PHILADELPHIA — Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has held up the 16th century’s St. Thomas More as a model of courage for bishops in the face of the federal contraception mandate.
“America’s Catholic bishops cannot simply grumble and shrug and go along with the mandate now without implicating themselves in cowardice,” he wrote in a Dec. 19 column for The Witherspoon Institute.
“Their current resolve risks unraveling unless they reaffirm their opposition to the mandate forcefully and as a united body. The past can be a useful teacher. One of its lessons is this: The passage of time can invite confusion and doubt — and both work against courage.”
St. Thomas More, a leading politician of his day, lived at the time of the Anglican schism, when King Henry VIII made himself head of the Church in England. English bishops protested the move at first, but, with time, all but one, St. John Fisher, acquiesced to the move.
In his final writing, “scribbled in the Tower of London and smuggled out before his death,” St. Thomas More reflected on the apostles’ sleepiness at Gethsemane while Judas was betraying Christ.
Archbishop Chaput said that the saint “then applies the parable to his own day and the abject surrender of England’s bishops to the will of Henry VIII.”
St. Thomas could see the parallel between the apostles’ sleeping and the surrender of English bishops in his time.
“More urges the bishops not to fall asleep ‘while virtue and the faith are placed in jeopardy,’” Archbishop Chaput noted. “In the face of Tudor bullying, he begs them, ‘Do not be afraid.’”
Apt Message
Archbishop Chaput believes this message is apt also for America in 2012, as next year the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act “takes force and the HHS contraceptive mandate imposes itself on Christian life.”
He writes that there are multiple ways for the bishops to respond: refusing to comply, closing Christian institutions, finding a compromise or “they can simply give in and comply with the government coercion under protest.”
To choose the last option, Archbishop Chaput believes, would be “heavily damaging to the witness of the Church in the United States.”
The contraception mandate, announced by the Health and Human Services Department, requires that employers offer health-insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and drugs that can cause early abortions, even if doing so violates their conscience and religious belief.
More than 110 business owners, nonprofit organizations and religious charities have sued over the mandate, arguing that it violates their constitutionally guaranteed right to religious freedom.
The cases are making their way through the court system, and, on Dec. 18, the District of Columbia Appeals Court decided in favor of two Christian colleges, saying that the Obama administration must rewrite the mandate so that it will not harm religious organizations such as the plaintiffs Belmont Abbey College and Wheaton College.
The appeals court gave the government a deadline of March 31, 2013, to rewrite the mandate.
The administration has professed that it is working on an accommodation for religious organizations, but one acceptable to Catholic consciences has not yet been offered.
Fortnight for Freedom 2013
The U.S. bishops’ conference is planning a second Fortnight for Freedom event to be held next summer. The event begins on June 21, the feast day of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, and concludes July 4.
This Fortnight for Freedom will emphasize “the need for conscience protection,” as well as faith and marriage, the conference stated in its Dec. 6 press release urging Catholics to pray for life, marriage and religious freedom.
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“...and the surrender of English bishops at that time.” Except for St. John Fisher, of course. Also truly a “man for all seasons.”
The headline reads: “Bishops Urged to Imitate St. Thomas More in Mandate Fight.” It should read “Archbishop slams brother bishops for ‘cowardice’.” And if there are bishops thinking of rolling over and playing dead, as the good archbishop seems to indicate, then he was right to say it.
If they are planning another “Fortnight for Freedom,” someone better tell the priest because there was very little effort made to engage the laity in the original FFF. Besides prayer, another powerful action would be to have voter registration tables outside every church, every weekend between now and the next election to remind the powerful that not only do we have the right to freedom of religion, we have the right to register as we please and to vote for whoever we want.
I don’t understand why the court and others say that the Obama administration has to do something about the law. Have they all abandoned the separation of powers? Obama doesn’t have the power to add or take away from the law. Congress passes the laws. If Obama puts more into the law than Congress passed, Congress has means to curtail this usurpation.
or “they can simply give in and comply with the government coercion under protest.”
And then what do they say when the Judge asks for an account of their stewardship?? For what has become of the Faith under their stewardship, they should already be heavily involved in public penance.
I will be attending the upcoming Fortnight for Freedom event.
And Thomas More wrote his last book while he was waiting in the Tower of London to lose his head. Let’s pray that we may be both bold in standing for the faith and yet prudent in how we do it. I myself have debated this issue in my own life. I am a social worker in this politically correct age and have debated on how much to post on my facebook page as it could be read and as Hebrews says somewhere “We have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.” So the point of being both bold and prudent. St Thomas did not look for martyrdom and yet when he was asked to make a choice he had the grace to lose his head. How small a price to trade one’s head to save one’s soul!
Scandal means to lead the faithful astray. The English Bishops led a nation astray five hundred years ago and they have not yet returned. Scandals will come but woe to them through whom they come. Think of millstones and the sea. I am confident that, through the Grace of God, our bishops will replicate the courage of Saint Thomas More.
@Warren Hart - The HHS Mandate is an administrative regulation which implements a statute passed by Congress. The administrative agencies like the Dept of Health and Human Services are tasked with implementing rules that “fill in the details” of the statutes that Congress passes and the President signs. The President, as head of the executive branch which oversees the federal administrative agencies, has broad latitude to propose and implement changes to federal regulations. One could of course argue that Congress has ceded too much legislative authority to the administrative agencies, but that is a different discussion….
I expect the majority of bishops to wimp out. The excuse will be,“God’s poor must be cared for” and principles and dead babies be d——d. The stuff of martyrs?
My eternal thanks to the few who hold their ground when no-one else does. And by the way, I’ve lost a job over abortion.
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