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February 3, 2012
EDITORIAL
Catholics must be forceful in defense of religious
liberty
Last
August, the Department of Health and Human Services
unveiled a new regulation that, in effect, would force
Catholic institutions such as hospitals, schools and
social service agencies to pay the full cost of
providing their employees health insurance coverage for
sterilizations and all forms of artificial birth control
including those that work by causing abortions, in
violation of the church’s beliefs on the dignity and
sanctity of life. The regulations were issued as part of
the implementation of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.
The
Catholic bishops and other religious leaders urged the
administration to broaden the religious exemptions in
the regulation to allow faith based organizations to
remain true to their moral and religious values, the
same values that motivated them to serve the poor, heal
the sick and educate the young based on need rather than
religious affiliation.
But
on Jan. 20, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, on behalf
of the Obama administration, announced that the
regulation would proceed with the narrow religious
exemptions. The federal government’s only concession was
to give faith-based organizations a year to adapt to the
new rules. As New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan,
president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
put it, “In effect, the president is saying that we have
a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.”
This
fight is no longer simply about how best to implement
the health care reform law. The Catholic Church and
other people of faith have been forced to defend their
right to practice their religion in public. The
president’s actions have trumped his soaring rhetoric on
the place of religion in American society. Those actions
have made it abundantly clear that in his view there is
no room in the public square for religion, despite the
first amendment’s protection of our right to practice
our faith without government intrusion.
He’s
certainly not alone. Increasingly, the culture in our
country and in most of the Western industrialized
nations has been hostile to any public displays of
faith. We’re told we can believe what we want, but in
the next breath we’re belittled for our beliefs and told
to keep them to ourselves.
But
as Christians, we know that our obligation is to bring
our faith to the world. That’s why the Catholic Church
from its very beginning has reached out to help the poor
and the sick. Later, the church in its quest for truth
and wisdom, laid the groundwork for the university
system we know today.
Apparently, the president and so many others don’t
understand the connection between our faith and our
actions, or even more troubling, don’t care if there is
such a connection.
Bishop David Zubik characterized the administration’s
actions most bluntly in a letter to his diocese. “The
Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the
United States, ‘To Hell with you!’” he wrote. “Kathleen
Sebelius and through her, the Obama administration, have
said ‘To Hell with You’ to the Catholic faithful of the
United States, to Hell with your religious beliefs, to
Hell with your religious liberty, to Hell with your
freedom of conscience.”
He
continued: “This is government by fiat that attacks the
rights of everyone – not only Catholics; not only people
of all religion. At no other time in memory or history
has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom
not only with regard to religion, but even across the
board with all citizens. It forces every employer to
subsidize an ideology or pay a penalty while searching
for alternatives to health care coverage. It undermines
the whole concept and hope for health care reform by
inextricably linking it to the zealotry of pro-abortion
bureaucrats.”
In
an editorial last August, the Tennessee Register said
those Catholics who convinced themselves to vote for the
president despite his aggressive pro-choice policies
because they believed that on balance he would pursue
policies that would protect the poor, improve access to
health care for all, bring sanity to the country’s
immigration system, had been duped.
Many
said we were too harsh in our assessment of the Obama
administration, that his failures on issues important to
Catholics weren’t his fault.
Today, many Catholics surely are indeed feeling duped.
Archbishop Dolan said he felt “terribly let down,
disappointed and disturbed” when the president informed
him that the regulation would stand unchanged.
Archbishop Dolan found it difficult to reconcile the
decision with what the president had told him during a
meeting in November – “that he considered the protection
of conscience sacred, that he didn’t want anything his
administration would do to impede the work of the church
that he claimed he held in high regard, particularly in
the area of health care, education, works of charity and
justice.”
Archbishop Dolan isn’t alone. Washington Post columnist
E.J. Dionne is a Catholic and frequent defender of the
Obama administration. After the Jan. 20 announcement, he
wrote, “Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies
under the bus.” Many of those allies broke with the
American bishops over concerns that Americans would be
forced to pay for abortions under the president’s health
care reform bill. It’s not an exaggeration to say that
their stand provided the political cover the president
needed to win, arguably, his most important legislative
victory. But the president’s actions have turned the
assurances of his Catholic allies to ashes.
This
is not the time for Catholics to remain silent in the
face of a culture hostile to our faith and our values.
Catholics must stand fast in defense of religious
liberty. We need not accede to the aggression of those
who see us an obstacle to progress, because we know true
progress depends on respect for human dignity because
that respect is the foundation of the right of all
Americans to practice their religious beliefs.
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