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As the Fortnight for Freedom draws to a close and we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our country’s independence on July 4, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the freedoms we enjoy in the United States and our obligation as citizens to ensure that these rights are protected.
Today, we are confronted with an extraordinary challenge –– the erosion of religious freedom in our society. Religious freedom is not only about our ability to worship within the four walls of our churches or pray at home. It is also about being able to live out the good works of our faith and make a contribution to the common good without having to compromise that very same faith.
The most recent threat to our religious freedom is the unprecedented mandate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which forces employers to provide coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilizations to their employees. The mandate, which is now law, includes an exemption to protect the conscience rights of houses of worship and institutions that hire and serve primarily people of their own faith.
However, this exemption defines religious institutions so narrowly that it does not consider our schools, hospitals, social services and charitable endeavors “religious enough” to be exempt. The sad irony of this is that it is precisely because our faith calls us to serve people of all faiths and backgrounds that we do not qualify as religious. Therefore, under the law, we will be forced to provide coverage for drugs and procedures that we believe are morally wrong.
On May 21, the Archdiocese of Washington joined with 42 other Catholic dioceses and organizations nationwide to file a lawsuit challenging this narrow religious exemption. The lawsuit in no way challenges women’s established legal right to obtain and use contraception or the right of employers to provide coverage for it if they choose. This lawsuit is solely about religious freedom.
The June 28 decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act pertained to the mandate requiring every individual to purchase health insurance (the “individual mandate”) and did not directly address religious freedom concerns raised by the HHS mandate, a separate provision of the health-care law.
Religious freedom is not a Republican or Democratic issue, nor is it just a Catholic issue. It is fundamentally an American issue.
Indeed, religious liberty is the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights and one that Americans of all faiths, or no faith, should be committed to preserving. History teaches us that infringement of the rights of one group eventually leads to the loss of others’ rights. Therefore, this erosion of religious freedom should be concerning to all Americans, not only to Catholics.
In the history of our country, we have always had room for people to exercise their conscience and still serve the common good. Religious organizations have provided education, health care, social services and a host of other benefits to the nation for the common good of all.
We should not today begin to close the doors in favor of a rigid, narrow, exclusively secular outlook on life. After all, the great American tradition is one of pluralism, not exclusive secularism. The strength of our country is reflected in the contributions that all people make to the common good.
In the United States, religious freedom is part of our heritage as a people. It is our birthright, our inheritance, and we must preserve it. The intention of the protection of religious liberty was to ensure that the voice of religious conviction would always have a place in our society.
In this increasingly secular world, it is all the more important that we, as people of faith, see in our daily actions the spiritual dimension that is intricately a part of them as we do our part to manifest God’s Kingdom among us.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl is the archbishop of Washington.
For more information on efforts to protect religious liberty,
visit PreserveReligiousFreedom.org and SacredProperty.org.
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Boilerplate. Too little, too late. Where has the good Cardinal been all these years when we needed someone to carry placards at the Supreme Court, beginning in the autumn of 1972, and especially after Roe v. Wade was issued? Where were the public excommunications of “Catholic” politicians like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden? Why, indeed, were the Bishops complicit in giving Kennedy a hero’s funeral? Why is excommunication in one Diocese for these politicians not honored in all the other Dioceses? Indeed, why was the Bishops’ advisory to the Catholic voters of 2008 made to be deliberately unclear? Why do well-founded rumors assert the fact that many priests and bishops voted for Obama; and, therefore, choosing socialism over the right to life? Why was a priest of South Carolina (Rev. Jay Scott Newman) chastised for telling the truth—that voting for Obama is a sin, complicity in abortion?
Face it: Faithful Catholics are the new “Amish.” I’ve taken to telling our friends that we are “Amish-Catholics.” If we have to, we need to make all our schools and hospitals open only to Catholics, and make it so that only Catholics can work there. More than that: I’d recommend what Mother Angelica is reputed to have said about any possible take-over of EWTN by our feckless bishops: “Burn it to the ground!!” (before letting the bishops get hold of her network). We need more Mother Angelica’s; fewer Donald Wuerl’s.
I find it ironic in that the bishops were involved in giving their input to the details of the health care bill, advocated national health insurance,and then at the last minute were double crossed by the administration. They want the Church exempted from certain provisions and term it a matter of “freedom”. I agree, but what about the rest of the program that all Americans will be forced on them eventually. Doesn’t freedom pertain to that part of this health care plan. I hope the bishops learned a lesson about working with goverment and politicans. You can’t trust either.
Catholic organizations have blithely accepted the “narrow exemption” for years as mandated by various states (which served as the model language for the Federal exemption).
NOW that the bishops see their authority waning with the faithful and the public because of the sex-abuse crises, they suddenly feel that they have an issue from which they can make political hay. No money to keep schools and parishes open; plenty of money to pay lawyers to file lawsuits claiming to oppose what has long been accepted fact in practice.
Where were these bishops when these laws first went into effect? Or as Jesus would probably say “....(D)o you not even notice the log in your own eye?”
The movement against contraception and its negative effects on our society is growing stronger and more sophisticated and is now educating young adults with a dynamic new website.
Check out the story here:
http://brandonvogt.com/2012/06/1flesh-org-the-revolt-against-artificial-contraception.html
To the posters above:
Aren’t we the critical ones?
Shall we stop the criticism and unite with the bishops? It is a miracle that they are all united for once.
Dissenting and overly critical Catholics aren’t helping plead our cause.
The problem runs far deeper than the the good Cardinal describes. It is not just a matter of religious liberty under the Constitution. The blood of perhaps more than one and a half billion “murdered babies” worldwide cries out for Justice and it will be given. But, meanwhile the “Luciferian-Principled-Obama-Nation” remains smirkingly silent while preparing even further legislation for euthanizing the aged, and the infirm. While our American Bishops are wringing their hands, God will not overlook this blasphemy. While speaking in the third person, Our Blessd Moter warned us about these end-time days, saying: “Only She Can Help You.” I strongly suggest you pour forth devout Rosary Prayers.
If the bishops want to talk about ‘murdered innocents’ THEY SHOULD BE COERCED INTO HAVING TO TALK ABOUT THE MURDERED THOUSANDS OF INNOCENTS THAT WERE MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES FOR THE criminal actions OF REFUSING TO GO AGAINST A PROTESTANT’S CONSCIENCE ..... AND, OF COURSE, BE MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD—ALONG WITH ONE’S ENTIRE FAMILY—including, but NOT LIMITED TO INNOCENT BABIES, CHILDREN, PREGNANT FEMALES AS WELL AS MALES————.... THE ROMAN CHURCH HAS MUCH INNOCENT BLOOD ON ITS HANDS FROM THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENTS THAT IT MURDERED FOR THE REFUSAL TO ACCEPT BEING DICTATED TO THAT UNLESS one accepted DESPOTS, ONE AND ONE’S ENTIRE FAMILY WOULD BE MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD!
TRY THE INNOCENT FRENCH PROTESTANTS—THE HUGUENOTS; THE INNOCENTS WHO FOLLOWED JOHN HUSS TO BEGIN WITH…............
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