Two of my mother's most-used cautions were, "Birds of a feather, flock together," and "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It was her way of warning me to avoid certain companions and certain situations.
To get Affordable Health Care, the Catholic Bishops ignored both of my mother's cautions (Part I, today). But on the issue, of Freedom of Conscience, they are right (Part II, tomorow).
Many Americans didn't vote for President Obama. Many looked at the Rev. Wright and saw a minister seething with hatred and calling for the damnation of the United States. They were not persuaded that Mr. Obama was unaware of the content of Rev. Wright's rants. Then too, there was Mr. Obama's relationship with the now "respectable" William Ayers, who co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described revolutionary and terrorist involved in a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s. And his position on abortion was there for all to see.
But many Americans looked beyond those relationships and voted for Mr. Obama. Many were Catholics who knew, or should have known, of Mr. Obama's positions on contraception and abortion. That includes some members of the Catholic clergy.
In his presidential campaign literature, candidate Obama hid nothing. Mr. Obama stated that he had stood up for women's choice throughout his entire time in the Senate and that he understood that there would be those who disagreed with his positions. He further stated that he believed abortion is a moral choice which no woman makes lightly, but that each individual woman is capable of making that decision on their own.
At an event sponsored by Planned Parenthood in June of 2008, Senator Obama re-affirmed his pro-choice views.
"I have stood up for the freedom of choice in the United States Senate, and I stand by my votes against the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. With one more vacancy on the court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman's right to choose for the first time since Roe vs Wade, and that is what is at stake in this election."
President Obama spoke openly about abortion position. Nevertheless, President Obama captured 53 percent of the Catholic vote.
Once elected Mr. Obama embarked upon an all-out effort to enact Affordable Health Care legislation (Nation Health Insurance), with an "individual mandate" (a law which requires individuals to purchase health insurance and threatens punishment for those who don't). The United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) actively supported President Obama's Nation Health Care legislation. Indeed on June 2, 2009, in an Action Alert, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called upon Catholics to help reform health care.
"In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. Access to health care should not depend on where a person works, how much a family earns, or where a person lives. Instead, every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a right to life and to those things necessary to sustain life, including affordable, quality health care. This teaching is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve 'the least of these,' our concern for human life and dignity, and the principle of the common good. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do not have health insurance. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, the current health care system is in need of fundamental reform."
The bishops had a overriding goal. Christian charity had not provided every American with "affordable, quality health care." So, the bishops opted venture into the realm of politics and asked their flock to petition the government to create a system which would provide "affordable, quality health care" to those Americans without.
To get the legislation enacted, they arrayed themselves with groups whose views on abortion and contraception were utterly incompatible with the church's tenets on abortion. Then to make matters worse, they allowed the President and his friends in Congress to specify the details of what an affordable, quality health care should cover. Not satisfied with the efforts of individuals and charities to provide for the sick and the poor, the bishops asked the government to intervene, and relied upon their caveat in their call for reform "that the federal ban on funding abortions be continued."
Now the bishops see the details. Now they find they got what they bargained for — and sadly more!
The new Department of Health and Human Services interim final rules provide that the Health Resources and Services Administration "may establish exemptions" for "religious employers and health insurance coverage provided in connection with group health plans established or maintained by religious employers with respect to any requirement to cover contraceptive services under such guidelines."
The problem that the bishops have is with the definition of "religious employers." The term "religious employer" does not include "an organization (other than one that) primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization," or an "organization (other than one that) that serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization."
As such, the exemption is not broad enough to cover Catholic universities and Catholic hospitals.
Now, having entered the political thicket, the church now, seeks to avoid this peculiar form of individual mandate, requiring it to procure unwanted contraception, including the Morning After, or (abortion) Drug, insurance coverage, and complains that the government is ignoring the separation of church and state.
Having enlisted with the president and Congress in getting Affordable Health Care passed, the bishops now may have to look to that same President Obama, or perhaps the third branch of government, the courts, to extricate them from the consequences of their own doing because they now believe that a regulation passed pursuant to the legislation violates their freedom of conscience. Buyers' remorse! It now appears the Catholic bishops should have had my mom.
Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2012, 2:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
No comments:
Post a Comment