This weekend brought more news from the Obama transition team, Congress on an economic stimulus plan, the ever-developing tension between Russia and its neighbors and the Church and its stance against affronts to life.
• As Obama rolls out his economic transition team today, the country waits expectantly for more news on his proposed economic stimulus package: a plan he linked on Saturday with the “survival of the American dream” and he said would create 2.5 million more jobs over the next two years. The Washington Post points out that the price tag for such a package, though, could easily rival the $700 federal bailout passed by Congress this fall, surpassing what the U.S. has spent over the last six years and Iraq and, perhaps most noticeably, force Obama to postpone his campaign promise of repealing the Bush tax cuts for families making over $250,000.
• In another Saturday announcement, Obama named Ellen Moran, the current director of EMILY’s List, as his communications director. EMILY’s List is an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice, Democratic women to office, and has even cut funding for members who voted to ban partial birth abortion. The Catholic News Agency sees Ellen Moran’s appointment as another sign of the Obama administration’s high level of comfort with the “pro-abortion lobby.”
• On his last scheduled trip abroad, President Bush continued to champion free trade at an economic summit of Asia-Pacific nations. “One of the enduring lessons of the Great Depression is that global protectionism is a path to global economic ruin,” he said, adding that the current, worldwide financial crisis can open the door to greater unity and eventual prosperity among nations.
• Tension between Russia and Georgia increased yet again on Sunday when Georgian officials accused Russia of firing upon a motorcade that was transporting the Georgian and Polish presidents near the South Ossetian border. Russia has not only denied the claim but labeled it as yet another “instance of wishful thinking on the part of Georgia.”
• In Church news, tens of thousands of Japanese Catholics turned out in Nagasaki for the massive beatification ceremony of 188 martyrs. The ceremony itself – set apart by women in kimonos arranging candles at the altar and a giant, golden mural depicting the martyrs – was the largest of its kind to ever take place in Asia, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan.
• Finally, two bishops in the northern U.S. have continued the press against President-elect Obama’s support of the Freedom of Choice Act and pro-abortion legislation in general. In advocating legalized abortion, Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo said, Obama “directly opposes the divine law of God concerning the dignity of each human life, and so he strongly disagrees with the position of the Catholic Church.” Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Crookston Diocese in Minnesota acknowledged that the Church and Her pastors have always taught the sanctity of life, but “some politicians have missed that.” Bishop Aquila referenced Vice President-elect Biden, as well, saying it’s good that “at least his conscience bothers him” when trying to reconcile his Catholic faith with his pro-abortion stance. That discrepancy between faith and politics, the bishops said, is what they seek to correct.
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