The invitation…[came in] an open letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation to liberal and nominal Catholics, or as some would call us, cafeteria Catholics, secular Catholics or people pretending to be Catholic. I’ve been called all of the above.
The handout urged me to quit because my staying is “aiding and abetting” a church that wants to ban birth control and abortion. It asked me to choose between reproductive freedom or the Dark Ages, between “women and their rights or bishops and their wrongs.”
It asked me to stop deluding myself that I can change the church from within. It asked me to vote with my feet and leave “an institution that discriminates against half of humanity.”
[blockquote]The handout urged me to quit because my staying is “aiding and abetting” a church that wants to ban birth control and abortion. It asked me to choose between reproductive freedom or the Dark Ages, between “women and their rights or bishops and their wrongs.”[/blockquote]
Note the lie. The Catholic Church has said that they object to being forced to pay for other’s birth control and abortions. While the Church disapproves of those things they are not trying to ban those things. What they might do if they had the power is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether those who want abortion and birth control can force the Church and others who disagree with abortion and birth control to pay for them.
Re #1
Actually the RCC is very definitely trying to ban abortion. They are and have been for decades aggressively lobbying for the criminalization of abortion on demand. And for the record I agree with them. You are however correct that the Catholic Church has shown little interest in the subject of birth control as long as they aren’t being forced to pay for it. Again I concur with that approach.
As for all these liberal Catholics; Ms. Schori needs to get off the dime and issue the guidelines for the new Roman Ordinariate in TEO. Here are some suggestions…
Disaffected Catholics could enter into full communion (they already are of course allowed to commune but that’s a side issue) with TEO. They would be allowed to keep some of their Roman customs and patrimony that are not incompatible with TEO’s doctrine like the Millennium Development Goals and absolute inclusiveness and tolerance. To which end they could keep things like their horrible singing and the Tye-dye vestments so popular with liberal Catholic clergy. “On Wings of Eagles” and guitar/clown masses are fine too.
Of course there are some things they would have to give up, starting with the Pope and some of the superstitions peculiar to the Roman Church like saints relics and such. All in all it sounds like a great opportunity. I suspect that a few Roman Catholic bishops would be happy to publicize the initiative in their dioceses, in the spirit of friendly ecumenism of course.
Just out of curiosity, and because I’ve never gotten a plausible answer to this: what is the ethical difference, from the RCC’s perspective, between the following scenarios?
1) The Church pays premiums to an insurance company, which may possibly use that money to pay for an employee’s birth control.
2) The Church pays wages to an employee, who may possibly use that money to pay for his or her own birth control.
In either case, the Church’s money is going, through an intermediary, to pay for birth control. I fail to see why one is OK and the other is an attack on religious freedom.
The answer is that in 1 you are forced to buy the insurance with mandated birth control provisions. Otherwise you could provide the insurance without the birth control provisions.
But if the employee uses their wages to buy birth control, it’s still the Church ultimately paying for it.
Put it another way: if you feel the Church should be able to tell the insurance company, “I don’t want you using these premiums to pay for birth control” (which is what buying a policy that does not cover birth control would be saying), why isn’t it equally true that the Church should be able to tell its employees, “I don’t want you using your wages to pay for birth control”? The two situations are equivalent.
No, they are not equivalent. Once the wages are paid the employer has no control over how they are spent, not unless you want to bring back slavery.
6. Ross, it is the difference between the government using your taxes to do something you believe is a serious moral evil (fund abortions, send troops to an unjust war–whatever issue you see as a really serious moral issue) or requiring you personally to write the check/make the bank transfer that pays for it.
In life we have obligations – to pay taxes, to pay wages, to pay a company for goods or services we use. That money is then the property of the body to whom it was paid. We don’t necessarily have the right to say how it can and cannot be used. But for the government to require people to personally pay for something they consider to be truly evil cuts against the grain of the concerns of freedom of religion.
The real crux of the matter is that Ms. Brett wants God to conform to her will, rather than she conforming to God’s will.
The Catholic Church is always in need of renewal, because it’s full of souls in need of renewal, like me. Unfortunately, the proposal at hand is not for renewal but an entirely new religion. New, at least, for the Catholic Church.
I am going to guess that [url=http://youtu.be/MxfO7a7_bWs]this is sort of what she has in mind[/url]. Great moments in church renewal. So when exactly are you Anglicans going to issue Romanorum coetibus?
I would argue it is not for a new religion but the abandonment of a religion into a quasi one that indulges the whims of man. As the Holy father recently stated- Judas’ real crime was to keep following Jesus when he no longer loved him, causing terrible pain by that cowardly and dishonest decision. This lady needs to leave. Then Catholics can be Catholic
#11, I’m very sad to hear you advocating for someone to leave the Church. As a priest, you should want her to stay at all costs, even if you disagree with her and think she should quit talking.
Catholics and be Catholics with or without her or anyone else. Thank God.
#12 Why should she stay in a Church she wants (imo) to turn into TEC? As long as she embraces ideas and opinions against RC teaching she has already put herself outside the Church. She has already left.