A Pretext for Theft?

WhileFr. Longenecker puts straight yet another badly written attack on the Church, my thoughts turn to possible reasons for such silliness. There were similar smear campaigns in England and France before their governments stole Church property.
The U.S. bishops were in opposition to the health care lunacy because of abortion; they should have been against it because of everything, but their timidity didn't get them any brownie points- I suspect, especially for the leftist media currently dumping deliberately misconstrued stories on the public, that this is payback time.

The potential for a confrontation between Church and state has never been higher; there are many Catholic medical institutions, and many Catholics working in the medical fields who may find it necessary to stop practicing (or practice illicitly). Any major closing will be treated by the press as all sorts of evil, and frankly I doubt the much of the public has the sense to understand the situation. With the right spin, government theft of Catholic hospitals could be quite popular.

So too, could various taxes, settlements, and any of a number of regulations 'for the children' despite the fact America's children are at far more risk in public schools than anywhere else (except maybe in a single mother home w/ mom's boyfriend). The Church has actually acted to improve the situation- meanwhile the state won't even admit they have a (far more systematic) problem!

I can't stand to listen to this junk long enough to hear whether or not anyone's made any policy recommendations, but I won't be surprised if this doesn't shape up as a pretext for theft- perhaps the sort of 'tax' that will finally convince some of the conservative aristotelian bloggers that taxes can indeed be theft. Or perhaps they will simply use the courts, and the Church will find itself suddenly commiserating with our nation's fathers, who are deprived of all authority but loaded down with every responsibility. More immediately, the messages against, abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, unjust wars, etc... have been succesfully drowned out of the public sphere by the jaded political animals.