Yesterday I posted a blog in response to Cardinal Goerge’s letter regarding the HHS Mandate and the future of Catholic institutions. Today, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois responded. I offer his response as its own post and respectfully reply below. Here is Bishop Paprocki.
Dr. Nadal is accurate in saying that the President and his supporters would love for the government to take over Catholic health care, social services and education, however, he misunderstands Cardinal George and the Bishops if he thinks we are threatening to abandon these Catholic hospitals if the government does not back down from the HHS mandate. Last year I fought to keep our Catholic Charities foster care and adoption services in Illinois, but we lost that battle in all three branches of state government: executive, legislative and judicial. I warned that this would happen. It was not a threat, but a statement of fact. In fact, the state pushed us out of foster care and adoption services. We did not go willingly or quietly. All that the Cardinal is saying is that the same thing will happen to other Catholic apostolates at the federal level unless the administration’s mandate is withdrawn by the executive branch or overridden by legislative or judicial branches of the federal government. That is where we are currently fighting this cultural war (which they started, by the way.) If Dr. Nadal has some other strategies that he thinks will work, I am open to suggestions.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki
Bishop of Springfield in Illinois
Your Excellency,
I thank you for your letter of clarification regarding Cardinal George’s intended message, and also for your prompt email reply to my attempt at verifying the authenticity of the message left in your name. Yes, it is alarming to see how many Catholic agencies have been shut down by the government.
As regards a suggested alternative course of action, in my post yesterday I mentioned the only viable option I see at this point. We all know the individual politicians and the party from whence this withering assault on the Church has come. It is the Democrat Party that has declared war on Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular. It is time for this party, as constituted, to be voted out of office. Perhaps in resounding defeat this party may reorganize itself, choosing leadership that does not see its traditional concern for the disenfranchised as being inextricably linked to a war on Christianity.
To be certain, the Republican Party has treated us (especially pro-lifers) as their useful idiots in years gone by. However, we now face threats unimagined a few short decades ago; threats from an increasingly radicalized Democrat Party. They cannot be reasoned with at this point, only defeated. The same goes for Obamacare as a package.
It would help, Your Excellency, if the bishops articulated this threat and poured resources into organizing for the November elections. As I said yesterday, there are hundreds of video clips of Democrats campaigning from Protestant pulpits, so the precedent is there. This, I believe, is the only viable option left to us. We cannot allow the Democrats the socially redeeming patina of social justice concerns with their programs for the poor while they simultaneously:
Fund Planned Parenthood, which operates 78% of their “clinics” in inner-city neighborhoods.
Fund Planned Parenthood abortions with over one third of a billion dollars annually with fungible money.
Promote an aggressive eugenics in fetal medicine.
Promote a national “healthcare” program that has rationing (death panels) built in.
Promote gay marriage while assailing the Church for its righteous objection.
The list goes on…
There can be no doubt as to where Barak Obama stands in relation to the Church. The same for the Democrat leadership. If Catholics do not organize against this wicked administration with a view toward defeating it at the polls, and do so with the full support of the clergy at the highest level, then we are deserving of what will come our way.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that it is the duty of government to protect our inalienable rights–those rights which come from God alone. He also wrote that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish any form of government which becomes destructive of government’s ends (to support those rights).
Barak Obama has launched a war against the Catholic Church and all people of faith with his HHS Mandate. We need our bishops to not only stand with the faithful, but to lead the faithful as citizens who are intent on changing the current government in November by voting out this wicked administration. It is intolerable that we should be forced out of the social services, healthcare, and educational fields because of our faith.
It is similarly intolerable that in states like New York, we have been forced to do at the state level what Obama proposes at the Federal level. If necessary, we need to engage in civil disobedience and refuse to comply any longer.
I believe that the faithful will rally around a muscular response from the bishops. Having failed at receiving justice at any level of government, as has been your experience, our only option is to change our government at the polls.
If any bishop would lead on this issue, my blog is at his disposal. Thank you, Bishop Paprocki, for your faithful service to our Church. Please rest assured of my continued prayers and support.
God Bless.
Coming Home 
Bishop Paprocki,
There are two ways to stop Obama and the Culture of Death :
Reconsecrate the US to Our Blessed Mother by prayers, rosaries and fasts. Think Ninevah!
Arm ourselves with the power of our vote and vote the wolves out.
God love you.
Maybe show this short DVD at church and at youth group too, as it really makes the primary issue clear. It’s not about birth control. People really need to see this. Share with others. The video shows that people are being conned on this issue.
http://aul.org/conscience
PS Regarding the video at http://aul.org/conscience … and regarding the freedom of conscience issue…
Even though it appears the bishops understand the issues, many people are getting confused by the spin that this is about birth control etc. I do think it is extremely important to make sure that people clearly understand. Don’t many assumptions that people really understand. Also, since this video is not making any stand about any particular candidate, no bishop should have any concern about allowing (encouraging) the video to be shown in parishes. Perhaps AUL would allow a print version of this content to appear in Diocesan newspapers. This is a very simple and doable but impactful action, just to make sure that people see this and perhaps more than once. Since not everyone shows up at church every week.
Sorry, but I think changing which party is in power will acomplish exactly nothing. For all their posturing, the two parties are basically one. Their “differences” are theater for public consumption. Im not sure what is to be done, but merely defeating the Dems isn’t it.
To Aanastasia: When fighting a battle, you take out one enemy at a time, usually the worst; it both sends a message and gets rid of the worst of the two.
To the Cardinal: Why does the Catholic church tolerate these same politicians who argue for abortion? For example, my understanding is Nancy Pelosi is Catholic. She regularly, vehemently, and very successfully fights for abortion and many other non-Catholic ideologies. Allowing a person like this to attend church and receive the sacraments sends the message that the Church approves, or at the least is complicit in these actions. Not being a religious type, I don’t know all the rules. However, I’ve recently read about the nun in Arizona (?) who excommunicated herself by approving an abortion to save the mother’s life. If a politician is intimately involved in funding, passing laws, and advertising for abortions, why are they not self-excommunicated?
Dr. Nadal – I see another option which I have yet to hear any bishop speak about (unless I just missed it). Why not Massive Resistance? Why not have thousands of pulpits resound with “We will not provide it. We will not pay for it. You cannot make us.” AND MEAN IT! Really, if every religious college, high school, elementary school, and charitable organization or service refused to cooperate with the HHS mandate, what could the federal government do? Are they going to send in the Nat’l Guard to arrest every from bishop to low-level employee? Issue every fine they want – we will refuse to pay it. What can they do – confiscate every building or facility?
Why is this not a rallying cry?!
I don’t know, Tricia. I just don’t know. The bishops in New York have been paying for contraception for ten years. This is the year to declare enough is enough! They have sufficient support from faithful Catholics and other faiths to pull it off. As I’ve said, they need to gird their loins, because this election is for all the marbles.
[…] in Human Beings Will Cover Cost of Contraception Mandate,’ Claims Sebelius Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki Responds […]
Euthenasia to reduce the high cost of health care for the elderly will most certainly be the next mandate.
Give Obama four more years and the die is cast. Woe to us if we use our vote to keep this going.
Maryg, March 4, 2:40 PM,
Amen to your comment! We must pray that all Catholics become involved, and pray for our individual politicians as well.
REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
I read the comment that there is not really any difference between the parties, so apparently it doesn’t matter who we vote for, but that’s incorrect. There are some huge differences.
For example, President Obama, while a state Senator, fought against a bill that was intended to prevent infanticide, the killing of babies already born. A Chicago area hospital was using an abortion method on older babies that allowed them to be born alive, but then left to die, alone and unattended in the untility room, sometimes living for as long as 8 hours without being fed or held–just left to die. A very large number of people in the U.S. disagreed with this practice, and eventually at the national level, under President Bush, the Born Alive Infant Protection bill was passed. But when similar legislation had been proposed within the Illinois legislature while Obama was a state Senator there, he blocked that bill from going forward, through his role as committee chair. Obama has made very clear that he favors infanticide. But I can’t think of anyone running against him who would actually work hard to make infanticide available in the U.S. There are no Republican presidential candidates running who have supported infanticide.
Another difference. Most people are unaware that the U.S., through its contributions to the UNFPA, the U.N.’s population control organization, has been paying for forced abortion in China for many years. It happened under the Clinton administration, but when the evidence was presented to Colin Powell and to President Bush, that funding stream was cut off, though reinstated by President Obama as soon as he took office. I don’t know the current status of that funding, but I know that some Republicans were attempting to get that funding cancelled. None of the Republican presidential candidates have ever supported use of U.S. tax dollars to pay for abortions overseas.
I’m not telling anyone how to vote. If you’re good with your tax dollars paying for abortions in China and other countries, and forced abortions no less, you know who to vote for. If you have a problem with your tax dollars being sent to China to forcibly abort wanted babies … you know who to vote for. President Obama clearly has no problem with this, since he went to the effort to reinstate this, but those running against him do not favor the concept of U.S. tax dollars paying for any foreign abortions, much less forced abortions.
Republicans have a long record of trying, usually successfully, to prevent American foreign aid money from paying for abortions in other countries. Under Reagan, this was called the Mexico City policy, referring to general foreign aid funding not being used for abortions. If other countries want to have abortions, and many do, they can fund them with money from other sources, not U.S. tax dollars. A lot of Americans don’t want to pay for other people’s abortions. That is a major difference between the Democratic party and the Republican party, as Republican administrations have tended to uphold the Mexico City policy over the past few decades, while Democrat administrations have tended not to. There is not one current Republican presidential candidate who wants to take your money to pay for abortions in China or anywhere else. But we already know that Obama wants your money for this purpose since he’s already doing it. Your call on whether you are good with that.
Of course, the pressing issue today is not about abortion in other countries, which apparently is not currently on most people’s radar screen, but rather, the funding of abortion closer to home. Many people don’t want to be forced to buy abortion pills for other people right here at home. Yes, the drug Ella is marketed as a contraception, so it would be included in the contraceptives covered through the HHS mandate, but the reality is, it definitely works to produce abortions not just to prevent pregnancy. Thus, through this HHS mandate, people will be required to pay for an abortion pill, whether or not that would violate our consciences.
This attempt to force people to act against their own conscience is very new idea in America, and it was introduced by President Obama and his party, the Democrats. When people sought relief from this requirement through Congressional action, the vote was precisely along party lines… Democrats voted to keep the “contraceptive mandate” and Republicans voted to get rid of the contraceptive mandate. The Democrats won. That is a really clear difference between the parties.
Remember that America was founded on a bedrock of religious freedom. People came from all over, because it was the one place in the world where everyone’s religious beliefs were respected. And even today, Muslims come here and are free to practice their faith, Buddhists, Christians… all are free to practice their faith. In America, courts have upheld that Seventh Day Adventists can’t be required to work on Saturday, their Sabbath, and no one would dream of trying to force a Muslim or Jewish person to eat pork. So, why should it be okay to require Catholic s or anyone else to pay for abortion pills if it is against their beliefs to do so?
The current administration thinks it’s okay to force people to violate their conscience; Obama’s actions and the vote by his party in Congress confirmed that this is their fixed position. The Republicans voted against this assault on freedom of conscience. Republicans voted to preserve freedom of conscience. No one in America should be forced to violate his or her conscience.
This is still a free country, and we can all vote for whomever we wish. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that all candidates and all parties are all equal, because they’re not. There are huge differences that need to be examined clearly before you go to the polls.
Given that Obama favors 1) abortion on demand, 2) infanticide (as shown by his record in Illinois), and 3) stripping the Catholic church (and Catholics) of their Constitutional rights under the First Amendment, can any Catholic in good conscience vote for him? I think is it probably time for the bishops to announce that there is no proportional reason permitting a Catholic to vote for a politician such as this and that to do so is material cooperation in evil. Just come out and say that. Let America Magazine have a heart attack over it but who cares.
I am very concerned about “Obamacare”, not only the Mandate, but also the fact that I understand that Medicare recipients will be denied treatment under Obamacare. My conscience, formed by Catholic teaching, tells me that I have a duty to take ordinary measures to preserve my health, the right and sometimes a duty to seek extraordinary measures. Yet I understand that Obama care allows “capitation” in Medicare and panels of non-medical personnel to make decisions about which treatments we are allowed. .Capitation, which I understand was finally eliminated after long fights in HMOs, allows for a “pot” which Medicare will pay out for patients. If doctors outspend the pot, they are financially sanctioned, if they underspend the pot, they participate in the “profits”. This would affect the type of treatment seniors receive radically and deny people the right to their conscience in health care decisions..
I think it is time for the Bishops to re-think any support for Obamacare, work for repeal and help to fashion real reform of health care, including
Big Pharma and for profit health insurance companies which drive up costs unconscionably.
In total agreement with Dr. Nadal regarding the need to start making explicit the situation to Catholics. Without the Catholic vote, Obama would never have won the election. To me this means if he continues to have the Catholic vote he will win again. In the end we must see how we, the Catholic Church en masse, so to speak has a part in the problem that has been created. My fear is that there will be many Catholics, including clergy, who are so identified with the Democratic party and with President Obama himself, that once again he will be find himself in office due to the inability of said Catholics to tear themselves away from that identification. Hence, “good-bye Catholic institutions” being in a sense and in part caused by the Church itself. As long as this recognition is not explicit, we are in danger of indeed losing not just the election to those who would destroy us but also our integrity and perhaps our souls in the process.
Sadly, I must indeed say that I question clergy who do not see this…why do they not see it?
Oh I think because of their historical association with the pro-labor democratic party of old. But that is the past and the stakes are very high now.
They need to issue a statement saying that Catholics cannot vote in good conscience for a politician who favors abortion on demand, infanticide, and stripping the Church of her First Amendment rights via this HHS mandate. Clearly and concisely. No 20 page pastoral letter. Just something short and to the point.
God knows Obama is out there enlisting the black church groups to vote for him. Stand up to this guy. He’s only in the White House because of his skin color and the misguided portion of the Catholic vote in the first place. There are no other reasons that a guy of his utter lack of prior accomplishment, radical left wing associations, and utter lack of military and/or private sector experience ever made it to that office.
Two suggestions:
Acknowledge that Catholic politicians who persistently and publicly go against the Church on life issues are objectively not in full communion and should not receive Communion and will not receive public burial masses. Once you do this a large portion of the remaining catholics will actually believe in absolute truth and not just being nice.
Second, bring back Communion rails. Every sin ultimately stems from a lack of belief in the Real Presence. If Catholics really believed that the Church provides them with the Body of Christ how can they not believe that the church can teach the truth. And that God loves each person enough for them to order their whole life, even if means more than just being nice.
The UCCB message should be: Pray like it’s Ninevah. Vote the wolves out. No more Democrats period Amen.
I agree with Kevin but I also thing that we have to bring this back down to the level of the individual Catholic sitting in the pew.
Priests and bishops have to straight up tell people – if you are contracepting you are (possibly) committing a serious sin and you cannot go to receive Holy Communion.
It’s that serious.
The HHS mandate is about the right to act out of our conscience based on Catholic teaching but we also have to recreate that “Catholic” conscience in the individual catholic. Quite frankly, I don’t believe it exists right now for the majority of Catholics. Most Catholics have quite a deformed consciences and rationalize their use of contraceptives. They swallow the pill or use the condom or get sterilized and tell themselves that it’s their choice, their decision and march themselves right up to communion.
For 40 years we haven’t wanted to offend these people. It’s time we stopped feeling this way.
They need to know the why and how of contraception. They need to be told it’s wrong and why the church teaches what it does.
I agree with that Mary Catherine, yes. The bishops have a twofold, inter-related task on their hands: one, raise Catholics’ consciousness on why artificial contraception is objectively immoral (this will take substantial time and effort and may result in no shortage of departures of some from any remaining affiliation with the Church); two, oppose the federal government’s attempt to prohibit the Church herself from acting in the public sphere accordance with its own divinely-protected teaching. They have to do both because the freedom of religion argument, as it has been expressed to date, has a hint of “it’s not really contraception that’s bothering us, it’s your infringement on our right to freedom of religion.” So the Catholic in the pew continues to think that contraception is kind of not an “issue.”
It’s a boat load of work and I don’t envy the bishops. Then again, they benefit from graces from on High which I don’t.
This rather reminds me of America’s from Islamist Fundamentalists. Where was the USCCB back in the early 1990’s when the Boy Scouts of America was under assault for its alleged “discrimination” against homosexuals?
The BSA’s freedom of association (held to be part of the First Amendment) was under assault by the same radical secularists who promote all these movements — Same Sex “Marriage”; “Gays” in the Military, mandated contraception and abortion services — and the world turned its back.
On college campuses, young impressionable minds were brainwashed to the mantra of speech codes by moral relativists who told students repulsed by homosexual conduct that they were “bigots” and “homophobes” and that they were engaging in “hate speech”.
Now the Catholics’ ox is about to be gored on one of its fundamental freedoms and, suddenly, there is outrage and anger? Twenty YEARS after the so-called “War” was declared by the other side? (And not by Obama, but by the Clinton Administration and its allies in the popular media and academia. Obama is just the second commander-in-chief of the enemy.)
The Democrat party has reared and inculcated an entire generation of radical ideologues who have zero respect for the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. And the Republican Party — in the personal of Bush “Dad n’ Lad” and now the Romney’s and the Gingriches — have happily ceded ground on ANY moral issue in exchange for Capitol Hill deals to further the “agenda” of the contributor base: linning corporate pockets, boosting corporate dividends, and increasing executive bonuses in a geometric proportion.
Get real and wake up, Catholics: if you REALLY are serious about getting rid of these SOB’s it will take MONEY, and lots of it. (The homosexual lobby in NYS basically BOUGHT same sex marriage here; threatening feckless politicians — including Republicans — with primary challenges if they did not tow-the-line for the “Gay Left” and generous campaign contributions if they did. The forumua is being replicated in other states nationwide.)
“Organiziing” and voting is fine. But you had better have a nice $100 to $200 million Political Action Committee fund if you expect any real action. And, for your sake, and the sake of the country, I hope you can raise that kind of money because your religion — and most of your other freedoms — are under deliberate assault.
The radical secularists and the moral relativists quite literally hate your guts. If the ad in the NY Times today didn’t convince you of that with its vicious assault on your church, I suggest you read some Left-win blogs — especially the comments — where ANY matter related to the Catholic Church is discussed.
And don’t play so “nice”; there are no points in politics for “turning the other cheek”. To quote Sean Connery’s famous movie line, “If they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue.”
You can go to confession once your war is won.
[Thanks, Paul. For clarity’s sake, I agree with the Connery line in politics, so long as we understand the context here to be metaphorical and not literal. God Bless. GN]
It’s too late! The Bishops dropped the ball, or I should have said punted to the evil one at the Land-o-Lakes conference in the 60’s. God has been waiting a long time. I’m afraid the Bishops have lost their authority. Once the worms are out of the bottle it’s near impossible to get them back inside. Better read up on the martyrs in the collisium and in England when “good Queen Beth reigned”!!!
I know I’m a little late here, but I feel I have to reiterate what I’ve been making a pest of myself about on other blogs. The administration is not going to rescind the mandate, nor do they really hope we will capitulate. What I believe they want is to take our property for themselves under the guise of fines. The Church has spent centuries building a network of hospitals, schools and charities. If they are still open when the government begins levying fines against the Church, I think the president intends to confiscate them and turn them into abortion mills and baby brokerages.
That’s why there’s no big deal being made about the Amish. They have no possessions the administration covets.
A fine call to arms, Dr. Nadal,…but have the US Bishops en masse shown any real backbone along the lines you hope for, and have any responded to your offer to make use of your blog?
I believe that too many bishops still see the democrat party as the one more concerned with social justice, which has been their primary concern over the past few decades, so even though many are now alarmed by the more direct affront on Catholicism, the US bishops’ hoped-for muscles to wage the good and necessary fight have atrophied long ago.
So this leaves some of the priests and the people in the pews to exercise the greater leadership, but what percentage of them will still vote for Obama? He cannot win without a sizable Catholic vote, but the poor leadership and weak instruction in the Faith by the US bishops over the past 30 to 40 years is not likely to be overturned in a few months. Hopefully, enough good people of the Catholic and other faiths will combine to end Obama’s Reign of Terror that will become even more horrifying should he win re-election and the democrats maintain the Senate.
Deus Vult!