http://www.talk2action.org/story/2009/12/2/153356/470I recently called on mainstream Catholics to remonstrate against the aggressive behavior of reactionaries within the Church. Increasingly bishops are playing politics with the Mass itself, denying Catholic elected officials who dissent on some matters, the sacrament of Communion. Such coercion appears to me, and to many other Catholics, as part of an effort to compel all Americans to live under Catholic orthodoxy, subject to the interpretation of the prelates.
As I have written, dignified but firm acts of resistance are now the order of the day. In this post and the next, I will put forth and discuss possible paths for resistance. One obvious such path is to call out the hierarchy when they are being hypocritical. So let's begin there.
One obvious example is the hypocrisy of church reactionaries when it comes to the politics of tobacco.
In this installment, I will examine some of the deadly effects tobacco has on human health -- including fetuses. In part two, I will focus on some prominent Catholics politicians who have not only opposed reproductive freedom under the rubric of being "prolife," but turned a blind eye to the addiction and medical ravages of tobacco while accepting campaign contributions from tobacco interests -- and even do their bidding.
But first, let's look at the use of communion as a political weapon.
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According to the The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids:
Deaths & Disease in the USA from Tobacco Use:
* People who die each year from their own cigarette smoking: approx. 400,000
* Adult nonsmokers who die each year from exposure to secondhand smoke: approx. 50,000
* Kids under 18 alive today who will ultimately die from smoking (unless smoking rates decline): 6,000,000+
* People in the USA who currently suffer from smoking-caused illness: 8.6 million
The Harm to Fetuses
According to The March of Dimes, both first-hand and second-hand tobacco smoke is hazardous to any fetus:
Statistics from the United States are compelling. According to the U.S. Public Health Service, if all pregnant women in this country stopped smoking, there would be an estimated:
11 percent reduction in stillbirths
5 percent reduction in newborn deaths
Cigarette smoke contains more than 2,500 chemicals. It is not known for certain which of these chemicals are harmful to the developing baby, but both nicotine and carbon monoxide play a role in causing adverse pregnancy outcomes.
A recent study suggests that women who smoke anytime during the month before pregnancy to the end of the first trimester are more likely to have a baby with birth defects, particularly congenital heart defects. The risk of heart defects appears to increase with the number of cigarettes a woman smokes.
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The costs of tobacco use is staggering:
Tobacco-Related Monetary Costs in the USA
Total annual public and private health care expenditures caused by smoking: $96 billion
- Annual Federal and state government smoking-caused Medicaid payments: $30.9 billion
•Federal government smoking-caused Medicare expenditures each year: $27.4 billion
•Other federal government tobacco-caused health care costs (e.g. through VA health care): $9.6 billion
o Annual health care expenditures solely from secondhand smoke exposure: $4.98 billion
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And as we shall examine in the next part of this inquiry, there are some Catholic politicians who hold themselves up as being "pro-life" because of their opposition to abortion, who nevertheless accept campaign contributions from tobacco interests.
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the tobacco barons pay off catholic politicians - how nice
and the pope says?
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