CathInfo.com

Food safety bill might be dead

Washington (CNN) -- A sweeping food safety bill that passed the House and Senate earlier this year before stalling because of a legislative technicality now will likely die because Republicans object to giving it quick approval in the waning days of the congressional session, Senate leadership aides on both sides of the aisle said Friday.

The bill, designed to increase government inspections of the food supply in the wake of recent deadly food borne disease outbreaks, originally passed with wide support in the both chambers. However, it needs approval again because it violated a Constitutional requirement that bills that raise revenue initiate in the House.

To pass it a second time, Democratic leaders attached it to a giant government-funding bill but Republicans blocked that measure Thursday, in part because it contained billions of dollars in earmarks.

Democrats then wanted to attach it to a narrower government-funding bill that is expected to pass Saturday but Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, warned he would object if they did. A GOP leadership aide told CNN it would be impossible to approve the food bill quickly unless all Republicans support doing so.

Coburn has said he opposes the bill because, he claims, it spends billions and increases government regulations without actually making the food supply safer.

A Democratic leadership aide held out hope an 11th hour deal could save the bill the GOP leadership aide warned that it is not likely.

The second type of sinners comprises those who are weak, lacking in will power, strongly inclined to sensual pleasure, intellectually dull, listless, or cowardly. They lament their faults, they admire good people and would like to be one of them, but they lack the courage and energy to be so in reality. These dispositions do not excuse them from sin; on the contrary, they are more culpable than those who sin through ignorance, because they sin with a greater knowledge. But basically they are weak rather than evil. The person in charge of their spiritual welfare should be especially concerned with strengthening them in their good resolutions, leading them to the frequent reception of the sacraments, to reflection, and avoidance of the occasions of sin.

Hey, Matthew! If you're going to write a biography of me, at least you could include a picture and some quotes!

The third type of sinners are those who sin with cold indifference, without remorse of conscience, silencing the faint voice of conscience in order to continue their life of sin without reproach. They do not want to give up their sin and are not concerned that their conduct offends God...


The fourth class of sinners is the most culpable. These people sin through a refined malice and diabolical obstinacy. They may have begun as good Christians, but little by little they degenerated, yielding more and more to evil until their souls were definitively conquered. Then came the inevitable consequence of defection and apostasy. The last barriers have been broken, and now these people are susceptible to every kind of moral disorder. They attack religion and the Church and may even join a non-Catholic sect and propagate its doctrines with zeal and ardor. One such person deliberately closed the door to any possibility of a return to God by saying to his friends and relatives: "If at the hour of death I ask for a priest to hear my confession, do not bring him, because I shall be delirious."

It is useless to try to win these people by persuasion or advice. It will make no impression on them and may even produce contrary effects. The only method to be used is strictly supernatural: prayer, fasting, constant recourse to the Blessed Virgin. Their conversion requires a special grace from God, and God does not always grant the grace, in spite of many prayers and supplications. It is as if these sinners had exhausted the patience of God and are destined to be for all eternity the living testimony of rigorous divine justice, because they have abused divine mercy.

Yikes! It seems to me that most people in our modern world belong to one of the last two classes of sinners: willfull, openly rebellious, and obstinate.

I classify myself as a Type Two sinner; at my worst I may have reached Type Three. I sincerely hope I was never a Type Four, God forbid. I have enough work to do to get out of the Type Two.

At any rate, thank you for posting this. I had never seen it before. This system of four classes of sinners could be a good guide to consult from time to time.