Of Popes and Presidents

Looks pretty friendly to me 

So President Obama met with Pope Francis at the Vatican this morning and the Catholic blogosphere has lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve with the krazies saying that the President looked “chagrined” and “uncomfortable” as he met the Pope.  The photos tell quite a different story with the President in his usual strong stride and ear-to-ear smile.  And then there are conflicting stories about how the conversation went with the White House stressing points of agreement—immigration reform and checks on economic disparity with the wealthier growing wealthier at the expense of the poor who are growing poorer as we as seeing more and more people slide downhill from the middle class into the poverty range.  Catholics unhappy with Obama are quoting Vatican sources saying that the Pope “chastised” the President over Obamacare and issues of religious freedom.  Whatever, but it ended with everyone smiling and with the President inviting the Holy Father to the White House. 
What actually happened was a very cordial meeting.  These meetings are always cordial.  The Pope played Good Cop to his Bad Cop Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.  That is the way these Vatican meetings go.  The substance meeting is with the Secretary of State.  That is where there is hard talk.  The papal meetings are all about everyone behaving in the sand-box and getting along.  And the fact of the matter is the Pope and President agree on far more than they disagree on.  Even Obamacare.  The problem of the Holy See with Obamacare is not universal health coverage.  Popes have spoken about the “right” to health care being a universal right.  Italians—and Argentines and French and Canadians and English and Dutch and Norwegians and just about everyone else in the developed world—take universal health care for granted.  The Church’s problem is making the Church pay for coverage for procedures and medications that the Church believes to be intrinsically wrong.   There would be no problem with Obamacare if Catholic institutions were not required to provide coverage for contraception for their employees.  I hate to be cynical, but the bishops wouldn’t be complaining about individual Catholic employers having to cover their employees—they just don’t want to do it.  I will give them credit that I believe their reservation isn’t economic, that it is a genuine moral objection.  And I am anxious to see what the Supreme Court does with the issue.  I think the Obama administration was foolish not to back down on this one, at least as far as the Church is concerned.  But to be honest, the fight is no longer about contraception coverage.  It is an opportunity for the secular left to take a couple of swings at the Catholic Church.   The Administration doesn’t want to appear to back down to the Church’s demands and look like it is caving in in front of its base in the various left-wing lobbies that want to use this issue to slam the Church.  And of course our bishops fall right into that trap.  When will they learn to identify the real issues and respond to them rather than to react to the red flags with which they are taunted by those groups who are angry with the Church over women’s issues, gay issues, or just angry because some nun whacked their knuckles with a ruler in the sixth grade back in 1962?
C’mon guys, get on the Francis bandwagon.  Get out there in front for immigrants.  Seize the moral high-ground.  Talk about the millions who are trapped in low-income jobs with the consequent challenges to education, diet, health-care, and human dignity while some people in our society make 462 times the annual salary of their average employee.  I am no fan of the communion-wars but If you want to refuse politicians or rainbow sash folk communion, refuse it to anyone who makes more than five times the average annual salary of his workers.  Tell your communicants that discrimination against people based on their legal status is a sin.  And for heaven’s sake, let the gays march in the Saint Patrick’s Day parade—and come down the cathedral steps and shake their hands.  If Jesus could drink from the bucket of the Samaritan woman, you can be seen chatting with a LGBT person.   And, perhaps most of all, remind us that the Church says that health care is a human right and that if not Obamacare, we still need to do something to make sure that each and every person here—legally or illegally—have access to good health care.  Be a Christian and stop prostituting yourself to the selfish interests of the worst elements in our society.    I guess I wouldn’t make a good pope –I don’t always play nice.  But maybe Secretary of State. 

Fortnight for Romney

I was amused and surprised the other evening when a friend of mine referred to the “Fortnight for Freedom” as the “Fortnight for Romney.”  Amused because he said what any number of us have been thinking; surprised because he is a committed and pretty main-line Catholic.  But then I think a lot of main line Catholics are wondering in what direction our leadership is going. 

     Another friend, a convert and very devout, called me today and brought up the subject of the Fortnight for Freedom and then the LCWR.  He too was uncomfortable with the message as it is coming from the pulpit in his parish and sensed that the “party line” is somehow out of step with the values of the Gospel.

       And I have been uncomfortable all along with what has been going on under the current “leadership” of our bishops.  To begin with, I never understood the opposition to Health Care.  Ok, Ok, I get the part about abortion and concern about health care covering abortions, but ever since the 2008 campaign the bishops were opposed to the idea of health care itself.  They weren’t just saying that we need to make sure that the package doesn’t promote abortion or euthanasia; they were going after the very idea that our society should provide health coverage for every individual.  You know, I went through eight years of Catholic Grade School, four years of Catholic (ok, Jesuit) High School, a BA from a Catholic (ok, Jesuit) university, and a Master’s degree in Theology—I always thought that it was one of the goals of our Catholic faith to make sure that everyone had access to good health care—as well as education, shelter, and food.  I mean, I read Mater et Magistra, Gaudium et Spes, Popolorum Progressio and a bunch of other magisterial documents about the kind of world that is consistent with our Catholic Faith.  Duh, what was the problem with health care?  I never got that back in 2008.  The goals, if not all the particulars, of Obamacare seemed consistent with our Catholic values—at least more consistent than leaving people without access to health care.  I am still confused on this.  Somewhere the “Church” took a turn in the road that I must have missed.  I mean the Obama project was flawed—but not essentially.  It seemed to me that it was a goal we could have worked with. 

         And I understand that regardless of the provisions of Affordable Care Act, the Church cannot in conscience provide contraception and sterilization to its employees.  And it doesn’t have to.  I am not happy, as I have written elsewhere, that President Obama got into this morass with the Church, but I think his solution solves the problem.  The Church does not have to provide objectionable services.  Period. And while I agree the Church should not have to provide the services, if the bishops don’t want people to have access to these services no-how, no-way, well, that is not reasonable.  Yes we Catholics believe that these procedures contradict the moral law—but there is no moral consensus in our society about contraception and we have no right to impose our view on others, especially when we are a minority.  (Though I do not believe that, other than in egregious circumstances, even a majority has a right to impose a doctrine or moral precept on society until the society comes to a consensus on the matter.  For example, I do not want to the Christian minority in Egypt or Iraq subject to sharia law even though the majority of citizenry in those societies hold to sharia law.)  So when we Catholics scream that our “freedoms” are threatened because we cannot block access to health-care covered contraceptives for employees in our institutions, I say: “get over it.”     
        Let’s be honest, for once, your Excellencies—the bottom line of this “Fortnight for Freedom” is nothing less than a rally against the Black Guy in the White House.  It is the leadership of the Church in the United States allying itself with the worst right-wing elements of our society in a Tea Party Frenzy to make the face of America look more…more…more…well, like “us.”  I know that sounds harsh, but our bishops went merrily down Karl Rove’s road of manipulating conservative religious groups to defeat John Kerry in 2004.  In the hopes of making headway against abortion, many of the bishops discarded any other moral concern.  And it was no better four years ago.  And this is just another reason why the leadership has lost its ability to genuinely lead.  There was a day when the Catholic Bishops were heard on moral issues.  Reagan s*** in his drawers when the Bishops published their 1983 pastoral letter condemning the Arms Race and the 1986 letter on economic justice required a change of under-clothing as well.  People listened to the bishops then but their moral voice has since been squandered due to the sex abuse and financial scandals as well as their pandering to the political right.  Maybe it is just as well that the Bishops are speaking up against social justice; it might actually help the cause.  But meanwhile, the voice of the Church today, at least the voice we are listening to, are the “nuns on the bus.”    Here I am fifty-some years later and once again I am say: “Yes, Sister.”

Cry Wolf!

 What danger does the Patient Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 offer to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution? 

  First—let’s look at the text. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

Our concern here is the first two clauses.. There shall be no law respecting an establishing of religion.  There shall be no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.    
       As I understand it the Catholic Church and its institutions will neither have to provide nor pay for there to be provided to their employees and their dependents, any procedure such as sterilization, abortifacients, or  contraceptives that violate Catholic moral teaching.  On the other hand, their employees and their dependents will be given access to these services at the expense of the insurance companies.  While one might expect that the companies would pass the cost of such services along to those who pay the premiums, in fact the insurance companies want to provide these services as they will lower the cost to the companies since birth-prevention is cheaper than the cost of providing medical care for childbirth and subsequent infant-child care.  (That, at least, is the theory.  I am cynical enough to believe that while the insurance companies may in fact want to provide contraceptive and related services, they will still try to pass the (hidden) cost along in order to maximize their profit. That is the way business works ever since ethics courses became optional in American colleges and universities.)    Does making available to employees of religious institutions services that contradict the religious tenets of the employer-organization without any involvement by or cost to the employer-organization constitute an encroachment on free practice of religion? I think that is a bit of a stretch, but I am not a constitutional lawyer.  Of course neither are the bishops.  Most commentators believe that when this issue comes to the Supreme Court, if the Patient Affordable Care Act of 2010 is still standing despite other lawsuits, that the Court will side with the Church on this issue. They base this estimation on the January 2012 opinion delivered by the Court in the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School case v EEOC which, though dealing with remarkably different issues has the same principles (or so some think) at stake in terms of a religious body’s right to determine its administrative policies without government interference .     

      I do think we are going to have to determine sound boundaries both to protect religion and protect from religion in a secular society.  I also think there is a campaign in certain segments of our society to restrict the influence and even visibility of religion, but I honestly don’t think that is the Obama administration’s agenda.  And so I have fears that this “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign by the American Bishops is not a legitimate red flag to protect religious freedom but a thinly veiled political assault on the Obama administration to convince Catholics that they should support the Republican ticket in November.   A greater fear of mine than Obamacare being an assault on our religious freedoms is that when the wolf does come no one will take the bishops' cries for help seriously.    

Catholic Heritage, Obamacare, and Mitered Dramaqueens

Catholicism has a long tradition of educational ministry going back to Cassiadorus’ monastery at Vivarium at the end of the sixth century and continuing up through the Middle Ages with the great Abbey Schools mandated by Charlemagne, the medieval Cathedral Schools, and the medieval universities.  One of the first undertakings of American Catholicism after our revolution was the establishment of Georgetown College (now University).  John Carroll not only established this educational facility for men but asked Elizabeth Seton to organize a religious sisterhood to educate girls as well as boys—something the public schools of the day were not doing.  In 1799 Father Leonard Neale, president of Georgetown College, persuaded a small group of women to takes vows as Visitation nuns and open a girls school which even today is one of the finest secondary academies in the United States.  Likewise health care has always been a priority for Catholics.  In 651 the bishop of Paris organized the Hotel Dieu—the oldest hospital in the city. It was the model for other institutions to care for the sick poor.  Religious communities such as the Brothers of Saint John of God and the Daughters of Charity were organized specifically for care of the sick.  One of the most distinguished of these Orders is the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.  The Hospital itself was established in Jerusalem under the Patronage of Pope Saint Gregory the Great around the year 600.  In 1023 Blessed Gerard Thom, a knight from Amalfi, organized a pious brotherhood of noblemen to care for pilgrims who came to visit the Holy Places.  These were knights but they were also solemnly vowed religious.  They continue today and are popularly known as the Knights of Malta or the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.  Most of the Knights and Dames of Malta are lay associates, but even today there is a core of solemnly vowed religious brothers (of noble blood) at the heart of the Order.  They are among the most unique, or even idiosyncratic, religious orders in the Church.  And the Lay Associates, usually well-to-do Catholic laity, undertake some very humble and direct ministries to the sick poor including those with AIDS/HIV.
In the United States, religious women were very quick to undertake ministry to the sick.  In an age (nineteenth century) where hospitals were almost invariably private clinics run by physicians and affordable only by the wealthier segments of society, the various congregations of the Sisters of Charity, the Irish immigrant Sisters of Mercy, and other groups of nuns opened hospitals that cared for all irrespective of their religious affiliation or ability to pay. 
We always have to be careful about speaking in generalities, but by and large the American Protestant view of the Church and its mission prioritizes worship.  The mission of the Church is seen as to build a sanctuary, hire a pastor to preach and lead worship, develop a music program to aid worship.  Sunday school, of course, is important but other than the Lutherans most American Protestants had never concentrated on building schools until the public schools were desegregated in the 1960’s. Catholics, on the other hand, realize that a school or a hospital or an adoption agency or a homeless shelter or a university or center for abused women or a counseling agency is as central to the mission of the Church as any cathedral, basilica, or parish church. 
I have been severely disappointed in the Obama administration’s decision to exempt from the contraceptive/sterilization/abortifacient requirement of the Patient Affordable Care Act of 2010 only those religious institutions directly involved with worship.  It may make sense from a Protestant perspective to define “Church institution” in this narrow way but it fails to respect the many ways in which our Catholic family continues to serve not only its own members but the larger community.  Actually, what I am disappointed in is the administration’s stupidity in picking a fight with the Catholic Church. It really wasn’t necessary.  It left a lot of Catholics who have been enthusiastic supporters of the President feeling betrayed.  It has sucked the enthusiasm out of a lot of us Catholics who continue to believe that the Democratic Party continues to offer a more moral vision of society than the opposition party.  Frankly, while many of us will still vote for the President in November it has taken motivation from some to give time, energy, or money to the effort.  It just didn’t need to be this way.
On the other hand, bishops, to start ringing a tin copy of the Liberty Bell saying that we are in danger of losing our First Amendment Rights of Free Exercise is not only a bit histrionic, it smacks of political alarmism.  But more about that in future posts.     

Another Catholic in Congress Who Needs a Refresher in Catholic Doctrine

Sorry for the absence there for a few days--and I hope to get back to the history of Saint Peter's Basilica--but I noticed the following article in today's paper and how it--or references to it--are popping up all over the web. I doubt it will pop up in the pulpit as well, or at least as often as concerns over the contraception mandate and anxieties over religous freedom.  But it does show us that there is no clear path for Catholics through the current political morass.  It also shows that maybe Congresspersons Ryan and Peolosi should go for a bi-partisan refresher in Catholic Doctrine,

WASHINGTON–A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan claimed his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-cutting budget plan, the nation's Catholic bishops reiterated their demand that the federal budget protect the poor, and said the GOP measure "fails to meet these moral criteria."
That and other strongly-worded judgments on the GOP budget proposal flew in a flurry of letters from leading bishops to the chairmen of key congressional committee.
The letters to Capitol Hill were highlighted in a Tuesday statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that came after Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and rising conservative hero, told an interviewer last week that his fiscal views were informed by Catholic social teaching.
The hierarchy's pushback comes after liberal Catholics in Congress and progressive activists challenged the bishops to resist the GOP budget proposals with the same vigor that they have challenged the Obama administration's contraception mandate and its perceived violations of religious freedom.
Even though the Republican-passed House budget has almost no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or the White House iit is nonetheless serving as a proxy economic platform for Republicans in the presidential campaign, and as a counterpoint for Democrats.
Last Thursday, the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty called for American Catholics to engage in a "Fortnight for Freedom" campaign — starting in late June and ending on July 4 — to actively resist the contraception mandate and other measures that the bishop say impinge on religious liberty.
The next day, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations, wrote to the bishops' president, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, saying that as a Catholic she felt the bishops should highlight the injustices she and others saw in the Republican plans.
"What I am asking for is a campaign for the poor, the hungry, the middle class, the people who are going to be eviscerated by the Ryan budget," DeLauro told Catholic News Service. 
That same day, some 60 Catholic social justice leaders, theologians and clergy also released a atement saying that "this budget is morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good."
Tuesday's statement from the bishops came the same day as Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., called a proposed cut in benefits for children of immigrants "unjust and wrong." Blaire, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, also decried any cuts in food stamps while preserving federal subsidies for industrial farming enterprises.
"Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices," Blaire wrote to the House Agriculture Committee  "Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs."
"The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria."

A Jesuit Voice of Reason

Just a short entry today—but a great link to something worth reading and instead of reading one of my verbal meanderings  I urge yo to go there and read something worthwhile. 

In the meantime, I love the Jesuits.  They are the best of the best.  And Congratulations to Father Michael Rozier of the Society of Jesus for his posting on The Jesuit Post concerning the Health Care Contraceptive Mandate and Religious Liberty.  I know Jesuits aren’t supposed to become bishops but this is the sort of articulate person we need in Church leadership today. Go Jesuits!!!   Father Ignatius must be mighty proud

http://thejesuitpost.org/site/2012/03/mandated-reporting/

Good Morning, Timmy, Time to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. receiving
the Cardinal's biretta from H.H. Pope Benedict XVI
last February 18th  in Rome

I like Cardinal Timothy Dolan the Archbishop of New York.  I think we need more –plenty more—bishops like him.  He is personable, good humored, and down to earth.  But he is as out of touch as most of his fellow members of the American Catholic hierarchy. 

       They say that when one becomes a bishop “you’ve had your last bad meal and you will never hear the truth again.”   Somebody has got to get through to Dolan and wake him up to some basic facts.  His Eminence spoke last week at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville, Long Island regarding the Health Care mandate requiring all employers, including Catholic institutions, to cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. His Eminence is right to protest this and to educate the faithful about both the moral and political facets of this issue.  I have no problem with that—to the contrary I would be disappointed if the Cardinal and the other American hierarchs didn’t do their duty and alert the faithful to the import of this issue.  But according to newspaper accounts the Cardinal threatened to put the political muscle of 78 million Roman Catholics against the administration.  This is where I am wondering on what planet the good Cardinal lives.   

      In the first place, while there may be 78 million Americans who on the census list Roman Catholic as their religious affiliation, let’s say that there may be 50 million who attend Church with some regularity.  Of those 50 million there may be about 10 million who know who the Cardinal Archbishop of New York is (and less that care).  Perhaps there are 40 million who know who their own bishop is (and again, how many care is another issue).

       In the end, few Catholics will be swayed in their choice at the polls by the Cardinal’s—or any other bishop’s—urgings.  I am not saying that there won’t be many who vote against a second term for President Obama—there will be millions who vote against the President.  What I am saying is that those who will use their vote against the Obama administration will be overwhelmingly those who would not have voted the President a second term in any event.  There are some among them who will call for their fellow Catholics to heed the bishops’ advice and they may claim that they are making their political choice “to preserve the freedom of the Church” or to “protect religious freedom” in general, but you will find very few of these types who did not vote against Barack Obama in 2008 and had no intention of voting for him this time.  And there may be one or two million who will vote for the President simply because they are angry with the bishops for presuming to direct us in our political choice—or who are just angry at the bishops and see this as a way to strike back.   Those who do switch votes in 2012 will be doing it for reasons more personal to their own welfare than for the “good” of their Church.  Given that Obama carried the Catholic vote in 2008, I will be surprised if he does not carry it—admittedly by a smaller majority—again in 2012.  The Cardinal’s political muscle is limper than whatever shambles are left of his biceps in those flabby arms that go with the jovial face. 

      The Church needs a new strategy to rebuild its once-proud place in public life.  The sex-abuse scandal, and in particular the abysmal job many bishops did of handling the scandal, took away any pretenses of moral leadership.  The perceived bias against women in the Church has kicked down whatever teetering ruins of credibility are left.  American Catholics—even the most devout—are not getting on the homophobic believers’ bus as almost all of us have a gay child, aunt, brother-in-law, friend, co-worker, neighbor from whom we have learned to rethink this issue for ourselves.  In the estimation of most Americans, including Catholics, the president extricated himself neatly from the Health-Care obligatory coverage for contraceptives controversy.  The poor Cardinal is, like the emperor, parading down the street head held high but naked to his enemies (and friends alike).   Wake up, Timmy, and smell the coffee.  You are one of the few mitered brows that conceals a brain bright enough to know that there is a lot of rebuilding necessary and equally necessary is a new strategy to recover true leadership.    

Is Rush Limbaugh to be the Next American Cardinal?

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (1928-1996)
A wise prelate whose advice about 
dialogue should have been heeded

Rush Limbaugh calls a Third-Year Law Student a “slut” because she advocates mandatory contraceptive coverage. What has that to do with contemporary American Catholicism?  Well, plenty actually. Whethr or not we like it, Rush Limbaugh has joined our team, climbed on our bus, and maybe we need to relook at what we are standing for.     

      Of course the whole situation arose in response and consequence to the American Bishops opposing mandatory coverage for contraceptives as part of the Health Care legislation.  Had the bishops limited their argument to exempting Catholic institutions from having to provide coverage for those procedures to which Catholics—on moral grounds—object,  the bishops may have had an argument, By broadening their attack on Health Care to argue that any employer should be exempted from having to provide coverage, however, the Church has lost in the court of public opinion where 83% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and even 42% of Republicans (a minority of Republicans but a remarkably high minority given this having become a partisan issue) believe that all employers (including Catholic Institutions) should have to provide contraceptives coverage.   In a clumsy attempt to define this as a battle for religious liberty (which is one facet of the conundrum) the Republican controlled House of Representatives convoked a hearing led by Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa (R.CA) and invited a panel of religious leaders to testify.  At the same time Issa refused to accept the credentials of Democratic witness, Sandra Fluke, claiming that she was “unqualified.”  (The excuse was later defended by claiming that her name was submitted “too late” to the panel.)   Just to make sure that injury was not unaccompanied by insult, Representative Issa referred to Ms. Fluke as “a college student.”  Sandra Fluke is, in fact, a Third Year Georgetown University Law Student where she leads the “Law Students for Reproductive Justice.”  Ms. Fluke had done her undergraduate degree at Cornell and before going to Law School she had worked for five years at “Sanctuary for Families,” a non-profit agency that assists victims of domestic violence.  Seeing tapes of her she is extremely articulate, certainly far more articulate than Mr. Limbaugh.  In fact, she is far more articulate than most bishops.   And she is certainly as qualified—if not more so—to speak to the issue of women’s concerns about Reproductive Justice as well as the legal repercussions for women and families of the failure to provide contraceptive coverage as was the all-male panel of bishops, seminary professors, rabbis, and imams.  Note: The all-male panel.  This was the problem.  What were the Republicans thinking when they convoked an all male panel for this issue?  And what was Bridgeport CT Bishop William Lori thinking when he agreed to sit on it.  S-T-U-P-I-D!!!  Was Bishop Lori so struck by the glamor of a national spotlight (a “protégé” <and the quotes are deliberate> of the late Cardinal James Hickey of Washington, Lori is a “climber” <here the quotes are used to denote a colloquialism> of the first degree) that he had no foresight on how this would make the Church look.  The hearing had no sooner begun and the good Bishop prattling away comparing making the Church pay for contraceptives to requiring a Kosher Deli to carry pork, when a Democrat member of the panel, Carolyn Maloney (D. NY) interrupted and asked the fatal question: “Where are the women?”  What a disaster!!!  When will our leadership (aka the Bishops) realize that they need to step out of the spotlight and put lay people—and in this case, women—there as the spokespersons?  If the American Church survives the incompetence of its episcopal leadership it will be only by the grace of God.  Let us hope that God doesn’t become so disgusted with their abysmal leadership that He doesn’t abanon them to their own ineptitude. Their narrow provincialism is  making it increasingly embarrassing to be Catholic.  And now, Rush Limbaugh weighs in adding ballast to their arguments.  This is the last thing we need to have happen.  I have always found a tone of anti-Catholicism in Limbaugh—I think he knows how dangerous the papal magisterium is to his conservative (read neo-nazi) stand on immigration, social justice, human dignity etc) and is no admirer of the Catholic Church.  What a wonderful way to rob it of whatever shreds of credibility it has remaining but to come to its side in attacking a bright and articulate Law Student.  Geez, what hole will we dig to fall into next? 

      Before his 1996 death from pancreatic cancer, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago had proposed a “Catholic Common Ground Initiative” to open dialogue with those who find themselves at odds with magisterial positions so that we might find the common ground on which we can build consensus. He was viciously attacked by such pillars of self-righteous authoritarianism as Cardinal Bernard Law (whose moral fiber became clear in the sex-abuse cover up scandals) and the omni-phobic Cardinal James Hickey (whose one-time secretary is the same William Lori who was testifying to this Congressional panel). 

      This current debacle only bears witness to the wisdom of Bernardin’s call.  If the Church is not to lose all credibility we need to sit down to open dialogue with a number of groups in our society, foremost among them women.  The bishops need to hear the needs and concerns of women.  Yes the Church has its moral teachings.  We are not disputing that.  But women have legitimate concerns to which we need to be sensitized.  Certainly not all women would agree with “the feminist agenda” nor allow that “radical feminists” speak for them, but our basic ignorance, as a Church, of the needs and concerns of the vast majority of women (not just Limbaugh’s “feminazis,” but of all women and especially of minority women) makes it impossible for us to bear effective witness of the Gospel to them in today’s societies.  Maybe the bishops need to invite Sandra Fluke and listen to her—I am not saying agree, I am saying listen—voice telling them what she does know better than them.  Maybe if the clergy began listening to the faithful, really listening, they would find that the Holy Spirit sings in more than one choir.  And maybe the Church might begin to regain its credibility before it brings down the entire building on itself in one huge act of self-destruction.  But then again, if the bishops are afraid of Elizabeth Johnson, Joan Chittester, and Sandra Schnieders—all nuns in their seventies—they certainly won’t want to be in the same room as a bright and articulate law student who is just over 30. 

Lions 1, Christians 0

Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport,

spokesperson for the Bishops'

Conference regarding the

contraception mandate in the Healh

Care Law

There they sat: Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport William Lori, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Dr. Matthew Harrison, Union University Professor of Moral Philosophy Dr. C Ben Mitchell, Yeshiva University Director of Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Ethics Professor Dr. Craig Mitchell—five men testifying before Congress on the pressing question of the implications on Religious Freedom for the Health Care Mandate for Contraceptive Coverage.  What is the problem?  Well the problem is this: appearances.  The battle is won not by facts but by emotions and whoever thought to put an all-male panel of witnesses up on a question that is not only about protecting religious freedom but also about women’s health must be a secret agent for the other side. 

     The debate about requiring religious institutions to provide contraceptive coverage in their mandated health care programs for their female employees is not unlike the debate about the legalization of abortion that had involved many of the same parties and which has divided our society for decades.  It is not a one-issue question.  I wish some of my fellow pro-Life Catholics would listen—LISTEN—to some of my friends who are pro-choice.  We on the pro-Life side of the argument are concerned about unborn babies.  And yes, we will use that language—babies—because that is what they are and we will not mask the critical implications of this debate with euphemisms that take away the personhood from these victims of intra-uterine slaughter.  Having said that, we need to sit down and listen to the pro-choice camp speak of their concern for women and for the complexities with which unplanned and unwanted pregnancies often confront women.  And we need to let them choose the language for their argument. Fair is Fair and we need to admit that pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing present women with limitations to their educational opportunities, to their careers, to the economic security of their families, to the stability of their relationships.  At times pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing even present serious threat to their health, if not even to their lives.  I have found that when I sit down and talk about abortion with my pro-choice friends that we are not even talking about the same agenda.  And if I want to protect the lives of unborn children then I have to be involved in protecting women from being put in the difficult positions that make abortion the only practical solution to their dilemmas. 

    This debate about the Health Care Mandate for Contraception is very much the same.  I am concerned about religious groups not being forced to provide services which they regard as morally unacceptable.  But that is only one side of the question.  I must also be concerned that women have access to services which my religion may say is morally wrong but which is legal.  Being legal doesn’t make something right.  I am not saying that.  But neither do my religious beliefs  make it wrong.  We have reached a social consensus on the legitimacy of birth control—as indeed we have on abortion.  I have the right to work to change that social consensus; indeed if I believe something is wrong I have an obligation to work to help my fellow members of society see why it is wrong, just as its advocates have a right to work to try to convince me.  But neither do any of us have a right to force society to live under the minority opinion and neither should any of us be forced to act against our consciences because the majority believes differently than do we. 

     This debate gets messy because there are those who in their religious zeal would wish to prohibit women from having access to contraception under any and all circumstances.  And here, we should say "prevent people from having access" as there are male contraceptives as well as female.  To proscribe contraception entirely is clearly an extremist position but there are some in the Church—bishops, clergy, and laity—who would have contraception be illegal and generally unavailable.  Such a position does not help any rational discussion. 

      Then there ere are those who realize that contraceptives are a part of modern medical protocols but who believe that they should be in the realm of private choice and paid for by the consumer out of her or his own pocket.  They may believe this because of religious reasons or, more likely, because they do not favor publicly funded health care of any sort for anyone.  They need to be honest and admit that their oppositoin to "ObamaCare" is not moral, it is purely political.

      Neither of these is a good position for us Catholics to be in.

      Then there are those who recognize that universal health care is—in general—in accord with the fundamental values of our Christian faith/  Among these are many who may or may not  be opposed to contraceptives but who recognize that contraceptives are a part of modern medical protocols and and as such should ordinarily be covered by health care as are other protocols; but who also believe that those religiously owned institutions (though not individual employers) whose religious traditions consider contraception to be immoral, should not be required to offer that coverage.  At the same time they should not begrudge their employees to have access to contraceptives provided through and by other means for which the religious institutions do not have to pay or be involved. 

     That might sound like I agree with “The Obama Compromise”

      Well, I don’t.  For one thing, it isn’t a compromise.  Eleanor Holmes Norton, the “Delegate” to Congress form the District of Columbia claimed that the Administration had worked out a compromise between the religious institutions and the insurance companies.  That is not quite the truth.  The Administration did not sit down with representatives of the religious organizations involved and with the insurance companies and hammer out a solution to which all could, admittedly with some reservations (that is how compromises usually work), agree.  But it is too late now.  The president slipped the trap into which incompetent advisors had led him.  The Church will not have to provide—directly—contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients to employees of its schools, universities, administrative offices, hospitals, and other institutions.  I have doubts that the insurance companies will provide these out of their own generosity; it seems more a shell game, but what can we say?  I am not back in the Obama camp but I am sure that most of my friends who had concerns are. The President is to be congratulated on creating an appearance of reasonableness.  Bishop Lori, on the other hand, by sitting with an all-male panel has been left with egg on his face—and the Church’s—for not understanding that perception has more to do with winning than reality and thus the Church has lost.  More on this to come.  In the meantime, would their purpled mitered majesties please get some professional advice  on how to handle public relations?   

Who Got Obama to Wear the Black Hat?

White House spokesperson, David Axelrod

On Tuesday White House spokesperson David Axelrod said that the Obama Administration was looking for some sort of a compromise that would ease the tension between the Administration and the Catholic community over Church institutions being required to provide employee insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients.  Mr. Axelrod said on MSNBC program, “Morning Joe”

I heard earlier Joe [Scarborough] say, ‘Well, there may be compromises that can be reached.’ We have great respect for the work that these religious institutions do. …We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.”  

      I don’t think the administration gets it.  Compromise isn’t what is needed.  Backing off from forcing people to do something that their religion believes is immoral is what is needed.  Don’t require by law for religious groups to violate their tenets.  I don’t think that Muslim women should be forbidden to wear the hijab or a yeshiva required to serve pork barbeque to its gentile employees.  I don’t think a Baptist seminary needs to have a bar or a juke box and I don’t think non-believers should be required to start the day with prayer just because their employer is “born-again.” Why should Catholic institutions have to pay for services that they believe are contrary to their religious faith?   I am not talking about individual Catholic employers—we are considering institutions run by the Catholic Church.  Ya’ might as well force the Salt Lake City Council of the Twelve Apostles to drink espresso.  

     The Catholic Church didn’t start this pissing contest and whoever advised President Obama to get into it must have been a double agent from The Karl Rove Academy for Vile Politics. What a gift to the Republicans this has been!  Now Speaker Boehner is getting into the act and using this as another hammer to beat up on the President.  Boehner and the Republicans will be the heroes and pass laws that will grant the Church protection from the harm that the President should never have exposed us to.  Good for Catholics; great for the Republicans.  What was Obama thinking of?  What motivated one of the brightest and most savvy men to live under that sometimes distinguished White House roof to do something so stupid in an election year?  (I looked in my thesaurus for a synonym for “stupid” but after considering several alternatives I thought that the plain unvarnished truth is best.  Nothing says it better than “stupid.” “Ill-advised”, “imprudent”, “injudicious”, what have you—just puts lipstick on the pig as the President used to say.  So we stick with “stupid.”)  I honestly don’t see how at this point the President can make this situation work for him.  The various foes of the Church—led by our friends at Planned Parenthood—are insisting that the President not back down to those horrible, nasty, Catholic bishops.  “This is,” they claim, “one more example of how the patriarchy of the Catholic Church tries to keep women from exercising full rights as human persons in our modern world.”  Any backing off from the mandate will inflame those whose political dream is to drive the Catholic Church from the public square and stuff it into the dust closet of “whatever you do in your private-life…”  “Wouldn’t it be nice if the Church just went away?”   On the other hand, to stay on this course of requiring Catholic institutions to violate their tenets on what Catholics perceive to be the sacredness of life is driving hundreds of thousands of liberal Catholics from the Obama (and Democratic) fold.  Maybe the President doesn’t need Catholics for his re-election.  (He did get 54% of the Catholic vote in 2008—a pretty good percentage.) He might think he is safe without us Catholics behind him.  Right now, the election looks better for him than it has in a long time.  The economy is showing signs that his policy of patient reorganization is bearing fruit.  The Republicans are split between a candidate who is too liberal for the base and three candidates who are two crazy for the nation. But November is a long way off and much could change for the President’s fortunes.  The President may find that he has painted himself into a corner and someday may want those Catholic votes.  He had mine in 2008.  It looks like he won’t in 2012.    But that’s ok,  Planned Parenthood has assured him that there are more women voters than Catholic bishops.  I suppose there are, but there is something wrong with that apples and oranges equation. 

The Great Betrayal

Notre Dame President, Father John Jenkins, escorts

President Barack Obama into the 2009 Commencement

ceremonies at the University.

I received this among my way too many robo-mails.  I am not a fan of The Weekly Standard and there are several points in this article that wouldn’t make it past the fact-checker and others that are just, well, the usual right-of-center socialist-phobia anti-Obama rhetoric.  That said, the bulk of the article is spot on.   Catholic liberals feel betrayed and Americans of any and all religious faiths should be concerned as there is an important Separation of Church & State issue here.  Anyway, read it for yourself and while I don’t want you going crazy about this, spread the word among the citizenry while I find a church steeple to hang the lantern in.  
Obamacare vs. the Catholics
February 7, 2012
Jonathan V. Last is a senior writer atThe Weekly Standard.
On the last weekend of January, priests in Catholic churches across America read extraordinary letters to their congregations. The missives informed the laity that President Obama and his administration had launched an assault on the church. In Virginia, Catholics heard from Bishop Paul Loverde, who wrote, "I am absolutely convinced that an unprecedented and very dangerous line has been crossed." In Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted wrote, "We cannot​ —​we will not​— ​comply with this unjust law." In Pittsburgh, Bishop David Zubik wrote that President Obama had told Catholics, "To Hell with your religious beliefs." Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria asked his flock to join him in the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, which concludes:By the Divine Power of God / cast into Hell, Satan and all the evil spirits / who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. 
It was a remarkable moment, in part because despite their stern reputation, most Catholic bishops are not terribly conservative. They tend to be politically liberal and socially cautious. If they were less holy men, stauncher conservatives would call them squishes. Real live conservative bishops are so few and far between that whenever one appears on the scene, such as Philadelphia's Archbishop Charles Chaput, he's seen as a vaguely threatening curiosity. You can tell when a bishop is conservative because you will hear him referred to as "hardline" or "ultra-orthodox," so as to mark him apart from the rest of the herd. 
But what made the moment even more remarkable is that the bishops were not exaggerating. It is now a requirement of Obamacare that every Catholic institution larger than a single church​ — and even including some single churches​— ​must pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after abortifacients for its employees. Each of these is directly contrary to the Catholic faith. But the Obama administration does not care. They have said, in effect, Do what we tell you — or else.
The beginnings of this confrontation lay in an obscure provision of Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which stated that all insurers will be required to provide "preventive health services." When the law was passed, "preventive" was not defined but left to be determined at a later date. 
This past August, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius finally got around to explaining the administration's interpretation of the phrase. Based on a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine, the administration would define "preventive health services" to include contraceptives, morning-after pills, and female sterilization. And they would interpret the "all insurers" section to include religious organizations, whatever their beliefs. 
Sebelius included one small conscience exemption: A religious employer who objects to medical treatment aimed at prevention of the disease commonly known as "pregnancy" may leave it out of their health insurance coverage provided the employer satisfies three criteria: (1) It has religious inculcation as its primary duty; (2) It primarily employs people of the same faith; and (3) It primarily serves people of the same faith. This fig leaf is enough to cover most small churches​ —​so long as your parish employs only a couple of priests and a secretary, it would probably get a pass. Larger institutions would not. 
In the Catholic world, for instance, a diocesan office often employs lots of people​— ​lawyers, janitors, administrative staff​— ​who are not necessarily Catholic. And the duties of such offices extend far beyond inculcation of the faith​— ​to include charity, community service, and education. Or take Catholic universities. There are more than 200 of them, serving some 750,000 students. They clearly do not fit the exemption. Neither would any of the 6,980 Catholic elementary or secondary schools. Nor the country's 600 Catholic hospitals; nor its 1,400 Catholic long-term care centers. Ditto the network of Catholic social services organizations that spend billions of dollars a year to serve the needy and disadvantaged. 
As soon as Sebelius released this decision, the Catholic church panicked. The Conference of Catholic Bishops reached out to the administration to explain the position in which it had put them. But the tone of their concern was largely friendly: Most Catholic leaders were convinced that the entire thing was a misunderstanding and that the policy​— ​which was labeled an "interim" measure​— ​would eventually be amended. 
The reason for this optimism was that more than a few important Catholics had previously climbed out on a high branch for Obama politically, and for his health care reform as a matter of policy. Despite what you may read in the New York Times, most lay Catholics are nominally at home in the Democratic party. (Remember that a majority of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008.) And what is true of the laity goes double for those in religious life. In 2009, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins welcomed President Obama as the school's commencement speaker in the face of a heated student protest. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops mostly kept its powder dry during the fight over Obamacare, and very few members of the church hierarchy actively, or even tacitly, opposed the bill. Others, such as Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, actually lobbied in favor of it, early and often. So most Catholics took the president at his word when he met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan last fall and assured him that when the final version of the policy was eventually released, any fears would be allayed. 
That was their mistake. Obama telephoned Dolan on the morning of January 20 to inform him that the only concession he intended to offer in the final policy was to extend the deadline for conformity to August 2013. Every other aspect of the policy enunciated by Sebelius would remain rigidly in place. 
It's unclear whether Obama anticipated the blowback which resulted from this announcement, or perhaps even welcomed the fight. The liberal Catholic establishment nearly exploded. Sister Keehan was so horrified she threw her lot in with the more conservative Dolan in full-throated opposition to Obama. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the spectacularly liberal archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, wrote, "I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience... This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster." Michael Sean Winters, the National Catholic Reporter's leftist lion, penned a 1,800-word cri de coeur titled "J'accuse!" in which he declared that, as God was his witness, he would never again vote for Obama. The editors of the Jesuit magazineAmerica denounced a "wrong decision," while the Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne called the policy "unconscionable." When you've lost even E.J. and the Jesuits, you've lost the church.
The reason liberal Catholics were so wounded is twofold. First, this isn't a religio-cultural fight over Latin in the Mass or Gregorian chant. The subjects of contraception, abortion, and sterilization are not ornamental aspects of the Catholic faith; they flow from the Church's central teachings about the dignity of the human person. Second, Obama has left Catholic organizations a very narrow set of options. (1) They may truckle to the government's mandate, in violation of their beliefs. (2) They may cease providing health insurance to their employees altogether, though this would incur significant financial penalties under Obamacare. (The church seems unlikely to obtain any of Nancy Pelosi's golden waivers.) Or (3) they may simply shut down. There is precedent for this final option. In 2006, Boston's Catholic Charities closed its adoption service​— ​one of the most successful in the nation​— ​after Massachusetts law required that the organization must place children in same-sex households. 
Which means that what is actually on the block are precisely the kind of social-justice services​— ​education, health care, and aid to the needy​— ​that liberal Catholics believe to be the most vital works of the church. For conservative Catholics, Obama merely confirmed their darkest suspicions; for liberals, it was a betrayal in full. 
As a matter of law, this decision by Obama's health care bureaucrats seems unlikely to survive. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down another attempt by the administration to bully religious believers in the Hosanna-Tabor case. In that instance, Obama's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued that a religious organization does not have the right to control its hiring and firing according to its religious belief. The Court struck down this argument 9-0 in a rebuke so embarrassing that Justice Elena Kagan came close to openly mocking her successor as Obama's solicitor general during oral arguments. It was the kind of sweeping decision that should have deterred the Obama administration from forcing Catholics into complying with the health insurance mandate, because it suggested that the Court will very likely side against the administration once this matter comes before it. Presidents typically dislike being overturned unanimously by the High Court. 
The trick, of course, is that when Sebelius issued the final protocol, her lone concession was the one-year delay in implementation. Which, for Obama, has the happy side-effect of pushing the moment of enforcement to August 2013. Meaning that no legal challenge can come until after the 2012 election. Which suggests that the thinking behind the policy may be primarily political. The question, then, is whether Obama's confrontation with Catholics makes electoral sense. 
While Catholics were blindsided by the January decision, the left had been paying close attention to the subject for months. In November, several leftist and feminist blogs began beating the war drums, warning Obama not to "cave" (their word) to the bishops. They were joined by the Nation, Salon, the Huffington Post, and the usual suspects. (Sample headline: "The Men Behind the War on Women.") At the same time, Planned Parenthood and NARAL launched grassroots lobbying efforts and delivered petitions with 100,000 and 135,000 signatures respectively to the White House urging Obama to uphold the policy and not compromise. 
In that sense, Obama's decision might be thought of as akin to his decision halting the Keystone oil pipeline: a conscious attempt to energize his base at the expense of swing voters, who he concluded were already lost.
The other possibility, of course, is that Obama sees the dismantling of Catholic institutions as part of a larger ideological mission, worth losing votes over. As Yuval Levin noted in National Review Online last week, institutions such as the Catholic church represent a mediating layer between the individual and the state. This layer, known as civil society, is one of the principal differences between Western liberal order and the socialist view. 
Levin argues that the current fight is just one more example of President Obama's attempt to bulldoze civil society. He wants to sweep away the middle layer so that individuals may have a more direct and personal encounter with the state. The attack on Catholics is, Levin concludes, "an attack on mediating institutions of all sorts, moved by the genuine belief that they are obstacles to a good society." 
Seen in this light, Obama's confrontation with the Catholic church is of a piece with the administration's pursuit of the ricketyHosanna-Tabor case and another incident from last October, when the Department of Health and Human Services defunded a grant to the Conference of Catholic Bishops. That program supported aid to victims of human trafficking. The Obama administration decided that they no longer wanted the Catholic church in the business of helping these poor souls. That, evidently, is the government's job. 
Of course, there is a third possibility in explaining the president's motives. It could be that, in deciding to go to war with the Catholic church, President Obama has hit on one of those rare moments where his electoral interests — at least as he perceives them — and his ideological goals are blessedly aligned.