WASHINGTON — On Nov. 4, The Denver Post published a campaign advertisement, paid for by local Catholics, which included a letter by Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver warning voters that religious freedom was under attack.
“Our Founding Fathers understood that without these freedoms, especially religious liberty, our democratic experiment would fail,” read the archbishop’s Nov. 1 letter, which stated that the federal contraception mandate “undermines the promise of the First Amendment.”
The appearance of Archbishop Aquila’s letter in the campaign advertisement underscored the increasing intensity and unity of the U.S. bishops’ call for action this election year. Amid the presidential campaigns, Americans have witnessed both the usual partisan pitches to voters concerned about jobs and shoring up social entitlements and an unprecedented parallel crusade by Catholic leaders seeking to overturn the federal contraception mandate.
The U.S. bishops’ battle against the mandate, and other threats to religious liberty, has been accompanied by history lessons that highlight the importance of First Amendment protections for the free exercise of religion and stories of Christian martyrs who have witnessed to the rights of conscience from the early Church to the present. They've approved legal challenges to the mandate and advocated for stronger conscience protections on Capital Hill.
But the bishops have also framed the contraception mandate as a symptom of an aggressive secularism, which seeks to marginalize the role of religious institutions and people in the public square, and they have initiated ecumenical and inter-faith efforts to resist challenges to religious freedom, whatever the outcome of the 2012 election.
Clearly Opposing the Mandate
The campaign for religious freedom began in earnest on Jan. 20, when Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, formally approved the federal contraception mandate, authorized under the Affordable Care Act, known commonly as Obamacare.
The mandate requires virtually all private employers, including Catholic universities, social agencies and hospitals, to provide co-pay-free contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plans. The mandate’s narrow religious exemption only shields houses of worship and institutions that employ and serve co-religionists.
That same day the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement attacking the mandate and rallying resistance.
“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights,” stated then-Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the bishops’ conference, on Jan. 20.
“The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation. We will continue to study all the implications of this troubling decision.”
A host of Catholic leaders, including Sister Carol Keehan, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, also spoke out against the mandate’s narrow religious exemption, and the ensuing firestorm elicited promises of an “accommodation” by the Obama White House.
The next test of episcopal unity arrived on Feb. 10, when the accommodation was unveiled. The USCCB issued a statement rejecting the proposed changes, while Sister Carol initially approved them, provoking a public dispute that seemed to threaten the clarity of the bishops’ opposition to the mandate. Sister Carol later backed away from supporting the accommodation.
Nevertheless, the bishops’ conference never wavered from that early assessment of the accommodation, despite a barrage of headlines and commentary suggesting that their stance was both unreasonable and deeply partisan.
About First Freedom, Not Contraception
On Feb. 28, then-Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., the first chairman of the newly formed USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, testified before the House Judiciary Committee to explain the bishops’ concerns about the mandate. But Democrats on the committee were already prepared to reframe opposition to the mandate as an attempt to deny access to contraception.
On March 14, the USCCB administrative committee signed a letter that underscored the bishops’ growing unity of purpose about the need to overturn the mandate, educate Catholics about the importance of defending religious liberty and counter partisan spin.
“This is not about the bishops somehow ‘banning contraception’ when the U.S. Supreme Court took that issue off the table two generations ago. Indeed, this is not about the Church wanting to force anybody to do anything; it is instead about the federal government forcing the Church — consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions — to act against Church teachings,” read the statement.
The USCCB statement explained the danger posed by the mandate’s narrow religious exemption.
“Government has no place defining religion and religious ministry. HHS thus creates and enforces a new distinction — alien both to our Catholic Tradition and to federal law — between our houses of worship and our great ministries of service to our neighbors, namely, the poor, the homeless, the sick, the students in our schools and universities and others in need, of any faith community or none.
“We are commanded both to love and to serve the Lord; laws that protect our freedom to comply with one of these commands but not the other are nothing to celebrate. Indeed, they must be rejected, for they create a ‘second class’ of citizenship within our religious community.”
Rallying Catholics to Cherish Liberty
On April 12, the U.S. bishops issued a “call to action,” with the release of “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty,” developed by the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty.
Religious liberty is “the first freedom because if we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile.
“If citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded or, even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free and a beacon of hope for the world,” read the statement, which stressed that religious liberty extended beyond the right to worship.
Designed to educate the faithful about religious liberty in parishes and schools, the document calls on the entire Church, from the bishops to the laity, to take up the fight for religious freedom.
“As bishops, we seek to bring the light of the Gospel to our public life, but the work of politics is properly that of committed and courageous lay Catholics. We exhort them to be both engaged and articulate in insisting that as Catholics and as Americans we do not have to choose between the two.”
The document announced plans for a Fortnight for Freedom, from June 21 to July 4, which would focus on the spiritual foundations of their campaign against the mandate. And Archbishop Lori of Baltimore marked the start of the fortnight on June 21, the vigil of the feasts of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More.
During the opening Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, Archbishop Lori reviewed the Church’s case against the mandate, but also acknowledged that even if the mandate was overcome the danger would not fade away.
“Even if current threats like the HHS mandate were to be overcome, we would still have to face powerful forces which seek to prevent religious faith from exerting an appropriate and necessary influence within our culture. Some would even say that the Catholic Church is a primary obstacle that stands in the way of creating a completely secular culture in the United States,” stated Archbishop Lori.
He suggested that the United States needed men and women of conscience, like St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, to uphold fundamental freedoms that secured the American experiment in ordered liberty.
“If freedom is a system based on courage and if the motive of democracy is love, then let us strive in God’s grace, throughout this fortnight and beyond, to be men and women of courageous love for the glory of God, for the good of the Church and for love of country,” he said.
On July 4, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, at the closing Mass for the fortnight at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, further exhorted the faithful to embrace religious liberty as a testament to their love of God.
“Thinking about the relationship of Caesar and God, religious faith and secular authority, is important. It helps us sort through our different duties as Christians and citizens. But, on a deeper level, Caesar is a creature of this world, and Christ’s message is uncompromising: We should give Caesar nothing of ourselves,” said Archbishop Chaput.
“Obviously, we’re in the world. That means we have obligations of charity and justice to the people with whom we share it. Patriotism is a virtue. ...
"But God made us for more than the world. Our real home isn’t here.”
In late summer, Cardinal Dolan made headlines across the country when he delivered the benediction at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. On Sept. 6, his closing prayer at the Democratic National Convention asked God to secure religious freedom.
“Renew in all our people a profound respect for religious liberty: the first, most cherished freedom bequeathed upon us at our founding. May our liberty be in harmony with truth; freedom ordered in goodness and justice.”
The U.S. bishops’ fight against the mandate wasn’t supposed to get much traction during an election year dominated by economic concerns. But partisan groups reframed opposition to the mandate as a “war on women.” Then GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan raised the issue during his Oct. 11 debate with Vice President Joe Biden, and the Democrat repeated the White House’s past claims that the issue had been resolved with the accommodation.
The following day, the USCCB issued a statement of clarification that refuted the comments made by Biden.
“The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain ‘religious employers.’ That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to ‘Catholic social services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy Hospital, any hospital’ or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.”
Secularism Marginalizing Religion
On Oct. 23, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago had something to say about the surprising staying power of the intense public debate stirred by the mandate.
The “secularizing” of American society is a “much larger issue” than a campaign sound bite, he suggested. This year, the public has confronted “anti-religious sentiment, much of it explicitly anti-Catholic, that has been growing in this country for several decades.” His remarks pointed to one reason for the bishops’ strong sense of unity on defending First Amendment rights, but his observation also established a connection between the mandate battle and the broader secular current sweeping away Christian patterns of life across the West.
On All Saints' Day, Nov. 1, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference issued “A Statement of the Pennsylvania Catholic Bishops on the 2012 Elections,” which highlighted issues of concern to the Church and directed the faithful to hold “political candidates accountable” when they endorsed positions that involved grave evil, such as forcing “Catholic health care and social services to end their ministries.”
The statement would be just one of hundreds of such warnings issued by bishops and pastors across the country in the final weeks and days before the election, all raising the alarm about “a pattern of legislative and judicial actions [that] has emerged in our country that undermines religious liberty and jeopardizes the contributions of religious bodies in the public realm.”
The outcome of the election will have an immediate impact, determining whether the contraception mandate stands or falls. But the Pennsylvania bishops’ statement drew on a larger lesson from the long campaign against the mandate: “The Catholic faith is always personal but never private,” they concluded, affirming their resistance to any effort to contain religious practices to places of worship.
“In this mutuality of politics and religious conviction — as informed citizens and as steadfast believers — we strive to fulfill the human vocation in our own day, just as all the saints have done in past ages.”
Joan Frawley Desmond is the Register’s senior editor.
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Unfortunately, this argument is about contraception first. “Freedom” is a rallying cry that is only issued against the backdrop of increasing duress. However, too few Catholics find any matter at all for duress in the contraception debate. The foundation of Christian teaching has been thoroughly undermined. Cardinal Dolan (though he looks good in red) might as well be militating against legalized gambling or sunday sales of beer. Look for widespread persecution of people practicing authentic Catholicism in the near future as the obamanauts consolidate their chokehold over everything you think, do or say. In the end, it’s not about politics, or freedom, or america. It’s about moving on.
The establishment of the Catholic Church is more in bed with B. Hussein Obama than not.
Overturning the Mandate is a noteworthy purpose of action, and I am happy to see some of our normally taciturn Bishops issue public denouncements of the Mandate. I think an opportunity was missed to fight this Mandate by many of the Bishops not speaking out more forcefully to mobilize the Catholic vote. The Church’s teachings should have been identified in terms of intrinsically evil acts that no Catholic can support. Individual consciences could not be used as an argument to escape the obvious conclusion about which candidate should be supported. This consolidation of the CAtholic vote would have emphasized the Church’s determination to resist governmental intrusion to a greater extent with no risk on tax law complications. It would also insure the success of the Church’s position if the Supreme Court decides to allow the voting public in the next year to settle the court cases against the Mandate. In any event out Church members need to study the Catholic Catechism to get the fragmentation of Catholics and their many beliefs brought back to match Church teachings. Our Bishops and clergy need to participate and address some Catholic teachings that have been neglected as too unpleasant to address. It’s about time the Church is exerting its influence in the world of Caesar to a greater extent. Catholics need to live for the next world.
My dear friends and dissenters today I have cast my vote for President Barak Obama and have voted accordingly against the GOP congress that has forgotten the fundamental reason they were elected to compromise on idealogies on behalf a the common good of the nation. My reasons for doing so are as follows:
1) The President has made as much progress overcoming the poor choices of the previous administration that I hold responsible for the burgeoning national debt as any person could given the obstructionism enacted by the GOP in the last two congressional sessions. The debt was increased to save our auto industry and to shore up a greedy financial system.
2) The council of Bishops is wrong in urging the Catholic community to vote against Obama Care because of its failure to recognize the fundamental option to the poor. The church railed against having to pay for insurance that covers abortion and birth control when they could have afforded to pay th
e tax and opt out of this type of coverage the institutional church is tax exempt and could have used some of that money to pay the tax as defined by the supreme court. I do not support abortion, capital punishment or unjust war, yet I pay the tax that supports 2 of the 3. In addition if the number of catholics practicing birth control was made public we’d all be guilty. thebishops have literally “thrown the baby out with the bath water”.
3) The president has ended the war in Iraq, is in the process of pulling out of Afganistan, ended the terror of Osama Bin Laden, and reduced the defence spending of a nation that spends more on defence than Russia and China combined.
4) Obama Care is the only meaningful legislation on health care in the past 50 years and if repealed as Romney has vowed will have a direct impact on the poor. I believe as do our european allies that both healthcare and education are fundamental rights and should be a priority in any budget considerations.
5) Education is the prime resource that provides for an educated electorate, prosperity for all and is vital to our national defence. Mr. Romney does not have the passion for the difficulty the poor face in getting an education because he has never known sweat of manual labor and did not have to pay for his education. This business where the elite are the only entitled ones has to stop or the situation we now face will only get worse. The President is in touch with poor because of his upbringing.
I could go on but many of you have already determined the course of our country. God willing you chose President Obama.
This is a great example of why Catholics need to seize the opportunity and vote. If Catholics don’t vote, then we have no right to complain when the Obama Administration continues to trample on our religious freedom and create more pro-abortion policies.
Here in the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio not much was heard either from the Archbishop about the importance of this election nor from our Parish Priest explaining all the reasons why a Catholic can only vote for a pro-life candidate when you have one running against a pro-abortion candidate. I am at a loss on how to make people understand that Life is more important than economics, immigration, the environment, etc. I am so frustrated. I have spent some time in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament asking Him for the Grace to accept whatever happens as by His Holy Ordaining Will or by His Holy Permitting Will. May God bless and protect the United States of America.
I’m sorry to see many- no, the MAJORITY of- Catholics like McGlinn at odds with the Church and the Catholic faith. Their opposition will soon- if liberal win, and more likely they will- turn into persecution!
Do not be deceived nor deceive others! True faith, the faith that saves, is to believe and obey God: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Mt 7:21). To “believe” without works of obedience to God is deadly (cf.,James 2:17). Even the demons believe (cf.,James 2:19) but will not be saved because of their disobedience to God.
Make no mistake. True Catholic social teaching is based on the love of God and neighbor (Charity)! Abortion is a grave sin (cf., CCC 2270-2275), a hate crime against human life and an offense against God, its Creator! Nobody can tout being a Catholic that knows/follows Catholic social teaching and has a “preferential option for the poor” without recognizing that the first human and social right is the right to life (cf., Evangelium Vitae, 71)! To skip or deny this fundamental moral truth would taint their social works for the poor with innocent blood! ObamaCare, the HHS Mandate, is poised to shed innocent blood as the unconditional cost of helping the poor with healthcare! And it wants all US citizens (tax-payers)to share in it! How dare they impose their immorality on the rest of us!
The pro-“choice” error that claims to be “pro-life” but votes aggressively and consistently pro-abortion is like claiming to believe in Jesus Christ while shouting to free Barabbas any time and anywhere! Pro-choice “Catholics” are an undeniable scandal.
To claim to believe in God and yet disobey Him and His Commandments by cooperating in intrinsic evil reveals a faith without good works, a lack of true faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that “we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them” (CCC, 1868) and mentions several ways of cooperating in evil:
“- by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
- by protecting evil-doers.” (CCC, 1868)
We cannot escape cooperating with the evil of abortion by voting for politicians that allow, promote and even defend an illegitimate “right” to kill the unborn by abortion. When we vote for a candidate that stands for an intrinsic moral evil we may share in that sin by our cooperation. A conscious informed vote can be a voluntary support or approval, praise or recommendation, or a mandate or order, as part of what that candidate needs to be empowered by the people to carry out his agenda.
“It is therefore morally unacceptable to encourage, let alone impose, the use of methods such as contraception, sterilization and abortion in order to regulate births.”- John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae, 91).
“To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty; it is also a basic human right. [...] What is at stake therefore is an essential right which, precisely as such, should be acknowledged and protected by civil law. In this sense, the opportunity to refuse to take part in the phases of consultation, preparation and execution of these acts against life should be guaranteed to physicians, health-care personnel, and directors of hospitals, clinics and convalescent facilities. Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane.” (EV, 74)
Isn’t it striking that JP2 wrote these passages back in 1995 that describe the problem with the current HHS mandate?!
May God still bless America and have mercy on us all!
In Christ,
Rey
A big problem, as I see it, is most of the Catholics I know did vote, but they voted FOR Obama. Even our pastor has said in the past that he’s a die-hard Democrat, regardless of what the party has become.
In our diocese, the diocesan newspaper did not help either. Last week, they had an enormous photograph of Obama with Cesar Chavez’s widow, and it looked like an advertisement for him. Hishops around here are 100% quiet about anything other than:
1) speaking up about welcoming illegal immigrants
2) ending the death penalty
3) increasing the minimum wage
Religious Freedom is given lip service.
Add to that the mixed message given when Cardinal Dolan embraced Obama at the fundraising gathering in New York a few weeks ago & it was a recipe for disaster. For many Catholics, it gave Obama a thumbs up by our church.
All in all, bad news.
I pray that Gov. Romney will win Ohio, and the swing states, and the 5 Non-Negotiables for Christians will be put into place by a new administration. God help us. Lay people have to speak up and hold our church leaders accountable for preaching and teaching God=honoring values, and not cherry-picking the issues they like (like illegal immigration). Our Sovereign God is on His Throne. God help the USA.
Terah, I echo your sentiment. Unfortunately, the bishops have become irremedially estranged from the normalcies of family life, and are no longer an ally to people like you and me. If this election holds any spiritual meaning at all, it’s that the Catholic Church in America is dispersed, disspirited and leaderless (with a few notable exceptions). Don’t look to your ordinary ordinary for much in the way of example or guidance. They are the “blind guides” who “sit in the place of Moses,” but fail to practice what they preach. They’re drunk with the fumes of their sycophancy, and fail us faithful day after day after day. But I too was dead in deception, and God had mercy on me. So anything is possible. Peace!
The USCCB is entirely responsible for Catholics voting for a pro-abortion candidate like Obama. Faithful Citizenship was a ridiculous construct of wishy-washy liberal thinking. Abortion kills the innocent pre-born & the USCCB knows that.
Election results 2012. Catholic Church - 0; Democrat Party - 1.
Matt B-thank you for validating what I wrote. We have bishops all around us, all males, but few MEN. By that observation, I’m not calling for women clergy, by the way, I just wish our priests/bishops would be strong MEN.
But too few have courage and conviction, and our country is going to pot.
I couldn’t believe it when at the Democratic Convention, they took God and Israel OUT of their official platform and the “NO” vote to KEEP God and Israel out was louder than the fewer people that voted to put Him back in. Did that not send up Red Flags?????
President Obama was correct when he said we are not a Christian nation. He failed to say we are now an ANTI-Christian nation, and that’s a trend I never thought I’d ever see. Yet bishops still dine well, rubbing elbows with wealthy patrons, and spew hot air.
Does everyone know that at their USCCB meetings, they plan to encourage Catholics to go to Confession more? What a waste of time (most of them) are. Where are the REAL MEN in our church?
This is a battle, and our leaders are too comfortable wearing pink satin robes and white lace overlays, not wanting to ruin their manicures, for their fine dining experiences—with bottles upon bottles of fine wine and liquor! Let’s get real. What average family man could afford their lifestyles? And for what? I blame bishops for 4 more years of ungodly legislation and more Christian persecution, througout the world.
... as an aside: formerly Catholic Spain has same-sex marriage, and Italy doesn’t give a hoot about obeying Rome. Red flag - red flag!!
@Stilbelieve: We’ve agreed on many points in the past and likely here as well. Seems to me the USCCB were fighting the wrong battle. Rather than centering on the HHS mandate, the wiser approach should have been to teach and impress upon Catholics to vote for candidates who uphold biblical standards. Their casting of a wide net to the electorate fell on deaf ears for most. The target audience should have been the Catholic vote who supported Obama (yet again) with 49% of the the Catholic vote. I saw no effort on the part of local diocesan Bishops nor parish homilies addressing (not WHOM to vote for)—but for which values and biblical standards to support. The outcome was totally clear with Hispanics who number 80%+ Catholic. They voted 71% for a guy who supports Partial Birth abortion, Abortion on Demand and gay marriage—and so does his Catholic VP. I never saw the USCCB up in arms over this. Instead, they postured over the HHS mandate. In my view, the Church should be more concerned over 49% of Catholics voting for Obama and what he stands for. The HHS mandate and relgious liberty never really caught fire and had staying power. It became largely “yesterday’s news” after the early dust up last Spring. And then, of course, we had Dolan inviting Obama to the Al Smith Dinner which also sent the wrong message. The Bishops got it all wrong. The troubling issue is that God’s word does not seem to be at the forefront of the faith. Increasingly, there appears to be a competition of importance between God’s holy word and the Eucharist. Both are vital, but when people do not really see Sunday homilies centered upon the word they will never know what God has said and ordained. The job of clergy is not to only celebrate the Eurcharist but to teach and preach “all that I have commanded you.” This failing is no doubt a large part of why 49% of Catholics voted for Obama. While the GOP is doing a post-mortem on their own failings, it seems to me the Bishops need to do likewise —and for a more serious reason.
Casting Crowns
I suspect the bishops did not come out against the Democrat Party because they are betting on winning their case against the HHS mandates in the courts, and didn’t really want Romney/Ryan to be elected because they would repeal the Affordable Care Act which the bishops supported from the beginning until the mandate came down. So, if the bishops win in court and the mandates are found unconstitutional, they still will have what they have always wanted - government run healthcare for everybody.
... but we’d also have abortion at all phases, and all over the world, not just in the USA w/ Planned Parenthood, which is an industry in and of itself. Romney/Ryan would have ended that - even Obama indicated that abortion was in jeopardy, with a Republican win.
And what I fear most is same sex marriage, that is already accepted by many, many Catholics, across the world. Look at Spain, a formerly Catholic country with bishops that are weak even now.
There is also the issue of illegal immigration in the US and with so many government programs, and so many people receiving aid (not to mention the money we send overseas) America will go broke.
Bishops will still have their fine clothes, fine wines and elaborate dinners, fundraisers, with wealthy Catholics (that think they can buy their way into Heaven) supporting their whims. These are kept males.
These clerics do not know what it is to be MEN that protect women & children, as husbands and leaders of their own little households, as mentioned by Paul to Timothy and Titus.
They do not understand how to preach and teach the Gospel, which is to be their Number One Task. We’re not in good hands, all the way around. These men have rendered themselves and the Roman Catholic Church as an institution, irrelevant. It’s pathetic because souls are being lost to the world, and this, while the same people show up at Mass, Sunday after Sunday. But they, and the leaders, are lost, if we are not OBEYING God.
To obey God, we must be taught God’s Word, that shows us right from wrong.
I fail to understand why any deed(including casting a vote for legislation)that promotes policies contrary to the teachings of the Catholic church, should not be declared a mortal sin that calls for the refusal of the sacraments.
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