Some of these issues have been brought up here before. The Church needs to be willing to walk away from these services - it will cost the Government more than they will be willing to cough up and so exceptions will be made. I understand the need and desire for the church to be involved in good works and I am sure that other countries who appreciate the Church’s efforts will be quite happy for the help. However if the Church is unwilling to let go then it will find itself in an unholy alliance.
Seems a no brainer to me!
Mel
One of the problems is that a lot of theoretically “Catholic” hospitals are under lay boards now that actually are not responsible to the bishop. I suspect that a lot of the “Catholic” hospitals would be just fine with anything the Government told them to do, and would become a simple non-profit corporation in order to keep on getting Federal money. I think the question is whether the bishops will then be willing to discipline any Catholics involved in this (although many of the hospitals have non-Catholics on their boards or as their executives) and excommunicate them, suing them to prevent them from keeping a name that implies that they are supported by or part of the Catholic Church.
I expect to see a lot of division on this, although frankly, I was very impressed by the fact that Obama was not able to find a treasonous bishop or priest willing to preside over the fun at his inauguration. It speaks well of Catholics that at least there was no official Catholic blessing of this abomination.
But there is definitely going to be confrontation between the Church and the government. I think Obama will try to stir up that latent anti-Catholicism that exists in this country, and things could get ugly.
Pray that the bishops remain strong!
It happened in Massachusetts 3 years ago. It was mandated that all adoption services allow homosexual couples to adopt and the Catholic charity responsible for adoptions asked the State for an opt-out.
It was refused and the Boston Archdiocese ordered the service shut down in Massachusetts.