By Fr. Dylan Schrader, for Homiletic & Pastoral Review:
Some Catholics (and others) have couched their objection to the recent HHS mandate in terms of religious liberty. Their focus has been on the unreasonably narrow definition of what constitutes a religious organization, and on the lack of a proper exemption for religious employers who do not wish to provide coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortions. Such a focus is good and correct—the HHS mandate does blatantly infringe on the free exercise of religion. To focus only on this aspect of the mandate, however, is to miss an even more foundational point, namely, that contraception, sterilization, and abortion are really evil.
We are speaking, then, of two distinct but related problems with the HHS mandate. First, it seeks to increase the frequency of contraceptive acts, sterilizations, and abortions. Second, it seeks to coerce most employers to cooperate materially in providing for, and facilitating, such acts even if these employers have a conscientious or religious objection. While we have objected, and must continue to object strongly, to the second point (the infringement on freedom of conscience and religion), we must also vocally oppose the first point. Indeed, the second presupposes the first. The more fundamental problem with the HHS mandate, therefore, is the immorality of the acts themselves in which religious organizations are being “required” to cooperate.
When it comes to any policy that directly seeks to facilitate contraceptive acts and abortions, we cannot limit ourselves to an approach that would imply that such a policy is acceptable as long as it isn’t forced on Catholics (or other religious employers). Contraception, sterilization, and abortion are always wrong for everybody, regardless of their religious beliefs. We should be seeking to eradicate these evils altogether, not merely seeking an exemption from cooperating in them ourselves.
If we approach the HHS mandate only with a concern for the protection of conscience rights, and do not accompany this approach with a clear reiteration and explanation of the immorality of contraception, sterilization, and abortion, then the rest of the world could easily understand us to be embracing not only a de facto, but even a de iure, pluralism with regard to these moral issues. People might take us to be saying, in effect: “We’re not trying to limit access to contraception and abortion; we just don’t want Catholic institutions to be forced to provide it.” This would be misleading, for the Catholic position is not that Catholics should not contracept or abort; it is that no one should contracept or abort.
While I would agree with the entire article, there are so many things that pop immediately to mind. Perhaps the most obvious is the question, "How did it ever get to this point?"
No matter what your perspective on the question, the answer is pertinent to what must be done today.
If the question is political, from the point of view of the U.S. Constitution, how then did any administration ever get this close to such an aggregious violation? How is that even possible? Didn't those people, Catholics included, who ordinarily support that particular political persuasion not see this coming, or something like it as an inevitability? Does not leftist/socialist/liberal/progressive/statist/collectivist (call it whatever you will) application in government always and inevitably lead to coercion? World history and experience should make that plain.
If the question is moral, again, from the fifties and into the sixties, when the so-called "sexual revolution" was out in the open, was this not a foregone conclusion that promiscuity itself would make demands of the entire society. Roe V Wade in the seventies was simply a marker along that path, establishing the principle that promiscuity should have no consequences that medical science could not deal with.
OK, so yes, hindsight is 20-20. Let's move on. But the problem is that while the article is correct, that Natural Law opposes contraception, abortion, etc., that consciousness is extremely far removed from not only the secularists, but from vast portions of Christians, non-Catholic and Catholic alike. That is a heavy case to be made, with vast areas of lost ground to recover.
Society is essentially suffering from dissociative identity disorder; the worship of science on the one hand, traditionally characterized as the epitome of applied reason, is co-existent with complete abandon to the physical appetites on the other, accompanied by the complete and utter hostility to rational thought. This condition has produced the result that science, in particular medical science, is demanded as a right insofar as it has any method or means to promote or facilitate that abandon to the senses.
The result is a collection of self-centred individuals who can make neither commitment or sacrifice, yet are willing to empower a government to force that sacrifice on anyone and everyone else around them.
How does reason break through that fog, even before we talk about faith?
Posted by: LJ | Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 12:30 PM
There are a group of issues, HHS mandate being one of them, which has been taken under the fight for Religious Liberty by the Bishops. Another issue is marriage - specifically same sex "marriage". Although I see the point, should we be united with the Bishops in this fight under that banner? It seems in this area, they have been doing a great job. Is this where this Religious liberty issue is stemming from - how the bishops are categorizing it?http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/our-first-most-cherished-liberty.cfm
Posted by: Mrs. O | Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 09:02 PM