Posted on 02/04/2012 5:44:42 AM PST by NYer
The White House so delicately catered to the religious sensitivities of Osama bin Laden’s sympathizers that the administration ordered his corpse washed, wrapped it in a white sheet, and made it the subject of Islamic prayers. American Catholics, 54 percent of whom supported Barack Obama in 2008, have no such luck winning the administration’s religious toleration.
At issue is Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s bureaucratic mandate that all employers—including Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities—pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after pill abortifacients through their health insurance plans. The administration recently revealed that the only relief Catholic conscientious objectors will receive is a reprieve until August 2013.
“The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it,” Bishop David Zubik explained to his Pittsburgh diocese last week. “‘To Hell with your religious beliefs. To Hell with your religious liberty. To Hell with your freedom of conscience.’” Zubik’s fellow bishops were somewhat more diplomatic in the language they used last Sunday.
At the behest of Catholic bishops, parish priests across America read a rebuke to the Obama administration from the pulpit at mass. “The federal government, which claims to be ‘of, by, and for the people,’ has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population—and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful,” one variant of the letter explained. “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those ‘services’ in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies. In so ruling, the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.”
The provision is certainly an assault on liberty. But why did it take an assault on the Church’s liberty for the bishops to recognize this?
The state forcing private employers to buy employees health insurance, let alone the more intrusive dictate of what specifically such coverage must provide, usurps liberty. That an unelected bureaucrat, rather than an elected legislature, would issue an order not promulgated in the alleged enabling legislation assaults democracy. The one-size-fits-all order that men, post-menopausal women, and homosexuals purchase health insurance that pays for birth-control pills, RU-486 abortion pills, and other services that they cannot possibly use imposes a choice that none would freely make.
It was entirely foreseeable that yielding control over a massive portion of the economy to the state would result in the state greedily seizing more than was initially given. But many Catholic clergy enthusiastically endorsed the initial legislation. It would be great if non-Catholics rose to defend the rights of conscience that ObamaCare clearly infringes upon. It would have been even better had Catholic Charities USA not endorsed ObamaCare and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops not repeatedly called universal health care a right. When one endorses an attack on Constitutional rights in the name of non-existent “rights” one shouldn’t be surprised to find one’s own real rights soon under attack. If the bishops weren’t so politically naive prior to the passage of ObamaCare, they would not have had to be so politically courageous in the wake of its passage.
The upshot of the Obama administration’s anti-Catholic edict may ultimately bring harm to non-Catholics as well. Catholic hospitals, youth centers, schools, and homeless shelters serve without regard to religious affiliation. By granting exemptions to religious institutions that serve their flocks alone, such as churches, the bureaucratic fiat may in some cases result in the exclusion of non-Catholics from services they have traditionally enjoyed. Another possibility is six-figure fines for Catholic institutions whose employees refuse to sin at the behest of the state, diverting funds away from the poor and needy toward the government greedy. Such hypothetical situations have precedent. In Massachusetts and Illinois, for instance, the Catholic Church closed down adoption services after the state mandated that it place children with homosexual couples.
What the Bishops said on a Sunday in January will affect how Catholics vote on a Tuesday in November. It may also preface widespread civil disobedience. The bishops’ letter is rather unambiguous on this point: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”
Catholic ping!
Buyers remorse? Personally, I can't understand why any Christian would vote for the party of abortion.
Here's hoping that this time around the Catholics wake up and vote conservative!!!
In MA anyway, both parties are pro-abortion.
Peggy Noonan’s article today in the WSJ blast the Admin for ineptness on this and she points to the political toll...she says this will unite left and right Catholics.
I agree. The Liberal catholics feel they have been undercut!
Barnhardt kicks the crap out of the Bishops for laying down with the Marxist dogs and getting fleas.
This may even offend the C and E Catholics(Christmas and Easter)
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
But I sense buyer’s remorse starting to set in though and give it time.
Regards
“Personally, I can’t understand why any Christian would vote for the party of abortion.”
In the last election, one could have entertained a doubt as to whether McCain would really have done much regarding abortion. Also, in red states, a lot of Republican leaders are pro-choice (Guiliani, Schwarzenegger), so why not vote on other issues instead?
Having moved to the right over time, I have come to understand that the Democratic leadership hates pro-lifers and that we are no longer welcome there. But many people haven’t really grasped that yet. And there is a big difference between the Democratic party loosing the loyalty of pro-lifers and the Republican party earning it. I predict more people will go independent as Obama is in office.
Good point, and which is why, even though I am adamantly a PRO-LIFER, I still firmly believe we need to go about this differently. We should not make the abortion issue one of our big platforms. It scares off too many voters.
For instance the liberals wanted socialism/communism.... right? They didn't advertise openly that the platform of the Democrat Party was socialism/communism, did they? Instead they worked their way into power, then went about making the changes slowly over time.
We conservatives need to quit emphasizing issues like abortion.... not forget them or deem them unimportant.... just don't shout and preach about them when we are listing our platform. Once we are back in power, we can begin eliminating situations where pro-lifers are forced to pay for abortion for the masses. That will be a huge start. Then over time we can slowly work towards educating the public about why abortion is bad. It will be a long slow process, but doable.
This is nothing but a totally deliberate, in your face, government attack on Catholic doctrine and practice with no offsetting medical justification. After all, oral contraceptives and other methods of birth control have been around for well over 40 years and are totally affordable, even without insurance. Thus, this is nothing but a thug’s move to show his own power against a church he bitterly hates for its virtues, not its vices, one of which was supporting the absolute abomination of Obamacare,
May the totality of Obama administration be a lesson to the Catholic Church in America. May it be brief and may it not repeat.
Deo Gratias.
Catholic Military Archdiocese & Chaplains interfered with last Sunday by Pres. Obama’s Admin
The Anti-Catholic President v. the Catholic Bishops
Sen. Rubio introduces bill to reverse Obama birth control mandate
Churches balk at birth control rule - Catholics won’t comply, Bishop Kevin Rhoades says
Protestants and Jews declare to White House: We stand with Catholics
Checking the Air Outside [Bp. Zubik's follow up to Obama's “To Hell with You”]
Mohler [Southern Baptist] Says Insurance Mandate Not Just 'Catholic' Issue
An Open Letter to President Barack Obama Concerning Recent Tyranny (With Pictures!)
Lincoln bishop: prepare for 'suffering' under HHS mandate
Bishop David Zubik confronts Obama
Obama’s ‘war on the church’
Pope hits out at 'radical secularism'
‘We Will Not Comply’: Catholic Leaders Distribute Letter Slamming Obama Admin Contraceptive Mandate
‘We Will Not Comply’: Catholic Leaders Distribute Letter Slamming Obama Admin Contraceptive Mandate
Bruskewitz: Fight Insurance Ruling [Sebelius a "bitter, fallen away Catholic"]
Letter from Archbishop John G. Vlazny on the matter of freedom of conscience and decisions by HHS
Bishop Olmsted's Letter to Catholics [Catholic Caucus]
Liberty for the Amish & Quakers but not Catholics. . .
Contraception mandate prompts Peoria bishop to instate St. Michael Prayer (Catholic Caucus)
Phoenix bishop (Olmstead): defy feds on birth control
A letter from Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr concerning HHS edict
Speak honestly: abortion is ‘the killing of tiny human beings in the womb’ – Denver bishop
Bishop [Daniel Jenky] Blasts Secularist Intolerance, Calls For ‘Assertive Action’ to Defend Church
(Pittsburgh Bishop Zubik comments:) HHS delays rule on contraceptive coverage
Dolan: Natural law, not religious preference, dictates all life sacred
Religious leaders blast HHS over contraception mandate
Mandated Contraception, Sterilization: Caesar Demands Church Violate Conscience
OBAMA’S CONTEMPT FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (mandates coverage of sterilization & contraception)
Implications of Obama Admin move to force Cath hospitals to provide contraception and sterilizations
Catholic doctors’ group launches petition against contraception mandate
Contraception mandate tramples religious freedom, US bishops say
And what about other denominations who supported Obama?
Catholics hear anti-Obama letter in church (Some idiots wanted "change" so they got it)
Has Obama Lost the Catholic Left?
Obama Receives 77% of Jewish Vote-- More Than Kerry
White US Catholics move toward GOP, Hispanic Catholics toward Democrats
Among Catholics, Obama job approval rating decreases to 50 percent
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