Hugh Hewitt on Pres. Obama’s anti-Catholic card

Massive civil disobedience is the only response for Catholics of conscience. That and an absolute refusal to vote for the anti-Catholic president overseeing this Kulturkampf.

A WDTPRS favorite, radio guy Hugh Hewitt (listen to his show), has an column in The Washington Examiner about the anti-Catholic was Pres. Obama is waging, even as he undermines the 1st Amendment for all Americans.

My emphases and comments.

Obama plays his anti-Catholic card

[QUAERITUR:] Will Catholics vote to re-elect an anti-Catholic president? For President Obama is surely the most openly anti-Catholic candidate for the presidency since Republican James G. Blaine in 1884.

Blaine authored the “Blaine Amendment,” a proposed reworking of the religion clauses of the First Amendment that, had it been passed by the Congress and ratified by the states, would have crippled parochial education in the United States.

As it was, many states adopted their own “Blaine amendments,” which continue to this day to complicate the growth of private schools, including Catholic schools.

Blaine would have objected that he wasn’t anti-Catholic at all, that his mother was Catholic in fact, and that his concern was really just the strengthening of public schools and the maintenance of the separation of church and state.

But his handiwork and its progeny emerged from a vigorous anti-Catholic movement, were quite clearly aimed at Catholics, and injured Catholic institutions, so history doesn’t quarrel with the appellation “anti-Catholic” as applied to the “Plumed Knight,” as Blaine was named at the GOP’s 1876 convention.  [If it walks like an Obama and quacks like an Obama, it’s anti-Catholic.]

From just before that convention to the end of the 19th century, the Republican Party became enmeshed in anti-Catholic rhetoric and politics, just as the Democratic Party has become entangled in that poisonous and poisoning trap in the last quarter-century.

(For a great summary of this period, read “A Mandate for Anti-Catholicism: The Blaine Amendment,” by the Rev. Thomas E. Buckley, S.J., from the Sept. 27, 2004, edition of America magazine.)

On Jan. 20, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a new policy that would oblige almost all Catholic institutions in the United States to cover all forms of birth control, including sterilization and the “morning after pill,” via their health insurance plans.

The press release that accompanied the new rule didn’t mention “Catholics” or “Catholic institutions,” but was as obviously aimed at Catholics and their institutions as the Blaine Amendment of long ago.

“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty,” said Obama’s HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, a pro-choice absolutist. [“pro-abortion absolutist”] “I believe this proposal strike the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

[NB] To begin with: You cannot “balance” the right to free exercise of religion any more than you can “balance” the right of a newspaper to print stories that may injure national security.

You cannot “balance” the right to vote with the desire to save money in a time of extreme fiscal crisis.

You simply cannot indulge in social engineering when the Constitution of the United States declares the rights that you wish to engineer off-limits to the political forces of the day.

A decision this far-reaching, and this hostile to Catholics, [NB] could not have emerged from the administration without the president’s sign-off, and without high-level review by many senior aides as well as the president. It is Obama’s decision, his choice and his legacy.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” declared Phoenix Archbishop Thomas Olmsted, [Repeating the boiler-plate issued by the USCCB.] one of a chorus of bishops [167 as I write] issuing the sharpest letters they ever have and having those letters read from the pulpits on Sundays past.

Letters are just the beginning, as such institutions as Boston College, the University of Notre Dame and Gonzaga University, not to mention scores of other Catholic colleges and universities, thousands of elementary and secondary parochial schools and the hundreds of Catholic institutions such as Catholic hospitals and charities, face the state’s demand that they abandon their faith.

Massive civil disobedience is the only response for Catholics of conscience. That and an absolute refusal to vote for the anti-Catholic president overseeing this Kulturkampf.

Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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46 Comments

  1. MarkA says:

    The USCCB are following their strategic mistake of supporting ObamaCare (previous post – “My God. What have I done?” with their tactical mistake in their current response. This tactical mistake is to make this a Catholic Church only issue, as compared to affecting all people that this is against their moral beliefs.
    Obama is a community organizer. His M.O. is to create a crisis (Sebelius) and then come up with a compromise (from Obama himself) that would not have been necessary if he hadn’t created the crises in the first place. In the not too distant future, he will exempt the Catholic Church from this HHS requirement (it already has plenty of exemptions). This will leave the USCCB unable to protest against this requirement’s application to all others except them (i.e., individuals, small business owners, etc.). He will look like a hero, his excellency Dolan will praise him, and the USCCB will not be able to protest any more.
    Just my two cents.

  2. Supertradmum says:

    Excellent, and Father, thank you for staying on this topic and using this blog as a town hall meeting for information and galvanizing Catholics. Thank you.

  3. bookworm says:

    What kind of “massive civil disobedience” is Hewitt talking about? Genuine civil disobedience, as proposed by Thoreau and practiced by MLK, Gandhi, et. al. means simply refusing to obey an inherently unjust law and accepting the consequences. For example, breaking the laws against blacks sitting at lunch counters in the Jim Crow South, or against helping slaves escape, etc.

    In this case it would mean Catholic institutions not obeying the mandate by continuing to not cover contraception/sterilization, until they are challenged; and at that point, either closing down or raising money to pay the fines incurred for not offering insurance coverage. Since enforcement of the rule is more than a year away that is not going to happen anytime soon.

    However, what most people mean by “civil disobedience” nowadays is going out of your way to break unrelated, perfectly just and reasonable laws, like those against trespassing, purely to get yourself arrested and attract attention to your cause. (An abortion clinic “rescue” that succeeds in saving unborn babies does NOT fall into this category as it has a real effect, even if temporary, of stopping the killing. Most demonstrations of this type, however, do nothing to directly help the victims of the injustice being protested.)

    I’m not so sure I care for that kind of “massive civil disobedience” . Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think it’s a virtue to deliberately court martyrdom or persecution — you are supposed to be ready for when it comes to you, but you don’t go seeking it out?

  4. Supertradmum says:

    bookworm,

    What is wrong with massive civil disobedience if a law is blatantly immoral? Demonstrations work. Abortion clinics have been closed down because of silent, rosary-praying demonstrators. I would have walked with Gandhi to make salt. And, you need to study American history. Are you afraid of consequences? I, for one, do not want to live in a totalitarian state and would demonstrate while I had the chance. I think you are being naive. As a woman, if I were of child-bearing age, I would not want to go to a hospital where I would be forced to have an abortion, or where my tubes were tied without my permission if I had what the State deemed as too many children. This happens under socialist, pagan systems Wake up. We need Catholic hospitals, clinics. We have freedom of conscience now, but we may not have in the future. If you are a baptized Catholic, it is your duty to exhibit courage and fidelity to Truth.

    Where is the good, old pioneer spirit? If you are typical, I am afraid for America. Yes, you would get arrested and you might lose your job. In some places in the world, people lose their lives. See my blog today on a brave Archbishop who was killed for the Truth in 2008. And, one does seek out persecution simply by BEING a Catholic, not privately, but publicly.

  5. HyacinthClare says:

    As a Christian business owner, I would both refuse to buy contraception and abortion and refuse to pay the fine. That’s how I see civil disobedience in my small world. What difference does it make exactly how we got here, MarkA? Because the bishops were wrong before, we should ignore them now, or remind them constantly that we don’t believe them or trust them, now that they ARE doing something right? “They’ll let us down again”? Sure. Do we do what is right in the meantime? Sure.

  6. Supertradmum says:

    “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” -Thomas Jefferson

  7. Gretchen says:

    Massive ‘civil’ disobedience shouldn’t be a problem for Catholics, since they are massively disobedient to Church teachings much of the time anyway. Wink, wink.

  8. Bryan Boyle says:

    MarkA: I think you probably nailed what the real sequence of events is/will be. We’re not dealing, with this administration, with a disjointed cabal of people who march to their own drummers. We are witnessing a coordinated, cynical, and focused campaign driven by a specific agenda and there is NO deviation from the script laid out and developed over a long course of rabble-rousing, community organizing, and the like.

    You just have to look under the covers…people who deviated from the script were either thrown under the bus (kmiec? though, he seems too dense to realize what happened) or shuffled off and hidden away. This guy even trash talked his own grandmother and has managed to deny half of his heritage to get what he wants. You think a little token (to him) opposition to his diktats will cause him to awaken at night with any sort of doubt? I don’t.

    Nothing (and I mean NOTHING) is done by The Wun where the moves and endgame have not been carefully thought out before hand and all possible scenarios explored. In some ways, if it was being done for the good, it would be a marvelous thing to see. In this case, which I believe is no less than the dividing and marginalizing of the ONLY force that stands in his way (because the Church is the ONLY, to him, monolithic power that could actually force his hand and show him for what he is) to bring about his ‘socialist paradise’, he and his minions will stop at nothing to do so.

    One of the first tactics you learn in strategic studies is to try and divert your opponent’s attention away from YOUR ultimate goal. He is not stupid, and is surrounded by people who are just as read into the program (remember, the secretary of state also wrote her thesis and is heavily influenced Alinsky, as is Panetta, Sebelius, etc…) as he is. Unfortunately, except for a few clear thinking bishops on our side, many of their confreres have also bought into the same line. So, like in all things, it is not necessarily the people in positions of authority who will set the tone, but the foot soldiers who will get the job done in spite of the impotency of the leadership.

    And I predict, that regardless of what he does, a majority of Catholics WILL vote for him, since he panders to the ‘entitlement’ mindset and is very effective at dividing groups from their leaders and substituting his own vision for those of the larger population. He doesn’t need monolithic voting blocs…just enough smaller groups in enough numbers to make the numbers work out.

  9. MarkA says:

    HyacinthClare – I’m sorry I didn’t clearly communicate my point. It is not to harp on “exactly how we got here” or to state “They’ll let us down again”. My sincere apologies if I left you with that impression. My point is to humbly submit that perhaps the USCCB should recognize the M.O & tactics they’re facing in this conflict and consider changing their positioning and messaging. I’m concerned that by limiting their objections to strictly the institutions of the Catholic Church & it’s employees, if this administration “exempts” them, then other objectors of conscience, such as yourself would not be protected.
    Again, my sincere apologies for any confusion I may have caused.

  10. digdigby says:

    That list of Bishops who have signed on is getting quite long. What I would like to see Father, is the list of ten or so who have NOT signed on. I understand that the bishop of Ms. Sibelius is one of them. Who are the others? Please publish them so those in their flock who are your readers can plead with them.

  11. Traductora says:

    I think it’s wonderful that the bishops have issued these statements, but how can they then let Pelosi and Sebelius depict themselves as good Catholics who have a parallel and equally valid magisterium? In my opinion, until there is public excommunication of all the Catholic politicians supporting this, the rest of the population won’t take the Church and Catholic resistance seriously.

    I’m aware that they are both “self excommunicated, ” and that Sebelius has been privately asked not to go to Communion, but that does not address the public nature of their sin and their treachery. It also doesn’t make the headlines that are necessary right now, because the only way the Church will get support is if it shows itself to be a fighter, using the spiritual arms it possesses, and drawing clear distinctions between truth and lies, good and evil. While the burden for much of the rest of the resistance will fall on the laity, this is one thing only the bishops can do, and they should do it now.

  12. AnnAsher says:

    I’m so glad to see this mainstream article talking about the intentionally anti-catholic foundations of public schools. Get your kids out of the government schools – they’re bad for your kids. There’s a book by they title,

  13. wmeyer says:

    There is another take on the whole HHS issue here. This happens to mesh with the message in our homily Sunday that everything is a gift.

    On the subject of the “self excommunicates” (latae sententiae), I think it is high time that these excommunications were routinely made public, at least with respect to people who have declared themselves to be in “public service”, and therefore able to harm other Catholics, or even, in extreme cases, to bring harm to the Church.

  14. Supertradmum says:

    Sibelius was publicly asked not to go to Communion. “Recently, however, she has run afoul of Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas. As the Catholic News Service reported earlier this month, the bishop has told the governor that she “should stop receiving Communion until she publicly repudiates her support of abortion and makes a ‘worthy sacramental confession.’ ” In a column for his diocesan newspaper, Naumann wrote that he was particularly outraged by Sebelius’ veto of an antiabortion bill, which she — and nearly every legal scholar who examined it — believed was unconstitutional.” from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/28/opinion/oe-rutten28

  15. wmeyer says:

    Supertradmum: At last! Abp. Naumann is a hero of the Church.

  16. Supertradmum says:

    Hi, it was done in 2008, but few noticed I was blogging and had a vague memory…It is probably in Fr, Z’s archive.

  17. JohnE says:

    What would this massive civil disobedience look like? We already take to the streets for the March for Life and they are essentially ignored by both media and politicians. I imagine Catholic institutions would need to become self-insured (if they aren’t already), Catholic hospitals should continue to accept patients with these self-insured plans and ignore any fines and prepare for the Gestapo to meet them at work one day.

    As someone who works for a large corporation that already provides health insurance that covers abortion and contraception, I can only opt out of my company insurance if I can prove insurance elsewhere, but would such a policy even exist any longer? What sort of leverage do the rest of us Catholics have who don’t work for a Catholic institution? Refuse to pay taxes?

  18. Joe in Canada says:

    Canada is at least 10 years ahead in this. The hospitals are totally secular. The challenge now is education: provinces want to mandate how religion is taught even in private religious schools and to home-schoolers. You have a wonderful opportunity – if possible – to nip this in the bud. God bless you!

  19. EXCHIEF says:

    My civil disobedience will consist of refusing to pay my federal taxes. A violation of law, yes….but not nearly the violation of the Constitution that this edict from the “Wun” is.

  20. I’m with @wmeyer in suggesting beginning with formal, public, full-blown excommunication of the highest-profile “catholic” supporters of this measure. Being “publically asked” to refrain from communion has obviously not been enough. [See the excommunication scene in “Becket” (YouTube search terms “Becket excommunication scene”); though I can’t comment on its liturgical accuracy].

  21. wmeyer says:

    RomeontheRange: I think the public list is essential, especially if the casual invocation of conscience in contravention of doctrine is to be curbed. We have seen 40 years of complacent tolerance of “Catholics” who by their declarations and actions should be in a Protestant church down the street.

    Any parent knows that rewarding bad behavior brings more of the same.

  22. kelleyb says:

    If prayer and Civil disobedience be the only options to push back on this Obamanation, then know that I will increase my prayer, penance and engage in civil Disobedience. I know that the President now has the power to “disappear” those designated as enemies of the State, including American citizens. He has stated he will not use these powers against American Citizen….which tell me he will. St. Michael protect us.

  23. Supertradmum says:

    wmeyer

    Fulton J. Sheen stated once that an ignorant Catholic is a Protestant. Does that mean a complacent Catholic is worse than…?

  24. frjim4321 says:

    Massive civil disobedience is the only response for Catholics of conscience. That and an absolute refusal to vote for the anti-Catholic president overseeing this Kulturkampf.

    Unfortunately this kind of hyperbole for which Hewitt is infamous undercuts any possible contribution he might otherwise be making here.

    It is one thing to push for a revision of the Affordable Health Care plan and another thing entirely to suggest that the only choice for Catholics of conscience is for any candidate other than the President. A vote for a man who is one of the .01% and is totally unphased by the issue of systemic poverty in the United States, the umbrella issue for all other social ills, is hardly a moral alternative.

  25. Dr. Eric says:

    frjim4321,

    Romney might be part of the .01% but President Obama is also a millionaire and is part of the 1% himself. Did you miss that? As repugnant as Romney is, Obama still holds onto more of the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. Will you still vote for someone who is determined to stamp you out as a priest?

  26. MarkA says:

    Bryan Boyle – my quick two cents.
    If the Catholic impact materially negatively effects Obama’s poll numbers, Obama overrules Sebelius, exempts the institutions of the Catholic Church, appears as a hero, and neuters all other conscientious objectors.
    If his poll numbers are not negatively effected, than he can ignore the USCCB. As of 2/2/12, According to the Public Religion Research Institute, Catholics still favor Obama over GOP candidates.
    http://blog.chron.com/believeitornot/2012/02/catholics-still-favor-obama-over-gop-candidates/
    If this scenario continues to play out, he will have neutered the Catholic Church in America, an accomplishment even the communists could not do in Poland!
    He’s playing chess and we’re playing checkers.

  27. ContraMundum says:

    @frjim4321

    You know you DO have alternatives. If can’t stand Romney, that’s understandable, but if you choose to support Obama, that is your choice. “The GOP made me do it” is a crock. If you can’t vote for Romney, do like I’ll do: vote for a 3rd party candidate. Otherwise you will be willfully supporting the most pro-abortion president ever, and no whining about how rich Romney is, or how uncaring he is, will blur that fact.

  28. Matthew says:

    frjim, just curious: are you aware that the President is also quite wealthy? Not Romney wealthy, but he’ll never be part of the 99%.

    Also, what sort of effective interest has Obama shown in ‘systemic poverty’, aside from enacting policies that create more of it? It’s telling that you stick with the ‘Affordable Health Care plan’ name – I’m just curious how much more affordable health care is, now. My family’s premiums are up more than 40% since it was passed.

  29. Supertradmum says:

    frjim4321

    The Lord Himself said that the poor will always be with us. There is no moral distinction at being poor, unless you are a Calvinist, and it is a strong Catholic duty as individuals, not as government, to help the poor. Governments should let Church people take care of the poor, anything else is socialism, which, as you know, is truly anti-Catholic.

    Poverty is an evil indeed, as I know first hand. I cannot get medical care, I do not have basic needs, like glasses, which I need, and clothes, housing, etc., and do not get help from the governments of any nation. I get food from food banks, or I eat one meal a day. Sometimes, I live on porridge for days. However, my situation is not equal to the murder, the killing of babies. There is no comparison and all Catholics can, if they wanted to do so, help the poor. The slaughter of babies cries out to God for vengeance. There is no comparison. No comparison. And, I would rather sit in a cold cyber cafe with one coffee, and use the Internet than have all comforts and no freedom of conscience. Who do you represent in your concern for the poor? Not me.

  30. Supertradmum says:

    PS Not just Obama is wealthy, but his wife is as well. It is all online.

  31. wmeyer says:

    Frjim, are you suggesting that a Catholic can possibly, in good conscience, vote for Obama? Despite a) his very clear support for abortion and b) his intention to coerce Catholics to support (pay for) abortion?

  32. benedetta says:

    Fr Jim, The American poor are not justly or fairly served by the mentality that equates justice and quality of life with the ability and ease with which to slaughter offspring. The right to not have children pitted against parents in a bid for life is the right to life, the right upon which the entire magisterium of social justice is based.

  33. HHAmbrose says:

    Father Z, I thought I’d bring this to your attention:

    Ave Maria University has added its voice to “an unjust law is not law at all” mantra. President Towey released this video last night:

    Ave Maria University: We Will Fight the HHS Mandate

  34. KAS says:

    Any vote for this current president is a vote in favor of the murder of babies, violations of the first amendment, and the forcing of all peoples to violate their religious freedom to serve Caesar instead of God.

    I’ll vote for ANYONE other than this sitting president. I don’t care who anymore because nobody could be more pro-abortion, pro-infanticide, pro-euthanasia than this current president.

  35. tcreek says:

    If bishops are to do anything “massive”, the first step would be to fire USCCB and diocesan staff who support pro-abortion politicians. Most are easily spotted. At my mid America archdiocese you could spot Obama bumper stickers at the chancery. The honorary chairman of a recent capital campaign was a very visible leader of the Obama campaign committee. The respect life director of the archdiocese had Obama and other pro-abortion politician campaign signs in her front yard. My “contacts” assured me that most of the staff supported Obama for president. And the teachers in our Catholic elementary and high schools, would not the results be the same?

    Excommunicate Catholic pro-abortion politicians while employing staff and teachers that support pro-abortion politicians … ???

  36. Cathy says:

    In addition to voting out the president, we have a duty and an obligation to look at all candidates currently in office, and vote them out as well. D and R, does not matter when they say one thing, than ultimately turn into limp noodles on non-negotiable moral and constitutional issues. In New York, so-called same-sex “marriage” did not become “law” without the vote of Republican representatives. Neither party represents the people of this country or the Constitution of the United States. The only Republican candidate for the presidency that even excites some consideration of my support is Rick Santorum, and, even that with a tinge of skepticism in recognition that the national Republican party is unprincipled and unbridled in its support of intrinsic evil within its own ranks. Both parties drink from the same tank of poison in order to secure votes according to what polls as populist support and media sanctioning as to whether or not the candidate is “electable”.

  37. Bryan Boyle says:

    MarkA:

    Exactly what I’m thinking. Like I said…nothing is done/proposed/floated/etc by his lackeys without all options explored, as well as plans put in place, to ensure that the maximum credit and burnishing of the image can be claimed. It’s almost textbook pathological narcissism. I predict: he’ll make a tactical retreat, there will be a collective sigh of relief (remember the worthless ‘Signing Statement’ to placate Stupak, Nelson, et al), but, in the end it will be implemented, just under a different set of rules. Remember, if it is implmented, he will never be held liable for the outcome, since the implementation would be after he would ever have to stand for reelection again (unless he gets down to that amendment with his shredder).

    It’s insidious. And, let’s not discount the willful assistance of the media empty talking heads. I know more than a few of them. And to say that their core values are more center than the President’s would be false. Most are radically off the rails to the left…and they’re more centrist than he is.

    Pray hard. But, we will still need to take concrete action. It will be unpleasant. But, it will separate the believers from the pretenders.

  38. MarkA says:

    Bryan Boyle – This administration has seriously underestimated its opposition this time, and it isn’t any of us reading this!
    “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” – Our Lady of Fatima
    Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix.

  39. bookworm says:

    Supertradmum, read my post again. I’m NOT saying “roll over and play dead,” or “give in to this law.” I’m simply saying that real civil disobedience does NOT consist of running out to break an unrelated law purely for the purpose of getting arrested and calling attention to oneself.

    Look more carefully at what Gandhi, MLK, etc. did. They broke the ACTUAL laws they were protesting, in order to demonstrate how unjust they were. That’s not the same as blocking traffic, “occupying” public parks for weeks on end, etc. in order to protest laws that have nothing to do with traffic, parks, or whatever injustice one is protesting at the moment.

    Also, I may not have worded what I said about abortion clinic rescues clearly. I said they DO have a salutary effect in that they actually do stop the killing at least temporarily. When I referred to “most demonstrations of this type” I was talking about OTHER types of sit-ins and marches that don’t directly help the victims of the injustice being protested.

    Yes, by all means, Catholic institutions SHOULD NOT OBEY the contraceptive mandate, and they should be prepared to suffer the consequences of refusing to obey it. If that’s what Hewitt meant by “massive civil disobedience” then I’m all for it. But if he meant “everybody take to the streets and get yourselves arrested so you can get on the nightly news,” I’m NOT all for that. Leave that to the leftists.

  40. Mom2301 says:

    MarkA and Brian Boyle are dead on. This mandate was not implemented without an understanding of the turmoil it would cause. This is completely intentional and I am sure there is a specific plan laid out for managing
    this issue. My dad was in Illinois politics for years and growing up watching this game played turned me into quite the cynic. Cynicism aside I know this much; career pols like pres. Obama do not make errors in judgment this great and they do not do ANYTHING without a game plan. I’ve really spent the last 14 years trying not to pay attention to politics because what I saw of the Illinois (dems and GOP) churned my stomach. However, this HHS thing has demanded my attention. It sure isn’t going to make for fun family get togethers in the near future! Pray! For our country, her citizens, the church and all of
    our leader.

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  42. MichaelP71 says:

    Father, or anyone for that matter… Does it make sense to write your pastor or see him after mass and engage him on this? What I mean is say hey I have your back and will stand with you if you speak out on this. I want to say something like this, I have no official power, but I think it is important that they hear this from us. It is hitting the Bishops now and who knows it may hit priests and pewsitters soon after that. I also DO NOT think that this is going away after this, after this president. As constant sentry needs to be made to protect religious freedom (queue patriotic music) What do you think? How should I phrase this? Michael

  43. cthemfly25 says:

    A few of the posts rightly point out that the Bishops have not been served well by the domestic policy people at the USCCB. Much can and should be said about the “legislative” activity of that group which proceeds apace without much accountability or apparent oversight. For many years this group advocates more and bigger government intrusion but let’s save that discussion for another time.

    The problems with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care (doing Orwell proud) Act were there to be read and analyzed from day 1. The Bishops are late to the fight, but thanking God, they are now here. However, the regime is playing 3D chess, and the Bishops are not even playing a board game yet—-more like tic tac toe. Here are two major concerns for all Catholics.

    First, the issue and the language being used by us to define the issue falls short. The Bishops, again in kind criticism to men who are rightfully most concerned with our souls, have engaged the issue only at the point in time when the specific regulation attacking Catholic institutions was released. This same hideous, draconian, evil regulation (together with many more) goes into effect on August of 2012 for all employers including Catholic businesses. This law from its inception and before (recall the first thing Obama did when he came to power—-fund abortion in Mexico) was intended to elevate abortion to the high altar of the religion known as radical secularism. It is unsettling to note that abortion is the gateway issue to seizing power, to depriving freedom, to subjugating first a culture then a society for one cannot logically stand for abortion and also claim to understand the concepts of liberty, subsidiarity and solidarity. We are becoming desensitized to human dignity and to the human person, and this Act has the precursor enabling statutory provisions for euthanasia, rationing, and total control of the once cherished doctor patient relationship—all of which will be coming to you soon with more HHS regulations. Details are available through any number of sources. So, we have yet engaged the deeper meaning of what is taking place, and are merely reacting to this particular regulation invasive of our Catholic insitituions and our natural righ and God given gift of freedom and free will. The issue must be restated from the “contraception mandate” to something more descriptive and I leave that to the very obvious wisdom of Father Z’s readers.

    Second, and as I said this regime is playing at a different level, but the total failure of the so called policy people at the USCCB failed to inform the Bishops or us of the design of this legislation. Within its structure are several “nudges” (the start of a title of one of Obama’s czars) of “incentives” and penalties, now called “taxes” for the sake of attempting to maintain the constitutionality of this monstrosity. Three federal departments will be involved in implementation and enforcement, HHS, DOL and IRS. The penalties are particularly harsh toward employers with more than 50 employees, such as Catholic Institutions. Again, there are many sources for details on how this works, but the IRS will impose “taxes” for non-compliance on employers—it’s not just about the individual mandate. Those “taxes” are used to subsidize the “incentives” for participating in the insurance programs and the various insurance exchanges and mandated “benefits” such as preventive care, aka abortion. My point is that civil disobedience means nothing. The IRS can seize assets without much due process. Civil disobedience, as I understand it, is almost an impossibility.

    To be optimistic, the Bishops are being given a moment in time to advance Truth in its fullest splendor. State the issue properly and profoundly, preach the Word, organize our resources and take off the gloves. Summon the Faithful to prayer and protest. Pray for our Shepherds, and pray for the wisdom and resources to fight this battle on our terms, and most of all pray to Our Lady of Victory.

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