Decades ago, priests, religious brothers and religious sisters were colorfully visible features of Catholic hospitals, serving as nurses, chaplains, business officers, and chief administrators. With the decline in vocations, this obviously religious leadership largely disappeared, but Catholic values, for the most part, still animated these institutions. What has begun to concern a number of observers is that, as today’s medical personnel, staffers, and administrators at Catholic hospitals have accommodated themselves more and more to secularist assumptions, even those values are in danger of disappearing.
But now the slow and steady creep of secularization has been given a massive push by the Obama administration’s recent mandate that all health-care agencies and institutions must pay for insurance that covers contraception, sterilization, and certain kinds of abortifacient drugs. The state is creating an impossible situation for Catholic hospitals. If they cave in and provide insurance for these verboten procedures, they have effectively de-Catholicized themselves; and if they refuse to provide such insurance, they will be met with fines of millions of dollars, which they cannot possibly pay. In either case, they are forced out of business as Catholic.
The secularist state wants Catholicism off the public stage and relegated to a private realm where it cannot interfere with secularism’s totalitarian agenda. I realize that in using that particular term, I’m dropping a rhetorical bomb, but I am not doing so casually. A more tolerant liberalism allows, not only for freedom of worship, but also for real freedom of religion, which is to say, the expression of religious values in the public square and the free play of religious ideas in the public conversation. Most of our founding fathers advocated just this type of liberalism. But there is another modality of secularism — sadly on display in the current administration — that is actively aggressive toward religion, precisely because it sees religion as its primary rival in the public arena.
The reason that the Bill of Rights — the first ten amendments to the Constitution — is so important is that it holds off the tendency, inherent in any government, toward totalitarianism, even if that means the totalitarianism of the majority. The very first amendment, of course, guarantees the free exercise of religion in our country. Our founders obviously feared that even a democratic system, predicated upon a repudiation of tyranny, could become so tyrannical itself that it would seek to intrude upon the sacred realm of the religious conscience. As Jefferson, Tocqueville, Lincoln, and many others have seen, our democracy is especially healthy when it disallows a concentration of power — political, economic, or cultural — in any one place. I would hope that American Catholics would argue against the Obama administration’s move, not only because they are Catholics, but also because they are Americans.
— Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. He is the creator of a new ten-episode documentary series called Catholicism.
Multiple polls show that a majority of Americans support the President's decision. I love it when some one tries to explain how a majority of Americans are in fact un-American.
Further, this is soon going to pivot from religious freedom to women's health. Are you all ready to grab a third rail?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrom Jefferson until it decided to co-op the Civil Rights movement (and give Sheets Byrd's comments and Tubby's Bubba's comments at Sheets Byrd's funeral), the Democratic Pary was the party of race-based slavery, race-based discrimination, race and religion based terror by its terrorist arm the KKK, their beliefs did make it right to practice such abhorrent behaviors, but they did.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSimple, that is a lie. It is not fundamentally about women's health. They can do whatever they wish. But, they can't change the Church's doctrine. Two separate things. Murdering an unborn child isn't very healthy either, but it seems some women and especially the Obama's fo the world have a pretty easy time getting over that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCitation please?
I am really intersted in public opinion even if I am not exactly sure how effective it is to apply, deny or amend any Constitutional protections based on them.
It is my understanding that the HHS mandate of Jan 20, 2012 and Catholic bishop's response was not reported on any major media oultlet until approximately January 30.
Because of that, I would be most interested in any opinion polls conducted after this story developed "legs". (After about Feb 3 or so). Are there any such opinion polls out yet? Did the polls that you will cite frame the issue as "right to choose" or "religious liberty"? Just curious. It would seem to be helpful in interpreting the polling data.
Thanks in advance for you information in this area.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I love it when some one tries to explain how a majority of Americans are in fact un-American."
You show a complete ignorance of American history! Democracy is when two wolves and a pig vote on what is for dinner. This country was founded as a republic. This country is founded on the Rule of Law, not the Rule of Men. But the only way you will understand this is when you are the minority losing your rights.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you Father. Love your Catholicism series BTW
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnti-Catholic and Un-American. Yes - and let's never forget that it is supported by Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, who represent the 59,000 nuns that Nancy Pelosi praised for supporting this "life-affirming" law. Let's thank these wonderful sisters.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI will thank them with the only thing that will help much prayer and true Christian love.
“Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi” (What you pray is what you believe is what you live)
“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.” Pope Benedict XVI
“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.” G. K. Chesterton
“Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.” Lord Acton
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree whole-heartedly! What I do NOT understand is WHY the church does not take a stand on these people, and exercise their power to ex-communicate?? As long as these people are allowed to remain token "catholics ," they will continue to 'speak' on behalf of the Catholic Church. The failure of the Church to deal with these people is a tacit approval (like it or not) of their words and deeds. I speak as a Catholic who left the church and followed these 'voices' for several years, as they went virtually unopposed by the Church. I've been back for several years, am raising my daughters to 'hear' the voice of the Catholic church, even when the Church is too timid to shout it out loudly and clearly.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree wholeheartedly with this comment. As lay people, our bishops are urging us to write to our Congressional representatives while ignoring the Catholic voices that are coming in opposition. There are many Catholic organizations that support the Health Care Reform Bill and did not care to look at the future possibilities of what government health control would bring. In my opinion, my health care coverage is my insurance for medical costs of sickness and injury. Birth control does not fall under an illness that requires medical help. It is a drug of choice and I do not want my premiums going up so I can pay for this "free" government health care.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you for this post Fr. Barron.
Liberty and government power occupy the same space. As one grows, the other diminishes. It is a zero sum game.
When government power expands to the point where it extinguishes religious liberty, it is not a stretch to call the motives behind and the implications of that expansion totalitarian in their nature.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen the President holds his next press conference, it might be useful to ask him whether he has changed his mind about this statement he made in a 2006 speech about the role of religion in the public square:
"But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
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And whether his changed his mind about this statement he made in his 2009 commencement speech at Notre Dame:
"Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause."
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A useful follow up question might be whether he actually meant what he said in these statements in the first place.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFather Barron - I've asked this question on a number of threads now, and no one seems able to answer: what scripture or canon law would be violated if a Catholic pays for an insurance policy for an employee that covers contraception.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor large employers, insurance companies simply act as administrators. The cost of medical services is actually paid for by the employers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, for starters, abortifacient medications will violate the Ten Commandments. Though shall not kill.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCatholics carry Rosary beads - not a rule book. You're likely thinking of Obama's czars.
The more relevant question is to ask if Obama or anyone outside the Church should be interpreting Catholic views or teachings for those inside. Or has Obama standing in the Church?
On another level, why should this be on a private insurance policy in the first place?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry cutie that's not for you or the other HuffPo/USA Today/NYT regulars to decide.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Pope gives us our rules.
If the Pope told me to throw a pie at Obummer I'd do it!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAA
So "no one seems able to answer" your question, huh? Here you go: the mandate violates the following commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."
Glad we got that cleared up. Have a good weekend. :)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot really. Contraception obviously means to block conception. Conception refers to the forming of the embryo. I think that guy was looking for your answer - should have just agreed with me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually, contra-ception means to act against conception. It does not mean to prevent it. According to the actual Physician's Desk Reference (not Catholic by the way and used by all doctors), many contraceptives will allow fertilization of the egg but prevent it from attaching to the uterine wall hence killing the fertilized embryo and acting as an abortifacient.
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