Catholic Cardinal: Obamacare Regulation ‘Violates God’s Law’

Cybercast News Service ^ | May 14, 2014 - 11:43 AM | Lauretta Brown

[Olog-hai]

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said on Tuesday that the regulation issued by the Obama Administration under the Affordable Care Act that requires health insurance plans to cover contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs “violates God’s law.” […]

The cardinal also said that whether Americans should obey this “unjust” mandate and whether Catholic members of Congress could vote for a bill that funded its implementation were “complicated issues.”

On June 14, 2012, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement declaring the contraception-sterilization-abortifacient regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and a “violation of personal civil rights.” …

[reasonisfaith]

For the glory of God, do not violate his law.

[Jeff Chandler]

“We were one of the big promoters of universal health insurance,” Cardinal O’Malley continued, “but we wanted it to be with conscience rights and protection for human life which is the most basic right of all.”

You wanted statism, you got statism.

Enjoy.

[loveliberty2]

"Man ... must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator.. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.... This law of nature...is of course superior to any other.... No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force...from this original." - Sir William Blackstone (Eminent English Jurist)

The Founders DID NOT establish the Constitution for the purpose of granting rights. Rather, they established this government of laws (not a government of men) in order to secure each person's Creator­ endowed rights to life, liberty, and property.

Only in America, did a nation's founders recognize that rights, though endowed by the Creator as unalienable prerogatives, would not be sustained in society unless they were protected under a code of law which was itself in harmony with a higher law. They called it "natural law," or "Nature's law." Such law is the ultimate source and established limit for all of man's laws and is intended to protect each of these natural rights for all of mankind. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 established the premise that in America a people might assume the station "to which the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them.."

Herein lay the security for men's individual rights - an immut­able code of law, sanctioned by the Creator of man's rights, and designed to promote, preserve, and protect him and his fellows in the enjoyment of their rights. They believed that such natural law, revealed to man through his reason, was capable of being understood by both the ploughman and the professor. Sir William Blackstone, whose writings trained American's lawyers for its first century, capsulized such reasoning:

"For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the...direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws."

What are those natural laws? Blackstone continued:

"Such among others are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due.."

The Founders saw these as moral duties between individuals. Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"Man has been subjected by his Creator to the moral law, of which his feelings, or conscience as it is sometimes called, are the evidence with which his Creator has furnished him .... The moral duties which exist between individual and individual in a state of nature, accompany them into a state of society . their Maker not having released them from those duties on their forming themselves into a nation."

Americas leaders of 1787 had studied Cicero, Polybius, Coke, Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone, among others, as well as the history of the rise and fall of governments, and they recognized these underlying principles of law as those of the Decalogue, the Golden Rule, and the deepest thought of the ages.

An example of the harmony of natural law and natural rights is Blackstone's "that we should live honestly" - otherwise known as "thou shalt not steal" - whose corresponding natural right is that of individual freedom to acquire and own, through honest initiative, private property. In the Founders' view, this law and this right were inalterable and of a higher order than any written law of man. Thus, the Constitution confirmed the law and secured the right and bound both individuals and their representatives in government to a moral code which did not permit either to take the earnings of another without his consent. Under this code, individuals could not band together and do, through government's coercive power, that which was not lawful between individuals.

America's Constitution is the culmination of the best reasoning of men of all time and is based on the most profound and beneficial values mankind has been able to fathom. It is, as William E. Gladstone observed, "The Most Wonderful Work Ever Struck Off At A Given Time By he Brain And Purpose Of Man."

We should dedicate ourselves to rediscovering and preserving an understanding of our Constitution's basis in natural law for the protec­tion of natural rights - principles which have provided American citizens with more protection for individual rights, while guaranteeing more freedom, than any people on earth.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom." -John Locke

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

[don-o]

Bishop bafflegab at its finest? What happened to "let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay"?

---------------------------------------------

CNSNews.com asked: “As an unjust law, should Americans obey it?”

Cardinal O'Malley said: “This is a very complicated issue and it’s something that the church is struggling with right now, and trying to come up with a moral analysis in order to be able to allow people to form their consciences and to go forward.”

He also said the question of whether Catholic politicians could vote for a bill that funded implementation of the regulation was "complicated."

CNSNews.com asked: “If Congress brings up a government-funding bill that funds implementation of the HHS regulation, and permits the administration to force people to buy coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, can a Catholic member of Congress vote for that bill?”

The cardinal said: “Well, Catholics must always take into account their own faith and their conscience. What we’re asking people to do is to look at the whole consequences of these. It’s a complicated issue because the Church does want people to have health insurance.

“We were one of the big promoters of universal health insurance,” Cardinal O’Malley continued, “but we wanted it to be with conscience rights and protection for human life which is the most basic right of all.”

CNSNews.com also asked: “If a member of Congress votes for a bill knowing it funds a government program that forces people into complicity with the taking of innocent life, does that make the congressman complicit in the taking of innocent life?”

Cardinal O’Malley said: “It’s a complicity but it’s not immediate, obviously. I mean, just as anyone who votes for an individual who votes for, in a very remote way -- but, you know, people’s motivation in all of these things can be very complicated and they can have different reasons for doing things, and sometimes they see what they’re doing is the lesser of two evils.

[Olog-hai]

Funny how they don’t see how their own religious freedom is incompatible with the whole “universal health insurance” thingy.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You are so right about that. It truly baffles the imagination to think that the USBBC Bishops and their liberal policy wonks really believed the could give healthcare over to an Obamunist government, and not get Obamunist healthcare.

They seem to dwell in a world composed of sublime principles written on toilet paper, yet express surprise when everything is flushed away.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Bishop Bafflegab at its oozy-spongiest.

You wonder if, at their consecration as bishops, somebody takes away their brains, bones, and b ---- you know what I'm talkin' about.

[Jeff Chandler]

They seem to dwell in a world composed of sublime principles written on toilet paper, yet express surprise when everything is flushed away.

Most Catholic clergy seem to be living in a dream world of feel-good politics and economic ignorance.

[bobo1]

Great Post!

“Americas leaders of 1787 had studied Cicero, Polybius, Coke, Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone, among others, as well as the history of the rise and fall of governments, and they recognized these underlying principles of law as those of the Decalogue, the Golden Rule, and the deepest thought of the ages.”

Interesting that progressives only study Alinsky.

[Mears]

They voted for him.

They got what they voted for.

Tough!

.

[Jeff Chandler]

Bishop bafflegab at its finest? What happened to "let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay"?

Then they would be forced to take a stand instead of pretending to take a stand. And you know what that means: ostracization from their fellow liberal Democrats in and out of the clergy.

[all the best]

The Catholic bishops are all for statist envy, covetousness and theft, statist coercion, but just so it is on their terms. Good luck with that. Washington can rule with an iron fist but somehow the unborn manage to remain unscathed. Utter foolishness. Lie down with dogs and you may well get fleas.

[don-o]

The cardinal said: “Well, Catholics must always take into account their own faith and their conscience.

Whoopee!! Catholics get to be Protestants.

[NY.SS-Bar9]

were “complicated issues.”

No, they are not "complicated" at all. The complication is that the church and it's clergy lack courage to stand up for morality against money and power.

[Olog-hai]

And this is after standing up for said money and power. So they back it and then try to abuse Acts 5:29 afterwards.

[Olog-hai]

Seems like they’re getting ticks in this case.

[loveliberty2]

Thank you. This Essay, and others from "Our Ageless Constitution" may be reprinted here and clicking on "Our Ageless Constitution" on "Principles of Liberty" page.

[Mrs. Don-o]

True dat. :o(

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don’t “get” why they’ve made themselves so dependent on the good will of people who hate their guts (liberal Dems.)