The USCCB, Rigali wrote, wanted health reform to continue the policy of preventing "direct federal funding of abortion." The language was important because it seemed to match an amendment drafted by Representative Lois Capps, a Democrat...
...Democrats who helped negotiate the Capps compromise, according to one person who was involved, felt confident it would "help clear the way for the bishops to support" the House health-reform bill. But just a few weeks after Rigali's initial letter, the Cardinal on Aug. 11 sent a second letter to members of Congress that raised a new concern: "Funds paid into these plans are fungible, and federal-taxpayer funds will subsidize the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortion...
...stance has been twofold: feelings of frustration that the bishops hadn't been negotiating in good faith, and a broader confusion over where the bishops actually stood. The confusion appears to have been particularly pervasive at the White House. On Sept. 8, a few weeks after the second Rigali letter, senior Obama officials convened a meeting in the Roosevelt Room that included Nancy-Ann DeParle, the Administration's lead health-care official, Joshua DuBois, head of the White House faith-based office, and John Carr, executive director of the USCCB's Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. Both sides...