 Annually, the California Catholic Conference asks the Legislators to examine their priorities when making funding decisions in the state budget. The Governor proposed elimination of the CalWORKs, a reduction in state funding for SSI/SSP-programs for the elderly, the blind and disabled-while retaining the funding for Family PACT which goes to family planning institutions, like Planned Parenthood. Although that money doesn't actually pay for abortions-abortions are funded through Medi-Cal-it does keep those organizations financially sound.
Family Planning organizations and their supporters justify the expense by claiming that Family PACT services are beneficial to the financial health of the state. For this claim, they rely on studies such as the April 2010 report from the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California San Francisco entitled "Cost-Benefit Analysis of the California Family PACT Program for Calendar Year 2007."
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By Carol Hogan
Director for Communications and Pastoral Projects
California Catholic Conference, April 2010
Because of the intertwining of statutory and case law, and the relationship between federal and state jurisdiction, abortion-on-demand was legal in California before Governor Davis signed SB 1301 on September 5, 2002. However, until SB 1301 was placed in the statute books there was no specific law in California that said that abortion-on-demand was legal. Now, even if Roe v. Wade was overturned, i.e., the U. S. Supreme Court removed the federal constitutional protection for abortion and returned abortion law to state legislatures for their decisions-abortion-on-demand would remain legal in California.
It is important to remember that under our form of government, what is not expressly outlawed is judged legal. However even more important to remember is that because something is legal it does not necessarily follow that it is moral. That is why the abortion issue remains contentious. At some level, even those who defend the right to an abortion will admit that abortion is immoral.
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 By Richard M. Doerflinger
Due in part to a Senate seat switching parties in a recent special election, health care reform legislation may be stalled in Congress for now. Many had hoped that long-overdue reform, extending affordable health coverage to tens of millions of people who lack it now, was on the horizon. And some, disappointed at the current impasse, are looking for scapegoats.
One charge is that the Catholic Church doomed health care reform by its opposition to federally funded abortion coverage. One New York Times reporter, commenting on the bishops’ new letter urging Congress not to give up on authentic reform, described the bishops as switching to the “other side” of the issue after helping to bring the legislation near death.
The charge runs counter to a number of well-established facts.
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 By Rev. Richard Benson, C.M.
Does an embryo have a soul? Isn't society justified in putting to death a criminal that has committed a capital crime? Why should taxpayers have to support health care and schooling for undocumented children? Why didn't Pope John Paul II agree to call President Bush's invasion of Iraq a "just war"? When did health care become a "right"?
All of these apparently unconnected questions actually involve the same central Catholic moral principle, the consistent ethic of life. This principle is often associated with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s 1983 proposal of the “seamless garment” analogy, a reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, to provide a moral compass to help Catholics apply moral principles to life issues present in the public square.
Cardinal Bernardin suggested that a consistent ethic of life might be the most effective approach in addressing issues dealing with human life and dignity in a modern society more and more identified with the “culture of death.” His seamless garment approach suggests that all life issues such as abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, social injustice, racism, prejudice, poverty, unjust war and economic injustice are most effectively confronted when done so with a consistent application of moral principles that are firmly founded on the intrinsic value of human life.
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 by Archbishop George H. Niederauer
In a recent interview with Eleanor Clift in Newsweek magazine (Dec. 21, 2009), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about her disagreements with the United States Catholic bishops concerning Church teaching. Speaker Pelosi replied, in part: "I practically mourn this difference of opinion because I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will."
Embodied in that statement are some fundamental misconceptions about Catholic teaching on human freedom. These misconceptions are widespread both within the Catholic community and beyond. For this reason I believe it is important for me as Archbishop of San Francisco to make clear what the Catholic Church teaches about free will, conscience, and moral choice.
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 Letter to the Editor of the Stockton Record, by Bishop Stephen Blaire, Bishop of the Stockton Diocese and president of the California Catholic Conference:
I wish to comment upon the editorial of Monday, May 25, in The Record, entitled "There is common ground."
Indeed there can be common ground but not to the detriment of one's conscientiously held beliefs and convictions. To base common ground consensus on pragmatic principles by sacrificing one's beliefs, suggested in the editorial, immediately undermines any legitimate common ground for dialogue.
To engage in a dialogue where participants do not talk past one another requires a willingness to listen for understanding and to speak respectfully. There must be care not to demonize or stereotype the other. If such conversation is to be authentic, however, it cannot be based upon a compromise of conscience.
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