Letter to a Fellow Catholic Parishioner Who Should'a Known Better

March 15, 2012 | Mrs. Don-o

[Mrs. Don-o]

This is the letter I wrote to a fellow parishioner who said she supports the HHS-mandated payments for contraception-sterilization-abortion pills because she believes...

"...the church should not try to take over the government and pass laws that trample individual freedoms. Government has allways regulated certain "religious" activities and practices in this country. Just ask the Mormons, or the Islamic groups what practices they have that are regulated by government."

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Dear [name omitted to protect the stupid],

The Catholic Church is not trying to "take over the government" or "trample individual freedoms." Contraceptives both accessible and cheap. Heck, they’re at the level of total market saturation. You can get the jellies and jams, foams and sprays — woo hoo, you can get a condom at any grocery store, any truck stop, any Bubba's Beer and Bait.

Wal-Mart has the Ortho Tricyclen (oral contraceptive) for $9 amonth. Target has the Trojan 12-pack for $4.00. That’s 33 cents apiece.

They could hardly be more available if they were in every bag of M&M’s in America.

This isn't about freely chosen practices, it's about mandated payments.

Anyone who wants to freely choose a personal contraceptive, or a personal assault rifle, or personal access to pornography: go ahead and choose it. That’s your choice.

I don't believe in any of that crap, and I shouldn't have to pay for it. That’s my choice.

If you have the money to buy something, you have choices. If the government wanted to guarantee women more choices, they could just give every woman, every year, the average cost of a year’s worth of brand-name top-of-the-line hormonal contraceptives. This would give her approx. $390 a year she can spend on anything: Snickers bars, hormonal patches, implants or injectables, stylish maternity fashions, cute baby clothes, a one-way airfare to Hollywood, or anything else.

She gets maximum choices, she is not constrained by costs, and nobody else is forced by the government to be an accomplice and provider whether she chooses 1170 very fine condoms or a good used 10-speed Schwinn.

It’s obvious that mandated payments are not about freedom to choose. They’re about aggressively promoting a divisive and controversial program by making everyone pay --- yes, grandma or Father, or Sister or Reverend or Pastor or Rabbi , or Catholic Charities or Little Sisters of the Poor, YOU pay, ---- and no, you don’t have a choice.

Rubbish. I choose not to pay.

And if somebody wants to force my Church or my Church's ministries to pay --- well, they'll have me to contend with.

Have a wonderful day.

[signed]

[Mrs. Don-o]

Class, discuss.

[alphadoggie]

Superlike!

[circlecity]

I think you said it all....

[Mrs. Don-o]

Sent it to my pastor, too. :o)

[SuziQ]

You’re too kind. After that person’s first statement, I would have been doubled over laughing and might have made that person angry. ;o)

[Servant of the Cross]

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[reaganaut]

They could hardly be more available if they were in every bag of M&M’s in America.

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Excellent letter. This sentence did make me chuckle because I think chocolate may actually be more expensive than birthcontrol.

[Red Badger]

Whoever wrote that must have the brain of a six year old child..............and they need to give it back..............

[presently no screen name]

It was so well explained, even that dimwit should get it!

Kudos to you!!

[bmwcyle]

ping

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I look at it this way: there are many things that government can demand that a religious entity not do. If your religion prescribes human sacrifice, government can lawfully restrain you from doing it, or punish you after the fact. In this case we have government mandating what a religion must do, or, in other words, dictating the terms of a person's belief system.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Exactly.

And what they're demanding we do (not just the Catholic Church and its institutions, but all religious missions which have employees, and in fact, every employer in America) is to provide for mortal sin as a benefit.

[maryz]

Sent it to my pastor, too. :o)

I hope he's printing it in the bulletin!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[HiTech RedNeck]

Rolling eyes at the folks who can just blithely ask for this. Yes it is partly a Catholic (and other Christian) religious liberty issue, and it’s a plain old taxpayer issue too. Is the notion of US freedom now collapsed into the “freedom to demand and get whatever you jolly well please on somebody else’s dime”?

[mimaw]

Great letter unfortunate it took the HHS to overplay it's hand for many Catholics to learn of the church position on contraception. I remember when the pill first came on the market asking parish priest about it and was told it was a matter of personal conscious. I wondered for years why the deafening silence from the pulpits about the horror of abortion until I figured out the unholy alliance of the bishops and the DNC. We have a new crop of clergy now who have decided to align themselves to God and the Holy Father so lets pray it's not to late to win hearts and minds.

[editor-surveyor]

Obviously that “parishoner” was a politically active liberal democrat, who has little or no idea what the church is all about (once a year on Easter?)

[BlatherNaut]

Maybe she should read this:

The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected, also as a result of the penetrating influence of the media, to an extremely serious and mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life. A large part of contemporary society looks sadly like that humanity which Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. It is composed "of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth" (1:18): having denied God and believing that they can build the earthly city without him, "they became futile in their thinking" so that "their senseless minds were darkened" (1:21); "claiming to be wise, they became fools" (1:22), carrying out works deserving of death, and "they not only do them but approve those who practise them" (1:32). When conscience, this bright lamp of the soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls "evil good and good evil" (Is 5:20), it is already on the path to the most alarming corruption and the darkest moral blindness. (Evangelium vitae)

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html

[Mrs. Don-o]

i’m usin’ that