InsideCatholic.com has this week's new attack on the U.S. bishops' conference, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), and the rest of the Catholic social justice infrastructure that are becoming the daily bread of the Catholic blogosphere.

Deal Hudson found my argument in favor of health care reform posted here and here uncompelling--and said so on his InsideCatholic.com blog. Deal get points from me for his intelligent and charitable response.

Oh man. Just do a Twitter, Google, or Facebook search of the DC gay marriage kerfuffle and it looks like a PR nightmare for the church. With story after story reporting that Catholic Charities is going to "stop feeding the homeless" if DC permits same-sex marriage, folks are reacting.

The U.S. bishops are drawing more heat than ever from the mainstream media. First it was the somewhere around $550,000 of church funds funneled to the Maine ballot initiative repealing the state's same-sex marriage law, including money raised during second collections at Mass. (I honestly can't believe that the diocese of Portland did this.) This week it's been the U.S.

That can be sung to the same tune as "Lift high the cross," but the meaning is considerably different.

Most Catholics last Sunday had inserted into their bulletins an alert from the U.S. conference of bishops on pending health care legislation.

Well, it doesn't happen often, but I think ol' Bill has a point when he complains about Larry David urinating (by accident) on a picture of Jesus in Sunday's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Of course, I think the purpose of Donahue's existence has become seeking to be offended, but some things just are inexcusably over the top.

Jeff Pinyan, generously playing bishops' advocate, raises the question in my previous post about whether there is a distinction in Catholic social teaching between "medical care" and "health care" when it is considered to be a natural human right. Good question, especially given the advice to any student of theology or church teaching: "Seldom affirm, never deny, alway

Well, I didn't say it, but Nicholas Cafardi of Duquesne University did. In a column on the National Catholic Reporter's website, Cafardi has hard words for "a Midwestern bishop" who said that "the Catholic Church does not teach that ‘health care’ as such, without distinction, is a natural right" and argued that the role of the state was to regulate the private sector.

Dan Gilgoff, a religious reporter and blogger for US News and World Report, posted an interesting conflict over President Obama's appointee to the Department of Health and Human Services Faith-based position.