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Although there was hardly a Catholic among them, the Founding Fathers would surely be with the bishops on President Barack Obama’s Health and Human Services’ mandate.
The young American republic was largely born from a Protestant dissenting tradition. The freedom to worship freely was a deep root of the colonial experience; as scholars like Barry Alan Shain and Donald Lutz have shown, colonial America was made up of countless small congregations wanting to live as their beliefs guided them.
It was reflected, of course, ultimately in the First Amendment, which enshrined that Congress could make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Most of the state constitutions followed suit, even where there was some public support for religion.
James Madison, in a famous 1785 statement called “Memorial and Remonstrance,” set forth what became a common American understanding of religious freedom:
‘The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.’
Even Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most secular of the founders, recognized that forcing people to act contrary to their beliefs was an abuse of power.
In a 1777 draft of a bill for religious liberty in Virginia (meant in part to disestablish the Anglican Church), he wrote, “That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Of course, it is true that many founders did not think highly of the Church. And it is also true that Catholics suffered from various privations because of their faith. The great founder Charles Carroll of Carrollton, for example, was early in his career prevented from holding public office in his native Maryland because of his faith.
Even into the 20th century, with the failed presidential candidacy of Al Smith in 1928 and the successful candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960, Catholics too often were suspected of dual loyalty, or worse. Current Republican candidate Rick Santorum has also faced similar criticism.
Nevertheless, even with those suspicions, the new nation had little interest in internal Church affairs or in how it carried out its works of mercy, such as hospitals and adoption agencies.
In a famous story, the Church came to the young American government to discuss arrangements for placing the first bishop in America. To the astonishment of the papal nuncio, the government (in the person of Benjamin Franklin) stated that it was no business of the American government whom the Church appointed as its leaders. That relationship, so different from Europe, defined the Church’s understanding of American freedom and helped it grow with little interference.
Indeed, the combination of implicit public hostility and legislative indifference helped the Church create its vast social service network in the first place. Even the infamous Blaine Amendments, a mark of bigotry still included in many state constitutions and laws, did not force Catholics to do anything contrary to Church teaching.
This core American principle of internal, ecclesial self-government was recently affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Hosanna Tabor case, another reminder of the founders’ wisdom that the state will always seek to encroach on other sources of authority. Instead, the founders realized that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to “secure” rights, not grant them.
Rights already exist, including the right to seek the truth in religion. In Madison’s words, religious obligations precede the “claims of civil society.” It is the genius of the American system that in a nation so varied a workable pluralism was able to develop, in part because the state, in its actions, allowed free reign for believers to act upon their beliefs.
Now, however, the state has taken quite a different approach. It is no longer simply indifferent to religious believers, but is actively working to move them out of both public life and those private services believers have provided for decades. Moreover, some political leaders treat religious liberty not as a right to be “secured,” but as one that can be modified or altered in light of secular values the state now deems important. This is exactly contrary to the American tradition of religious liberty. Actions such as that by HHS treat religious persons as second-class citizens, whose entry and participation in public life is limited by their faith.
HHS and their supporters would do well to consider what Madison and Jefferson would think.
Gerald J. Russello is editor of The University Bookman.
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Something else the American founders would have agreed upon: Unlike the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, health care is NOT a right. They would have also agreed that health insurance mandated by the federal government is unconstitutional. The illegal HHS Mandate is an unfortunate - but entirely predictable - symptom of a much larger problem created by a gross disregard for our Founders’ political wisdom, as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Okay, I will say again, what obama, is doing is illegal, goes totally against our Constitution and Declaration, how he is able to get away with it, I do not understand, especially when our Founding Fathers put into place, in our Constitution and Declaration, to prevent this from happening. Along with this obama has sighed a treaty with the UN, to remove our 2nd Amendment right, this treaty gives the UN permission to remove every gun owners gun from there home. I feel like I am reliving Nazi Germany, take the people rights away from them, in the ruse that it is good for them, disarm them, control them. May God help our Nation
Sometimes I want to know what is in that man’s head, but at other times I’m just too afraid that if I got close enough to look I’d see a devil whispering in his ear.
I fear for the religious freedom of every church and every individual in America. When so-called “rights” are given at the whim of temporary politicians we will see the dark night of total tyranny fall on this once great nation. We need statesmen - not politicians - in control of all levels of government to return us to Constitutional Rule of Law and God- Given rights.
The founding fathers are gone. The U. S. Supreme Court applies the Constitution. Justice Scalia, a Catholic, delivered an opinion of the Court and wrote, “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.” Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 1600 (1990) This decision allowed Oregon to burden the sacramental use of peyote by Native Americans and rejected their “free exercise” argument. Justice Scalia remains on the Court.
Our Michigan senators voted against the Blunt amendment, which of course didn’t pass. I just sent the e-mail below to Senator Carl Levin, in response to the statement he made to the Senate prior to the vote, which can be read at http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/speeches/speech/sen-levin-floor-statement-on-protecting-womens-health/
Perhaps someone else might find this of use in communicating with their own representatives on the matter.
This article topic is a moot point. A lot of what this country is now, including much of the GOOD, would not “fly with the founding fathers.” It is a silly question. consider: no slavery, non-landowners voting, women voting, etc. Freedom of religion flies both ways. We need to be careful how far we push with this mandate being a first amendment issue, for what would happen if someone lives somewhere where the nearest hospital is run by a faith-based group that does not believe in invasive surgery you could die unless you are fortunate enough to live in a large enough metro area with more than one hospital within an hour’s drive. This is, actually, already an issue in many rural communities. Just as judges must rule based on the law, doctors must practice the medicine that is legal. If we start picking and choosing then we may set a precedent that could be quite detrimental to our own faith in the future.
Deborah Parrella wrote: Along with this obama has sighed a treaty with the UN, to remove our 2nd Amendment right, this treaty gives the UN permission to remove every gun owners gun from there home.
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Hmm—please provide proof of this while I show that it is not true:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/untreaty.asp
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/international-gun-ban-treaty/
It is unfortunate that so many Catholics fall for these unfounded conspiracy theories. Any Catholic that holds to on and promotes the “Obama not a citizen, Obama is a Muslim, Obama is a Marxist, Obama is a Socialist, etc” line of thinking does more harm than good to Catholic causes such as the Pro-Life and Pro-Family movements and preservation of our rights to practice our faith. Promulgation of said theories do nothing more than makeing us look like a bunch of wackos and taint the facts we present about contraception and abortion to look equally as wacky.
Joseph Condon, there is a difference between using religion to excuse actions that are proscribed by civil law (e.g. peyote, polygamy, etc.) and the state prescribing actions that violate one’s beliefs. To extend your argument to the HHS mandate, you’re effectively saying that I don’t have the right to live my life free of sterilization, artificial contraception and abortifacient pills.
Felipe Sobiech said,
As I noted in the letter to my senator that I posted earlier, that is an irrational fear with no basis in fact. If such concerns were valid, surely they would have manifested themselves already. As for this HHS mandate, I think we need to distinguish between “practicing medicine” and promoting health. While the measures that it covers do involve people who practice medicine as well as surgical techniques and chemicals often involved in medicine, they really don’t fit the definition of “medicine” since they do not prevent, alleviate or cure disease. Hence, they don’t really belong in a “health care” initiative.
The founding fathers would most certainly not align themselves with a powerful world-historic institution (Catholic Church) that seeks to control the ability of American citizens to act in ways that this institution finds morally inappropriate. The founding fathers sought to grant individuals the free right to exercise their religious beliefs against the tyranny of institutions, both religious and secular.
Something there is in the progressive mindset that that doesn’t like religious moral thought unless it may be manipulated to the advantage of the progressive political agenda. The founding fathers loathed the concept of a strong centralized federal government with direct taxation of the individual American citizen for starters. Concentrating so much power among so few political left wing apparatchiks has proven to be a dangerous outcome for the nation.
There are so many perverse aspects of today’s polluted cultural and moral value system that would never have been thought possible in colonial times. The idea that women like Fluke could anticipate that her fellow citizens should be expected to abet her fornication behavior with tax dollars instead of providing her with a few scarlet letters, a time out in the stocks, and or a dunking would not have been possible.
Even more outlandish would have been the thought that the Catholic Church or any other church would have to provide spousal “marriage” benefits to sodomites pretending to be married. That anyone would assert that government should pay an abortionist to murder infants in the womb and dismiss the death as a “choice” would have led at best to a tar and feathering and at worst to a hanging.
The most obvious impression about America and its moral value system is that it has undergone a social and cultural nervous breakdown since the 1960s and that it pleases some political groups that it has.
@I A N P M F
Amen to that! Which is why I am so glad that the Catholic Churh dosen’t force or coerce or “seek to control the ability of American citizens to act in ways that this institution finds morally inappropriate”, and why I am so ticked off that the Obama Adminitration IS trying to force Catholic institutions to conform to their view of what is morrally approprete!
“CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF”
Congress shall make no law…....Congress shall make no law…. Dang. I was wondering why they were smiling under thier hats…. We need to re-ratify the First Amendment, NOW!
I notice lots of links in the comments above. Why was the one I posted with my comment deleted?
The broader questions are: 1) whose religious liberty needs to be protected; and 2) what is “the church.”
1) Mr. Russello ignores the fact that individuals and institutions have First Amendment religious freedoms. The federal government is only mandating contraceptive coverage in the employee health plan. It is up to the individual employee’s “liberty of conscience” to decide if using contraception violates their conscience or religious beliefs. And, in terms of religion, we are talking about a diversity of employees who may adhere to atheism, agnosticism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, etc. Why should a tangentially-Catholic employer determine what healthcare coverage their employees get? To argue or act otherwise smacks of religious “establishment.”
2) A vast array of polling date shows a huge divergence between the beliefs and practices of Catholic parishioners versus the doctrines and practices of the Catholic hierarchy on: a) using contraception; b) having contraception covered in health plans; c) the hierarchy’s handling of sex abuse cases; d) the ban on married priests; e) the ban on female priests; and f) even on abortion in cases of rape, threats to the mother’s health or genetic defects. The evidence is overwhelming that the “founding fathers” wanted to protect the “free exercise of religion” of individuals from government interference. Nobody’s “free exercise of religion” is being infringed by the employer-provided contraception coverage mandate.
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