Not surprisingly, the American Catholic bishops have presented a nearly united front in opposition to the rule, scheduled to go into effect in 2013. The website CatholicVote.org lists 140 bishops, more than 70% of the 198 heads of U.S. Catholic dioceses, who have either issued or intend to issue statements opposing the mandate. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York accused the Obama administration of treating pregnancy and women’s fertility “as a disease.”
What is surprising is that prominent liberal Catholics ”” people who don’t even agree with the church’s position on contraception ”” have joined their voices in protest. One of them was E.J. Dionne, a widely syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Dionne, who has been an Obama enthusiast since well before the 2008 election, accused the president in a recent column of having “utterly botched” the issue of contraceptive services. Dionne admitted that he wished “the church would show more flexibility on this question,” but he also pointed out that the sweeping mandate “encroached upon the church’s legitimate prerogatives” to ensure that its employment policies reflected its moral values.
This represents a breakthrough in the long-simmering animosity between conservative and liberal Catholics over how much the church should have changed in the wake of Vatican II….
We need to support our Catholic brothers and sisters in this fight. The issue is one of religious liberty and whether the Church’s ministry to the world will be on the Church’s terms or the secularists’.
Hopefully the Catholic liberals have learned a powerful lesson about the secular liberal/progressives with whom they have been allied and their implacable hostility to any worldview other than their own.
This issue has nothing to do with religious liberty, and everything to do with accountability in a diverse society. Government money, as collected from a diversely religious and even anti-religious public, should be disbursed by officials accountable to the public and according to law. Religious institutions should not expect any financial support from the general public.
3, Henry this requirement has nothing to do with receiving Federal money as you should well know. It is a requirement impacting all employers with a certain number to employees.
I also reject the argument that the receipt of government funds, tax treatment etc. enables the government to impose indirectly conditions that they could never impose directly. This become more pernicious as the federal government grows and has financial tentacles everywhere so that it become impossible to avoid federal entanglement.
You would allow the government to sweep opposing worldviews from the public sector while claiming to have nothing to do with it. “We will allow you to operate a public ministry on our terms, not on your own. You can believe what you want, but not allow those beliefs to interact with the public.” This is classic religious persecution.
To invoke “diversity” in defense of a totalitarian imposition on any group by another group is intellectually incoherent. While it might be justifiable in any particular situation, it certainly isn’t “diversity”.
I’ve said elsewhere: the smug, self-righteous minority gloating at sticking it to the Catholic Church, and the larger, sexually obsessed sheep unthinkingly following the current cultural orthodoxies should be careful: the power of government has set its jackboot on this particular issue and against this particular Church. But having done it to us, they can do it to you.
The issue is indeed religious liberty. It’s a foundational freedom in the United States and it is under attack.
Henry Grenville, you are just going to have to come to terms with the reality that the government needs the churches desperately, and the money it gives them is only a fraction of the benefits it gets from them.
Churches have a huge and unseen impact on social welfare, through their many programs which are often staffed by volunteers. Whether its soup kitchens, aid to families, counselling, half-way houses, schools for the disadvantaged, hospitals and many others, the churches do not limit these benefits to their adherents. Therefore the principles you espouse REQUIRE that the government give money to churches.
Competent analysts of public affairs have always recognised that government must distribute public money to churches in order to facilitate the important social work that they do.
Charles52, the political left has no interest in political or religious diversity. Diversity of culture, of ethnicity, yes, but not diversity of thought – hence the totalitarian impulse.
Todd Granger –
Ya think?!
I can deal with the narrowness of the ”inclusive”. It’s the lies and manipulations that drive me nuts. Here’s a pretty good column that presents and rebuts the craziness:
http://m.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/should-the-church-have-to-dispense-birth-control/252321/