Posted on 03/05/2012 11:37:37 AM PST by NYer
Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport has joined Cardinal Timothy Dolan in criticizing an America Magazine editorial on the Obama administration’s mandate that contraceptives, sterilization, and some abortion-inducing drugs be provided free of charge under most insurance plans. Cardinal Dolan has called the editorial in the Jesuit publication “hardly surprising but terribly unfortunate.”
“The March 5th Americaeditorial takes the United States Bishops to task for entering too deeply into the finer points of health care policy as they ponder what the slightly revised Obama Administration mandate might mean for the Catholic Church in the United States,” Bishop Lori said in a letter. “These details, we are told, do not impinge on religious liberty. We are also told that our recent forthright language borders on incivility.”
“What details are we talking about?” added Bishop Lori, who chairs the US bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. “For one thing, a government mandate to insure, one way or another, for an abortifacient drug called Ella. Here the ‘details’ would seem to be fertilized ova, small defenseless human beings, who will likely suffer abortion within the purview of a church-run health insurance program.”
Bishop Lori continued:
What other details are at issue? Some may think that the government’s forcing the Church to provide insurance coverage for direct surgical sterilizations such as tubal ligations is a matter of policy. Such force, though, feels an awful lot like an infringement on religious liberty.
Still another detail is ordinary contraception. Never mind that the dire societal ills which Pope Paul predicted would ensue with the widespread practice of artificial contraception have more than come true. The government makes the rules and the rules are the rules. So, the bishops should regard providing (and paying for) contraception as, well, a policy detail. After all, it’s not like the federal government is asking bishops to deny the divinity of Christ. It’s just a detail in a moral theology—life and love, or something such as that. And why worry about other ways the government may soon require the Church to violate its teachings as a matter of policy?
“If the editorial is to be believed, bishops should regard it not as a matter of religious liberty but merely policy that, as providers they teach one thing but as employers they are made to teach something else,” Bishop Lori added. “In other words, we are forced to be a countersign to Church teaching and to give people plenty of reason not to follow it. The detail in question here is called ‘scandal’.”
Bishop Lori concluded:
And didn’t President Obama promise adequate conscience protection in the reform of healthcare? But maybe it’s inappropriate for pastors of souls to ask why the entirely adequate accommodation of religious rights in healthcare matters that has existed in federal law since 1973 is now being changed.
Oh, and as Detective Colombo used to say: “Just one more thing.” It’s the comment in the editorial about when we bishops are at our best. Evidently, it’s when we speak generalities softly and go along to get along, even though for the first time in history the federal government is forcing church entities to provide for things that contradict church teaching. Maybe Moses wasn’t at his best when he confronted Pharaoh. Maybe the Good Shepherd was a bit off his game when he confronted the rulers of his day.
But those are just details.
Why do they keep saying free? Is the manufacture not going to somehow charge for these?
This scurilous publication, its editors or even possibly the priestly order that it represents, should be immediately precluded from calling themselves ‘Catholic’.
Of course and those costs will be passed on to the insurance company who will in turn pass it on to the customer, i.e. the Catholic Church.
I remember when the Jesuits were regarded as the marines of religious orders. I guess that’s why the commies infiltrated them.
Unfortunately the MSM appear to be coordinating an effort to keep the statements of Catholic leaders away from the public.
Check out Fr. Fessio on Catholic Answers sometime. He’s got a crotchety but funny style.
Very nice man, sharp as a tack, well spoken and has a good way with people. Great sense of humor too.
A couple more holdouts: Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. and Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.
I know it is a naive question, but when is Rome going to suppress the order. It has gone the same way as the Austin friars during the Reformation?
LOVE Father Fessio!
According to the Jebbies, I guess the Bishops are at their best ONLY when they agree with what the Jebbies happen to be saying.
I'm SO glad to see the Bishops FINALLY standing tall and defending the Church. I hope they won't let the nattering nabobs of negativism, who keep bringing up the sex abuse scandal, intimidate them into thinking they don't have the right to speak out. For the most part, it wasn't this crop of Bishops who created THAT mess, so they shouldn't have to be silenced because of it. And the Bishops may be representing the Catholic Church in their statements, but the principle holds for ALL religious faiths, and the organizations they operate, sponsor, or merely support.
Jab the Jebbies ping!!
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Damn Jesuits
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