Wow.
You wonder how German society caved to the Nazis & now America gets a pretty good idea of what the cost is of being countercultural.Fines,penalties,loss of business,& maybe down the road imprisonment.

This is an absolutely outrageous ruling that may put Hobby Lobby out of business. I feel like we’re experiencing the election all over again—only worse. Will our country survive?

http://contemplativehomeschool.wordpress.com
Faith-based education, Carmelite spirituality

    There is no reason to expect greater intellect in Supreme Court people than in Congresspeople. They are all of a piece- none of them should draw paychecks.

Why is it that our own are the ones who support evil and are so willing to violate Church teachings and the conscience of people of faith? Public officials who are Catholic will be the cause of a full blown persecution in our nation, unlike those of the past who were willing to die for the Truth.

What other recourse do these poor folks have now that an Obama supreme court justice has denied them their right to object? Not at all surprised but it has left me wondering what is coming for the rest of us the next four unbearable years. Let us seek even deeper refuge in the Lord and in His Church…let us pray for one another, help and support one another and never lose hope.

The bishops need to show a little backbone and start excommunicating these so called Catholics.

Another reason to give thanks to Catholic democrat voters. Why be shocked at this war against our Church and other Christians? The leader of the party supported by Catholic democrats voted for the legal killing of girls and boys outside of their mom’s womb even after they survived the attempt to kill them in the womb. He sure wants to transform America. We used to have freedom of religion. He does not appear to like that.

We all have to do what is right regardless of the consequences. Hopefully Hobby Lobby will eventually win its lawsuit, even if the judge overseeing their Court of Appeals has refused to expedite the process. Or perhaps the entire court will agree to expedite the process. It is appalling that it was a nominal Catholic that made the call.

Catholic politicians seem to be representing God’s children as well as well as Herod did. Great public projects but the cost was/is the Slaughter of the Innocents. History repeats itself before our very eyes.

I agree with Mike above: we’re in a fearful situation for constitutional liberty. . . (no, I don’t think I’m being stampeded into fear by the church; I"m an old political science major).

How do YOU like living in a country where a mere federal agency can steal your rights?

Nice. Everything’s up for grabs in America.

Fr Jay Finelli asks: “Why is it that our own are the ones who support evil and are so willing to violate Church teachings and the conscience of people of faith? Public officials who are Catholic will be the cause of a full blown persecution in our nation, unlike those of the past who were willing to die for the Truth.”
According to an article in the New York Times:
A White House spokesman, speaking on background, put it this way: “She currently does not belong to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/us/politics/31catholics.html?_r=0

“In fact, 52 percent of Catholics who do not attend church regularly say abortion is morally acceptable, compared with 24 percent of churchgoing Catholics, according to a Gallup study released in March based on polling over the previous three years. Gallup found that 61 percent of non-churchgoing Catholics found same-sex relationships morally acceptable, compared with 44 percent of churchgoers.”
From the same article that MikefromED posted.
After reading that piece from the article I can only hope that those who remain faithful til the end, remain solid and committed. We already know many are falling by the wayside…let’s pray for them and for ourselves.
Hold fast everyone! Be stouthearted and wait on the Lord! Amen!

Remember thinking how paranoid folk sounded when they talked about the “Mark of the Beast” & those who would not be allowed to sell or trade without it? It kind of makes you wonder…

I find great interest in reading the article and the ensuing comments.  How do you know what is in Justice Sotomayor’s heart?  Legal proceedings have no room for emotional pleas for or against. She said Hobby Lobby’s case did not meet the legal standards to be expedited.  What if Justice Ginsberg or Kagan did the same thing? Would you come up with some anti-semitic remarks? What if Justice Thomas made the same ruling? Would you come up with some racist remarks? 

This is why you are NOT justices, thank goodness.  A justice must use ONLY the law in front of them.  They must have the intelligence to not only understand the law but to reflect on its origins and intent. They are prohibited from applying other law- yes even Natural Law. 

What part of the “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” do you not understand? There is nothing in the health care act that prohibits anyone from freely exercising their faith nor is there anything establishing a religion.  The Greens have a choice; they do not have to provide any insurance to their employees. If they opt to do so, they have to provide insurance that gives their employees access to all medical procedures.  Their choice.

Oh it’s a tax thing?? Well that is different isn’t it?  I do not want my tax dollars going to the CIA and Pentagon. So get over it; We all have to pay for things we don’t want.

After reading these post, if this is the best that is offered to this issue, then you have already lost…

So Hobby Lobby shouldn’t have to pay for any coverage they don’t agree with?  Does that mean that I shouldn’t have to pay for anything I don’t agree with?  So, no one should have to pay for anything they don’t agree with?  Sounds like a great way to run a country.

The truth is we Catholics have lost the culture war. We started losing it at least as far back as the debacle between Pope Boniface VIII and Phillip the Fair in the 13th century and have been steadily losing ever since. As the late great Father John Hardon S.J. said at the close of the last century “only heroic Catholics will survive the 21st century”. We cannot win in the courts folks, why even try?

As the commentator above pointed out this Justice Sotomayor is not allowed to even consider natural law in her decisions. We live in a nation where right and wrong, good and evil, is all ever shifting and changing based on whatever the opinions of whoever happens to be in power at any given time happen to say is right or wrong, good or evil etc. We cannot hope to win by legal means in a society that literally does not believe even in the natural law or under the pretext of being “objective” refuses to even consider it.

Once gay “marriage” becomes a constitutional right (which it will at some point) we will either get with the program and go along to get along or we will find ourselves unemployed, fined, imprisoned and generally on the margins of a society that has tolerance for everything but those who believe in natural law, God and objective right and wrong, good and evil.

We have lost and Obama has won and mark my words he will drive us further and further to the margins so those of us who really could care less about worldly prestige and respect and instead care for our souls better start praying for the grace to keep the faith to the end and do what we can to help others as long as we live. Get ready folks, it will get worse for us and at some point we could be asked to give our lives for our faith or at the very least our jobs, our prestige and our respect in this “civil” society of ours.

@starzec: It is not a matter of paying for things we don’t like or find distasteful. We all do that. Your tax dollars fund the CIA and the military, though you don’t like it. I likewise object to my dollars going to fund NPR and the National Endowment for the Arts, but here is the difference: I don’t consider it a violation of my conscience to fund these things, and I seriously doubt you find it a violation of your conscience to indirectly fund the CIA. With the contraception mandate, however, we ARE being asked to directly—not indirectly—subsidize something that we consider not just morally objectionable, but inherently evil. Catholic moral theology distinguishes various degrees of cooperation with sin or evil, depending on such things as whether the cooperation is immediate or remote, formal or material. It is very remote cooperation to subsidize evil through an income tax since there is no practical way to earmark tax dollars so that people’s contributions do not go toward things to which they have moral objections. That’s why we don’t consider it a violation of our conscience for the government to subsidize contraception through Planned Parenthood. We don’t like it, and we’ll fight tooth-and-nail to change the laws, but we won’t refuse to pay our taxes, and we won’t lose sleep knowing that our tax dollars are funding contraception. The HHS mandate, however, requires a much more immediate cooperation with evil, and there are very reasonable, commonsense ways the government could accomplish its goal w/o coercing us as it is doing. And we will refuse to cooperate.

If the government can force you to take part in grossly immoral activities then we all might as well start goosestepping and start following orders like many “good Germans” did.
  It is odd that our government bends over backward to protect the First Amendment Rights of Amish and Quakers through conscientious objector laws.But religious objectors to the evil parts of Obamacare are opposed by so many mainstream religious people—like Catholics—that the government must issue and enforce ukases to hold onto its power. If anyone is to blame for this situation it is Catholics who voted to put in office the promoters of America’s culture of death.

starzec,

I think it’s rather unlikely that Justices Scalia or Thomas would have made the same ruling.  It shows that the court system can be quite arbitrary.  I guess even 5-4 decisions show that.  It’s still a might makes right philosophy (not that I necessarily have a better system to offer off the top of my head.)

“The Greens have a choice; they do not have to provide any insurance to their employees. If they opt to do so, they have to provide insurance that gives their employees access to all medical procedures.  Their choice.”

Is that so?  I was under the impression that Obamacare forces companies to offer insurance, and to pay large fines if they don’t.  This is an important point.  I doubt that folks would be complaining so loudly if there was a reasonable opt out.

“There is nothing in the health care act that prohibits anyone from freely exercising their faith nor is there anything establishing a religion.”

Forcing someone to provide coverage for acts it considers grossly immoral doesn’t prohibit them from freely exercising their faith?  Even if you have no faith, would you feel OK as a business owner being forced to provide insurance which covered a hypothetical DNA-based poison which could be used to kill people of a certain race?  After all, your employees don’t HAVE to use the coverage.  It’s up to them…

If you say “no”, then you understand the position we are in.  If you say “yes”, then you are someone I no longer wish to have a discussion with.

So according to Justice Roberts this was just a tax. So anyone can be fined into oblivion for anything, not eating green apples on Thursday, or eating red apples on Tuesday.  Just call it a tax and the government can take anything from anyone for any reason.  Did not the founding fathers refer to the power to tax as the power to destroy?  Was Justice Roberts stupid or evil?  Ok, admit it, Bush really was an idiot—for nominating him.

What is next, refusing to be a guard at a concentration camp, and be “taxed” a million dollars a day and loose everything and then be put into inescapable debt, have the state “rescue” one’s children from poverty, etc?  Adolf wasn’t even that clever, or maybe he was just more honest.

Flashback into history, and implications for religious hospitals, schools and social services:

Order of Herr Kerrl, GESTAPO
Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs
December 1937

“It is my firm conviction that the Church must confine itself to the purely religious sphere.  Apart from the actual church building and its sacristy, we can only regard as necessary an adjoining room for weddings, baptisms, etc., and a hall for Bible-classes, Passiontide devotions, etc.  This holds good likewise for the houses of parish priests and vergers: only auxiliary rooms of the sort described are to be considered necessary.  Building enterprises which overstep these limits are a violent intrusion of the Church into the secular domain, and this cannot be tolerated . . .”

Signed: Brunner

(Source:  “The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich: Facts and Documents Translated from the German”, originally published in 1941, reprinted by Roger A, McCaffrey Publishing (n.d., p. 199), P.O. Box 2286, Fort Collins, CO 80522,ISBN 0-9661325-9-9

Peter (identical twin) ,
That was very interesting. Thank you.
All these rulings make me think of what happened in Germany, too.We are not Germany but we are not immune, either. Especially if it happens incrementally.

The worst enemy of Christian morality and virtue? An atheist? No. A secular humanist? No. A pagan? Nope. Guess again. Answer: a cultural Catholic.

Apostate sotomayor;  pity her, then go pray for her soul.

Thank you ‘Say Nothing’ and ‘Do Nothing’ Bishops and priests. This is what your lack of leadership has brought us.  Most of you are dancing with the devil ( Marxist Democrat Party ) and now the Devil is here to collect.

Sotomayor is another lap dog for Obama.  Obama is pro-abortion so you can see why the so called Justice follows suit.  We had a deranged individual in Newtown Conn kill many children and adults trying to defend them. What’s the difference if its a gun or a doctors devices.  Hobby Lobby is right but it too bad that Sotomayor is so short sighted.

Lets take a step back for a moment:

In the late 1840s and 1850s The Supreme Court heard a number of cases involving slavery With one minor exception, slaveowners won every one of these cases and the Court overwhelmingly supported the power of Congress to assist them in recovering fugitive slaves. Whom today would claim that the Supreme Court in 1840 and 1850 got it right…..........Whom today will say that Lincoln was wrong that so many lives lost on the Civil War was a waste and the Supreme Court was Right…...........Look who sits in the WhitHouse ...........A Black Man has reached the Highest Office in the Land because people were willing to lay down their lives for their fellow Black Brothers .................How sad that a Black President has signed so many documents supporting the Murder of Unborn Children - the Majority of them Black and today we have the Supreme Court saying and supporting this View…......North South East and West….........Roe & Wade .......so many championed that the Supreme Court is right that these learned Men cannot be wrong…...................FOOLS! Will they never learn .............Will another Lincoln come along and will it take another Civil War…......How many American will lay down their lives so that their little Unborn Brothers of ALL COLOURS can live

Black,
The War Between the States WAS a waste of lives & it was more about two differing economies than about slavery.It’s all history now, but there could have been a thoughtful solution if cooler heads on both sides had prevailed.
Most wars are terrible & should be avoided if at all possible.Civil wars are even more deadly.I wouldn’t wish one on any of us again.

This is an outrage! I run a chain of Vajazzling Salons employing about a 5000 people, and I believe that hay fever allergies are a sign of the blessing of the Holy Trinity of Mung, Sish, and Kib, and that to interfere with their blessing is a crime against the will of the gods. Yet Obamacare wants me to pay for the insurance with which my employees can purchase antihistamines! Help me, Supreme Court! Can’t you see that my rights to keep my employees virtuously sneezing are being violated here?

There is nothing in Justice Sotomayor’s ruling that stops the Hobby Lobby lawsuit from going forward.  It will go forward.  And there is nothing in the mandate that is even remotely close to Nazi Germany—trying to compare the two is inaccurate. irrational, silly and just plain wrong.  Anyone who wants to make that comapiriosn loses all credibility.

Justice Sotomayor is not a “lap-dog ofr Obama.  She is a Justice of the US supreme Court applying the principles of settled law to this situation.  And President Obama is NOT “pro-abortion”.  no one is “pro-abortion”.  The President, like many Americans is pro-choice.  If one took the time to read Roe v. Wade, one would see that the US Supreme Court in 1973 drew the appropriate balances between the rights of women (yes, women have rights over their own bodies and the right to make decisions without government interference.  and yes, the life of a woman is a life that needs to be respected and which is not subordinate to an unborn child), the rights of the unborn, and the rights of the 50 states

Those who think America could not possibly go the way of Germany of the 1940’s have not read the history of the greased slope Germany willingly slid down during the 1930’s—that slide aided and abetted by many people going under the fraudulent description: “Catholic.”  and “Christian.“And as was in a comment here—the language is even becoming the same as in Germany
  As for women’s rights and “choice.”: The laws of a nation that allow a man or woman to choose to kill their offspring is nothing but a total corruption of law and the concept of rights. Why not go back to the ancient Roman days and let the father have the same rights as a woman to kill their children???? Why should only mothers have a right to be judge, jury, and executioner of a child that is 50% his. There is nothing more a community issue than the treatment of human life. A doctor wanted to kill our youngest. My wife was furious. The doctor apologised and said that because of Roe v. Wade he had to put pressure on women with “problematic” pregnancies to avoid later lawsuits. When it comes to life there is no middle ground in a society or community—the community will be protecting life or putting pressure on the death side.

Lisa, an unborn child is not a part of her mother’s body any more than one Siamese twin is a part of the other twin’s body. They are connect by tissue, but they are ontologically separate beings with unique DNA. If the unborn child were part of her mother’s body, the two would have identical DNA. They do not. The child has unique DNA, a separate brain, a separate heart, etc. Talk of “choice” is a verbal red herring to evade the question of whether a woman has the right to murder her child for reasons of convenience.

Paus, your analogy is bogus because it is insincere. If you really practiced such a religion, then, yes, the Constitution would protect your religious liberty. Part of the court’s responsibility is to distinguish motives when deliberating issues related to religious freedom and other conscience issues. Amish children are exempt from compulsory education. My children, however, are not. If I tried to claim exemption for them on the basis that the Flying Spaghetti Monster whom we serve demands it, the court would rightly rule against me because my motives do not stem from a sincere conflict of conscience. Catholics did not just make up this objection to contraception all of a sudden because we don’t want to pay more money. We have believed this for 2,000 years—long before there ever was a United States—and it is not right for the current civil powers to try, without a compelling reason, to coerce us into subsidizing something that violates our long- and deeply-held beliefs. And I don’t see how anyone can with a straight face argue that the government has a compelling interest in providing free contraception to everyone.

As a daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I am absolutely appalled by Sotomyer’s ruling. The comparison to the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Nazi Germany is absolutley appropriate and dead on. The legal sanctioning of the termination of 1.5 million lives a year can never ever be justitified. Look at the pictures and stop burying your head and your consciences in the sand. 4000 per day in the US. The youth of America are the survivors of the Abortion Holocaust and they are rising up against the insanity of the Roe V Wade ruling in overwhelming numbers. Further,women deserve better than abortion. It is an assault on their bodies, their emotional health and their hearts.  Make no mistake about it. There is absolutely no objective moral differenc between a person being forced to put human beings in the ovens of Auschwitz against their conscience and persons being forced to cooperate with the elimination of the human beings in the womb.

Lisa Kaiser

Yes! Obama is pro-abortion.  When he was a state senator of Illinois, he voted against a measure that would have saved a baby that had survived an attempted abortion. 

Also, Pro-Choice is a nice pretty expression for Pro-Abortion.  Please do not split hairs on this term.

PS - I feel sorry for you!

Pro-Choice is a nice pretty word for Pro-Abortion.

We are truly now living in a country where EVIL has completely taken over. May God be with Hobby Lobby and all others in our fight to maintain our religious freedom. Everyone needs to read the book “They Fired the First Shot 2012” to fully understand what this nation is facing. May God be with us all.

“Without the Way, there is no going; without the Truth, there is no knowing; without
the Life there is no living.”

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Further on from what I said earlier - Take note the 13 Amendment – ‘‘Where Slavery forever will be banished Hence forward all Men shall be free’’ – This Amendment not just of one year or two years but FOREVER free in the United States of AMERICA ........for ALL AMERICANS

To inherit that freedom that right you have to be born and to be born you have to be in a womb and logic dicates that the13 Amendment declars that you an Unborn America have that right to inherit that right to walk and to breath and to be free

A Black man A Black President has by his hand signed into law countless generations of Americans that have been denied this right A Black Man A Black President has reintroduced something worse than slavery – the right to LIFE - Can YOU understand the horror of this that a Nation that laid down the cream of it people for Blacks has by the sweep of a pen denied Americans the right to walk and to breath to live and he a Black Man – What Shame

To all those that support Murder of the Unborn you have inherited that right of the 13 Amendment

Peggy Clores ,
You’re absolutely correct. We’re on the same slippery slope as Germany was.Some just can’t see it coming.Folks who know history,though, have a different view.
I had distant cousins wiped out in the Holocaust.Jews who’d assimilated into European society & culture thought they were safe.They weren’t.Few liberals who embrace “progressive” politics never see the totalitarian outcome until it’s too late.

Sorry, typo, “Few liberals EVER see…”

The US is NOT on the ” the same slippery slope as Germany was”.  The Hobby Lobby lawsuit has NOT been stopped, it will go forward.  Jutice Sotoamayor was simply apply long-settled principles of law to the Hobby Lobby situation.

The rights of employees to healthcare benefits and the to make their own healthcare decisions trump any objections by employers.  Employers have no right to deny access to birth control or abortion services to women—these are fundmantal constitutional rights of women. 

Yes, the RCC does not like this, but the RCC does not control US policy. the RCC has no right to deny American women their fundamental constitutional rights.  Catholic/Christain employers have no right to impose their version of their faith upon employees.

That does NOT amke the US the same as Nzi Germany.  The fact that American women have rights is does NOT make the US the same as Nazi Germany.  The issue is that the RCC does does not that American women have rights.  The RCC ahs immature and unhealthy attitudes toward women, sex and sexuality.  These irrational attitudes should govern the healthcre of American women.

Lisa, where does the Constitution say that women have a right to free birth control subsidized by their employers? It is obvious that you harbor ill feelings toward the church, but it seems to me from the many comments you have posted here that your knowledge of the church is limited to propaganda that you have read on the Internet or snippets that you have gleaned here and there. Before you condemn the church (and yes, there is ample historical evidence that the Catholic Church was the first church from which all other churches emerged), please gain a deeper understanding not only of what the church teaches, but why she teaches what she does. Read the Catechism from cover to cover, not just a section here and there. Read the New Testament cover to cover, not just a section here and there. Read Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica and then Aristotle’s Metaphysics. While you are at it, read Plato’s Republic and Cicero’s writings on natural law, all of which form a framework for understanding Catholic moral philosophy. The church did not just flip a coin and conclude, “Hey, let’s object to contraception and abortion because we want to keep women barefoot and pregnant at home.” The church over the centuries has articulated very sound philosophical reasons for her moral teachings, but one will never come to understand that wisdom by reading newspaper articles about the church or by reading anti-Catholic apologetic material on the Internet. I too was once vehemently anti-Catholic, and I had my share of arguments why the church was misguided and backward. But then I did my homework and realized I could no longer advance such arguments with intellectual honesty. Please, take the time and trouble to understand the church before you condemn her.

Cyril,

The Affordable Care Act mandates that employers provide birth control coverage to women employees.  The Constitutio, via several US Suprem Court decisions says that women ahve the right to control their own bodies.  I have “harbor” no “ill feelings toward the RCC. I spent about 5 decades as an RC, have 16 yrs of education from RC schools includinga BA in RC theology from an RC college.  So I am very very familiar with what the RCC teaches.  I am not “vehementaly anti-Catholic”. 

The RCC is incorrect about artificial birth control.  Nothing in scripture says that we human beings cannto intelligently control our reproduction, nothing in scripture says we have to mindlessly reproduce, nothing in scripture says that human beings have to reproduce until we crowd out ever other living thing and destroy our paklent.  The RCC’s stand on birth control is truly anti-life because it places our palnet and the lives of every living thing in danger.  Just because the RCC has said something over centuries does not make it right, does not make it true. 

We live in in the UNited States of America—where the US Consitution controls, not the RCC. The RCC does not dictate US policy or how American women live.  We pledge allegiance to our flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God with liberty and justice for ALL.  The RCC stand opposed to liberty and justice for all in the US.  That makes the RCC’s stand against the Affordable Care Act truly anti-American, anti-democracy, anti-liberty and justice.

@Cyril.  Very well said!!!  God bless you!

Cyril,
Thanks for your thoughtful post.

Lisa, with all due respect, you are begging the question. You implied women have a right to free birth control, but you cited the Affordable Health Care Act as evidence. That, however, is the very warrant we are questioning. Just because the White House decrees legislation does not mean it is a right. As you well know, the Supreme Court has struck down federal legislation as unconstitutional on many occasions, so the Act cannot rationally be used as evidence for itself. (That is a textbook example of circular reasoning.) You also cited women’s “right to control their own bodies” as a reason why Catholic employers should subsidize free birth control for their employees. This argument is also an instance of petitio principii, as well as being a straw man. Think about this rationally for a moment: How does a person’s right to do something logically entail another person’s legal obligation to subsidize the exercise of that right? Let’s apply a reductio ad absurdum (Socrates style) to this line of reasoning and see where it leads deductively: That which I have a right to must be funded by my employer without cost to me (major premise); The Constitution says I have a right to own property (minor premise); Therefore, my employer must pay for my property without charge to me (conclusion). Though valid in form, the argument is quite unsound because of the major premise. ||  I don’t know what you learned in your Catholic education, but it is an unfortunate fact that people in Catholic schools are not being catechized well. I have people in my own family who attended years of Catholic schooling and Mass-attending but still don’t have an accurate understanding of what—and, more importantly, why—the church teaches what it does. That’s why I recommended the readings I did (Aquinas, Aristotle, Cicero, Plato), because they help one to see the importance of the natural law on which all Catholic moral philosophy is built. We don’t need religion to tell us that fraud and adultery are wrong; we know that from the natural law. Likewise, we shouldn’t need religion to know that contraception is wrong, for we can also know that from the natural law, which is why no church, regardless of its creed, accepted contraception before 1930. Only after the Lambeth Conference did the Anglicans drift from what was clearly visible in the natural law. Thereafter, many other churches jumped on the bandwagon. All that is beside the point anyway. No one is saying non-Catholics cannot use contraception. We are saying only that we should not be forced to pay for it.

As previous contributors have pointed out, the Nazis failed to distinguish between right actions and other sets of actions sanctioned by a given culture at a given time and place, viz., 1930s Germany. That is precisely what is happening in America now. We must begin to use the term secular religion to identify any culture, including our own, that fails to honor the distinction between culture and the beliefs that shape it. If we Catholics wish to evangelize effectively, we need also to clarify this point, first in our own minds and then in conversations with those unaware that our America has drifted into a loosely defined, but nonetheless dangerous, secular religion, signaling a de facto violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
If we can agree that a true culture’s essence is always secular, even though it is shaped to some extent by the belief systems of those who share it, then we can also agree that none of the world’s political problems are born of conflicts between religion and culture. Of course, many of our greatest political and social woes result from a clash between religions, some of which wear the mask of culture. The most stunning current example is, of course, the secular religion that has diminished Christian influence in Europe and now grips the United States. Those who oppose President Obama and his ill-conceived programs have yet to make use of the following truth: every human person, including the professed agnostic and atheist, has a belief system – and a belief system is, de facto, a religion. Following from that indisputable fact, no one is neutral, and no culture is immune to corruption. In America, we’re lucky. We have the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of a state religion. How is it that our Supreme Court Justices – and indeed anyone with an ounce of legal acumen – fail to see that the Obama administration is ignoring the Establishment Clause. This administration is declaring that its belief system is supreme. Is its secular religion based on science rather than belief? It is not, as anyone with an ounce of philosophical knowledge can tell you. The bottom line is that President Obama is not a purveyor of truth and justice. He is, rather, a religious reformer thumbing his nose at the Constitution he swore to uphold.

Cyril,

First of all contraception is NOT wrong.  It is the right of every human being to intelligently control his/her reproduction.  God gave us brains to use. Every human being is free to make those decisions without the interference of the RCC trying to impsoe itself upon every human being.  Unrestrained population growth is a death sentence for every other living creature on the planet and is a death sentence of all human life as well. The RCC is just wrong, wrong, wrong on this issue.  Its postion is irrational, illogical, unscientific, and immoral.  Paul VI ignored the advice of his adviory panel on this issue.  The ruslt?  aneedlessly divided RCC, a discridited RC hierarchy.  We are a planet of 7 billion people.  Human beings have materially and substantially complied with God’s command to be frutiful and mulitply!  The RCC’s position on artificial contraception has been totally rejected by RC’s in the West (by those who have access to artificial contraception).  Notice the size of most RC families today?  Not 6, 8, 10 12 children.  But usually between 1-4.  Most adults (RC or not) are open to having children, most married couples have children.  But they are smart about it.  They use artificial contraception in order to have the number of children they can support.  Also, spacing children by using artificial contraception improves the health of women and improves the health of the children that are born. 

By your name above, perhaps I may rightly assume that you are male? It is so easy for men to try to tell women how they should/must bear child after child.  Women are smarter than that.  They know that their choices re artificial birth control must remain open.  And here in the US, the US Supreme Court has held that woemn have the fundamental right to access birth control (in 2 decisions prior to Roe v. Wade).

If you do not approve of artificial birth control, fine.  Do not use it.  But do not try to impose that stance upon every American citizen.

Ultimately the birth control mandate will come before the US Supreme Court and the Court will make its decision.  We will go from there.

Do you think you are the only person who has read Aquinas et al?

Casey Ahern,

You make some interesting points.  And I agree with a lot of what your are saying.  And disagree with some of what you are saying.

Yes, we in the US have an Establishment Caluse of the First Amendment.  But it is not absolute. None of the rights in the Bill of Right or the Constitution is absolute.  Yes, they are fundamental rights.  And in order to regulate or interfer with a fundamental Constitutional right, the US Supreme Court has held that the governemnt )state, local, federal) must prove it has a compelling reason to do. So its not that the Obama Administration is ignoring the Constitution or “thumbing its nose” at the Constituion.  The government can and does regulate freedome of religion in the US.  The freedom of religion in the US is not absolute.  For example, faith tradition cannot make murder a component of its religious practice, a faith tradition cannot make the possession & ingestion of heroin part of its ritual practice.  Faith traditions in the US are bound by the laws of state. local and federal governments.  The issue of the birth control mandate will make it tot he US Supreme Court and then the Administration will have to prove that it has a compelling reason to mandate that RC employers provide birth control as part of health insurance coverage.

The other questions your comments bring up are these:

1.  Is it necessarily a bad thing that Christian influence has waned in Europe.  The idea that it is a bad thing supposes that RCism or Christianity should be the faith of every persona nd should control government policy.  Europe, like the US, has many diverse non-Christain faith traidition and amny Christian faith traidtions (that are sometines at odd with each other).  So what if the influence of Christianity haw waned in the US and/or Europe?  The social messages, the value messages of other faith traditions are very similar to Christianity.  And in fact ALL the moral/social teachings of Christianity come right from Judaism.  Judaism iwas the faith tradition of Jesus.  Jesus was not a Christian.  Christainity is the reiligion about Jesus, NOT the relgion OF Jesus.  The only thing Christianity puts out into that the world that is different is the beleif that Jesus is God.

2.  Is effective RC evangelization in the best interests of the US?  I would say no.  RCism advocates many postions that are unhealthy, immature, illogical, superstitious, unscientific and not int he best interests of our nation, of our palent, of our world.

You will disagree because you are RC. But the US and the world should not become an RC theocracy or governed by the dictates of Rome.  God is not Rome and Rome is not God.

Lisa, you are still evading the issue, the one you brought up and the one to which I asked you to provide support. I’m not going to get sucked into a debate about whether the world is overpopulated. That’s an important question, but it is not relevant to the argument you made in your earlier post—the one about women having a right to free birth control at their employer’s expense. So, I ask you again: Where in the Constitution or in the precepts of divine law is it stated that my wife or I or anybody else has the right to free birth control at the expense of our employer? If you say “the Affordable Health Care Act,” you are begging the question since it is the president’s unilateral mandate following that act that we are questioning. (Please note: I am NOT asking whether men and women have the right to use birth control. I freely acknowledge that. I am asking you, rather, to support your claim that we have a right to free birth control subsidized by others.)

Over population is another liberal myth.

Cyril,

The Affordable Care Act sets out the requirments for employee health insurance that employers provide.  QAccess to birth control under teh Affordable Care Act is no different that than any other mandated insurance requirement because birth control pharmaceuticals have many uses beyond just birth control.  Many women need these pharmaceuticals for easons other than birth control.

Teh Affordable Care Act is not a matter of divine law.  Divien law, as interpreted by the RCC does govern the lawmaking of any nation.  And the US Supreme Court has already ruled that the Affordable Care Act is legal via the government’s right to tax. Due to ongoing litigation re the birth control mandate, the US Supreme Court will rule on that.  Remember, no right set out in the Constituion, not even our First Amendment rights, are absolute.  The US Suprem Court has held that state, local and federal governments may regulate fundamental rights if the government can prove a compelling to do so.  When the birth control mandate cases reach the US Supreme Court, the Solictor Genral of the United States, representing teh Executive Branch, will have to prove that the Administration has a compelling reason to mandate that RC employers provide birth control coverage for their female employees.  The Court will have to balance the RCC’s fundamental right of freedome of religion with the fundamental right of women to make their reproductive health choices.  My money is on the Court siding with the fundamental rights of women.

So you would advocate that Jehovah Witness employers be allowed to refuse coverage for blood transfusions because that would violate their faith?  you would advocate that Christian Science employers be allowed to not cover any medical care, because going to any physician violates their faith? Any employer can deny any aspect of health coverage becasue it violtes whatever faith the employer says it professes? 

And what about RC employers?  RC employers, employ not just RCs and not just people who strictly adhere to RC teaching.  I have worked for RC organizations ( an RC hosptial and also for my local Catholic Charities).  Those RC organizations hire non RCs and do demand that everybody conform to RC teaching—there wer divorced employees, gay employees, single people living with partners, unmarried people with children, etc etc).  When RC employers do not mandate that their employeess have to be in compliance with RC teaching, why should such employers have the rigth to carve out birth control coverage as a violation of RC teaching?

Lin,

With 7 billion people on the planet, the earth has felt the effects.  Adn we will too.  There is global warming, there are places that will undergo water shortages, there is rampant industrial pollution in cities in China and elsewhwere, animals are losing habitt, and the near-term extinction of many plant and naimal species is a reality.  Huamn activity also has an effect on animal evolution (hsort-term and long-term).  We human beings have only one home and we are not being very careful with it. Unchecked human population growth is ultimately anti-life.

Lisa, you are *yet again* evading the question. Every time I ask the same simple question, and you evade as though you were playing a game of dodge ball, the last time with talk about overpopulation, this time with red herrings about Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions. I never said anything about JWs, and the article under which we are commenting says nothing about it. Please, for the fifth or sixth time, where is it stated that a person has a right to free birth control at his or her employer’s expense? You keep talking about this “fundamental right of women,” but you refuse to tell us the origin of this right. It is a simple question. Please answer without question begging and red herrings.

the myth of overpopulation is rationally and intelligently argued by the Population Research Institute, whose slogan is, putting people first for 20 years. 
Lisa, if you read this and continue to dispense the lies that are wholly unsubstantiated it will hurt no one more than it does you.

http://www.pop.org/

for the record, were Google not so disingenuous you would have seen that the explosion of overpopulation myth started from a book that has been wholly debunked. Additionally, going back 30 years, the argument was that we would have 24 billion people by now and it would be unsustainable.  We have only 6 billion (not 7 billion. 1 billion have been aborted in the last 40 years and that is one of the primary reasons that the youngest generation loathes abortion, they think of themselves as survivors of women who balanced their lives against the pleasure of orgasm and free sex with anyone they felt inclined to without relationship responsibility. You might also want to read the book by George Mason law school professor Helen Alvare in her book and on their website ‘womenspeakforthemselves.com’. 

The science supports us even more than morality so justice sotomayer’s decision is pure feminist vitriole. In other words, she has wholly politicized the issue in her eugenics goal of making only families of elites breed.

Having once argued on the side that Lisa holds, it is literally impossible for her to answer your points directly.  There is nothing but obfuscation possible for the arguments of global warming, feminist rights to kill unborn children, overpopulation and the neutrality of our Supreme Court justices. The best thing you can do for her is to gently ignore her, continue to put up salient points and pray for her.  Prayer works where words do not because ‘evil’ is a truth that has been wholly rejected by that side and even rational logic admits that if a truth, especially an evil truth, is ignored, it is essentially supported by those ignorant of it.  Living the true Christian life is the one fundamental need in the world right now.  Mother Theresa, John Paul II and St. Francis all ‘preached’ with successful conversion of their audiences through their loving actions and courage, not through finger pointing and sermons.

God placed the future of the human race in the woman’s womb, not the door knob or a tree or a barnacle or a mountain top. Nowhere else.  Each baby conceived is placed there by God deliberately, with a soul that is meant to exist in the world and ultimately find a path to Heaven. By women refusing to harbor babies in the most sacred home of their existence, because they view their ‘right to life’ as taking precedence over the right of the other life, that can only exist in their womb and could only exist because of an egg and a sperm divinely conceived, effectively it is telling God that he is no longer the creator in charge. When humans say that God’s rules must take second place to their own preferences they are essentially saying that our finite, imperfect brains need no God and on top of that better understand how the universe is meant to grow.  God gave us a Holy human family to show us the foundation of all civilization is based on these, father, mother, children (those not being able to conceive still being spiritual parents to many children and helping society through love). it is the only place where unconditional love results in results that feed all of communities in a healthy, sharing way.  Pro abortion does literally nothing for the planet’s people, just the planet, which God created to be FOR people.

Jkash,

The World Population Clock ( a count of the world’s population maintained by the US Census Bureau reports that oas of Jan 9, 2013, the world’s population is :  7,058.594.344.  So yes, ther are 7 billion people on the palnet (not 6 billion).  If you want to dispute the US Census Bureau, take it up with them.  Your ignorance does not trump the facts.

Justice Sotomayor’s decision has nothing do with eugenics, has nothing to with ” pure feminist vitriole” (and your use of that phrase is an indication that you have no idea how the law works and that you have no repect for women as human beings).  Justice Sotoamyor based her diecison on the settled principles of law that govern when to or when not to issue a temporary injunction.  And of course her decision did NOT sotp the Hobby Lobby litgation from going forward.  That litigation IS going forward. 

The SEVEN BILLION people on the planet are have a negative impact on our planet.  yes, there is global warming, yes, many plant and animal species face near-term extinction (please read some reliable science).  Again your ignorance does not trump the facts.  You can go on and on about how unfettered human population growht is not a problem until the day you face wqater shortages, food shortages, etc. God created our world as a set of interdependent natural systems and species—our planet is meant to function with these systems and species in balance. When human beings upset/destroy the blance, we all have problems.  Upsetting/destroying the balance is puts all life on the plaent in danger, it IS anti-life.

And let’s be clear here, I am NOT advocating abortion.  Elective abortion is wrong.  I AM advocating the use of artificial birth control, the use of human intelligence to reproduce responsibily.

Jkash,

God may have created the earth for people, but people cannot exist on the earth independently of the balanced functioning of the natural systems God put in place on the earth.  People cannot exist on the earth independently from the existence of the other living creatures God put on this earth (In Genesis God called all of God’s creation good, not just people).  To destroy the balance of the earth’s natural systems, to destroy other living things on the planet is to ultimately destory ourselves. 

You may wish to reference the Red List of Threatened Species created and maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (an international partnership of scientists, universities, conservation organization).  You may not agree with their assessmwnt, but to be credible that disagreement has to be more than you just stamping your feet and screaming, ” I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it it, I don’t believe it”.  Again your ignorance does not trump the facts, does not trump the science.  Your ignorance is NOT better than the facts.

@Lisa Kaiser. Over population and global warming are two of the biggest hoaxes ever propagated upon the human race. God bless you!

Lin,

The weight of scientific evidence is against you.  Your ignorance does not trump the science, does not trump the facts.  However, you are free to hide your head in the sand and to refuse to acknowledge the facts.

Untrue.  The real science is that global warming is a hoax and LIBs like Gore made a boat load of money off the backs of the ignorant. You too are free to support this baloney and make the perpetrators rich. What a sham!

Lisa Kaiser, back in the 1970’s there was a “ton of scientific evidence” supporting global cooling and the coming of the next ice age.  Many articles were written about it, including by National Geogrphic!  Most real demographers understand that the reason the human population grew so rapidly in the last century was due to the development of antibiotics and public sewer and water systems - people were living longer.  Fortunately for people of your mind set, the sexual revolution of the 1960’s has produced a generation of people content to abort and contracept themselves out of existence.  The US birth rate fell below replacement levels recently.  Eurpoe is well below replacement levels as is Japan and South Korea.  In fact, birth rates have been falling globally and the human population is expected to peak mid century and then face a steep decline.  The trends are not good.  Suggest you start reading other news sources besides the Huffington Post.

Great post anonymous!  The truth hurts.  God bless you!

Lin and Anonymous,

I read widely, including science publications.  Sounds like you guys just buy into the ignorance and paranoia of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and other ignoramuses.

At 7 billion people in the world, we are humans are certainly not going out of existence.  If you think we humans are being good stewards of our planet (our only home), than you are not paying attention or do not understand what you are seeing, and are reading unreliable and unscientific sources.  You might also want to study up on what your RCC teaches about being good stewards of the earth, etc.