On the eve of the Fortnight for Freedom, there are those within the Catholic Church who are denying that the two-week observance has anything to do with the Church’s teaching on contraception and everything to do with upholding the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religious expression. That’s a false dichotomy and misattribution of the causal nature of our current dilemma.
It’s akin to those who say the American Civil War wasn’t about slavery, that it was all about states’ rights; which of course begs the question: The right to do what?
There is no doubt that the states who seceded feared the loss of self-government to the Federal Government, but the loss of liberty was rooted in the issue of slavery which was woven into the very social and economic fabric of the South. In the case of slavery (which took on a more prominent role for Northerners as the struggle wore on) it was an example of the Federal Government getting it right. The unalienable (That is, God-given) right to liberty had been denied to African-Americans for far too long. Federal troops were sent to both preserve the Union and end slavery for good.
In the current struggle, the Federal Government has sought to attack the Catholic Church over an issue that is central to her identity and mission, the teaching that all human life is made in the image and likeness of God from the moment of fertilization and is to be respected as such until natural death. Our loss of freedom is centered on the mandate by the Federal Government that we pay not only for birth control pills, some of which are known abortifacients, but that we pay for sterilizations and known abortifacient morning-after pills such as RU-486 and Ella.
Further, the Government is dictating what institutions constitute “religious” institutions and which do not. The only “religious” institutions that qualify for an exemption by the Obama criteria would be those who violate equal opportunity law by hiring most of their employees who are members of that church, and whose services go mainly to members of that same church.
Otherwise, Catholic hospitals, schools, and social service agencies are required to pay for contraceptives, abortifacients and abortions, and sterilizations. If the bishops do so, they shred Humanae Vitae and every decent moral precept undergirding Catholic Anthropology. If they voluntarily close down these institutions, they cooperate with evil by giving our enemies precisely the evisceration of our Church that they seek.
Perhaps jails overflowing with civilly disobedient Catholic bishops, clergy, religious, and laity will be the sole salvation of religious liberty in America. We’ll see soon enough how this situation breaks. The Supreme Court ruling on the HHS mandate is due out any day, and then there are the November elections.
That’s plenty of reason to pray during this fortnight.
Coming Home 
Reblogged this on Catholic Glasses and commented:
I will pray for the success, of the US Bishops Fortnight of Freedom.
Reblogged this on St Anne Center for Reproductive Health and commented:
Here is another great post for the day before the Fortnight!
Yes, people shouldn’t be saying: “This isn’t about contraception; it’s about religious freedom [or freedom of the Church, etc.].” People should say: “It’s not solely about contraception; it’s also about religious freedom.”
Wait a minute, you use a poor and incorrect understanding of the Civil War to justify the power of the federal government – the same federal government which has surpassed its Constitutional authority so it can control every aspect of our lives, including mandating health insurance and dictating that the Church pay for contraception – and THIS is your argument against that problem?! Your Civil War argument makes the case that the federal government can do whatever it wants (so long as it has a “noble intention”) and enforce that through bloody war against its own citizenry. Your argument says, “don’t be on the wrong side of the will of Washington, D.C.”
No, the problem is that the federal government is doing things it does not have the power to do – not that Obama made a decision to narrowly define religion. Religious liberty is enshrined in the 1st Amendment not bc gov’t wanted to play nice and offer us something, but bc liberty comes from God in the form of free will; it is a preexisting condition that predates governments, and therefore is not within the jurisdiction of governments to regulate.
We will never win this war against Obamacare so long as people continue to perpetuate the lie that the federal government is a nanny that keeps states and their citizens in line; that all must bow down to its desire to control every aspect of life (from what kind of milk you drink to what your neighborhood school teaches, to what chores your kid can do on your farm, to how much of your compensation you are allowed to keep, to what fuel economy your vehicle must have, to what health coverage you must buy, etc, etc.)
We can win this fight ONLY IF we return the federal government to its proper role of performing only those enumerated tasks (Article I, Sec 8) which no single state within the union of states can adequately do for itself. The solution is to return to the LIMITED government the Founders created, not one which has the power to wage war on (and employ predator drones against) its own citizens for trying to opt out of an illegal grab of federal authority.
Sarah,
Reread the argument. The Federal Government acts properly when defending the unalienable rights outlined in the Declaration. It was proper to do so with slavery. It is acting in a rogue capacity with regard to religious liberty. My larger point addresses those who say that this is only about religious liberty and not about contraception. Those who make such a claim are like those who claim the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, but states’ rights.
My understanding is that a ruling is not imminent on the HHS mandate. But if Obamacare is struck down in its entirety then the HHS mandate dies with it. If SCOTUS upholds lower court decisions that struck down the mandate but leaves the rest of the law standing then the HHS mandate will still be operative, unless and until the administration either changes its mind (unlikely) or the matter is judged on its own merit.
In any event we pray. We pray for conversion of hearts, for a culture that has ceased to uphold the sanctity of life, for millions struggling with the false gods of materialism and secularism, and for yet millions more who degrade the gift of sexuality by an addiction to pornography.
[…] of Religious LibertyThe Church Pushes BackThe “Episcopal Partisanship” Red HerringThe Fortnight, The Pill, and the False DichotomyThe HHS Mandate: A Question of Religious Freedom or the Life Issues?The HHS Mandate: This is About […]