What is wrong with you Catholics? Why are ya’ll willing, as Nancy Pelosi claims, to let women die because of “this conscience thing“?
Catholic health-care providers in particular have long said they’d have to go out of business without the conscience protections that Pelosi says amount to letting hospitals “say to a woman, ‘I’m sorry you could die’ if you don’t get an abortion.” Those who dispute that characterization “may not like the language,’’ she said, “but the truth is what I said. I’m a devout Catholic and I honor my faith and love it . . . but they have this conscience thing’’ that she insists put women at physical risk, although Catholic providers strongly disagree.
The Pelosi model of Catholicism: devout, faith-honoring, and conscience-free.
(Via: Hot Air)
November 22nd, 2011 | 10:44 am
Anyone who believes, promotes or practices abortion violates God’s commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” For Catholics to do these things is a grave sin. Pelosi? Catholic? I think not.
November 22nd, 2011 | 11:32 am
As noted recently in this blog, genuine adherence to religious faith is fading in the Democratic party. For many Democrats, their faith lies in a government that redistributes wealth in the service of egalitarianism, and, oddly enough, a faith in individual autonomy that views any restraint on ‘choice’ (excluding economic choices) as the very definition of tyranny.
November 22nd, 2011 | 12:49 pm
While the recent, controversial Note on financial reform from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace may not seem related to the disingenuous nature of Nancy Pelosi’s “Catholicism,” I think it is. Both are cases of misguided people using Catholicism to promote their own political agenda, whether they realize that is what they are doing or not. In both cases it appears that such people have put more thought into their agenda than they have into faithfulness to genuine Catholicism.
That this is the case with the authors of the PCJ & P ‘s Note on financial reform is the impression one gets from the thoughts of veteran Vatican observer Sandro Magister on the negative Vatican reaction to the document which can be read here:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350080?eng=y
Here are some excerpts:
It seems the PCJ & P was using the authority and legitimacy of the Church to promote their personal views, not those of the Church. That Nancy Pelosi does the same with her “Catholicism” is so obvious that it isn’t worth explaining here.
There is a difference though. The Vatican publicly and vehemently reacted to this situation with regard to the PCJ & P. The American Bishops have not done so to the same extent with regard to Nancy Pelosi. And Nancy Pelosi’s views on abortion and same-sex marriage are in violent and direct opposition to core teachings of Catholicism – which can’t be said for the PCJ & P’s position on the need for a “‘public authority with universal competency’ over politics and the economy.”
Why the thundering silence on the part of many American Bishops on the views of “Catholic” advocates of abortion and same-sex marriage? That thundering silence reverberates even more due to their making no public objection to such politicians presenting themselves for reception of the Eucharist, signaling to the Catholic community that there is no problem with their views that really matters all that much. Well, it does matter. In early June of 2004, from Rome, then-cardinal Ratzinger sent to cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington and head of the “domestic policy” commission of the United States bishops’ conference, a note with precise instructions on this situation. Here is an excerpt:
Sandro Magister pointed out in 2008 regarding Ratzinger’s 2004 communication with McCarrick:
Well, it is now almost 2012. Given the number of “Catholic” politicians who are flaming advocates of abortion and same-sex marriage, shouldn’t we have read much more than we have about some of them being denied communion by now? (Kansas Archbishop Naumann’s dealing with then governor Kathleen Sebelius is one happy example, but that has been the exception, not the rule.) Could it be that we haven’t because, like the clergy of the PCJ & P, some of the American bishops are using the authority and legitimacy of the Church to promote their personal political views – not that they are for abortion or same-sex marriage, but are basically left-leaning otherwise? Raymond Arroyo, being interviewed by Laura Ingraham shortly after the 2008 elections and after his covering a Bishops’ meeting, stated that “The bishops I spoke to say that maybe half of their brother bishops if not more voted for Obama.” Is the thundering silence and inaction of some of the bishops being used much more effectively than the PCJ & P’s “authoritative” public document in furthering their political views? Whatever is legitimate about the agenda of the left doesn’t justify some of the bishops misusing the authority and legitimacy of the Church in this way.
November 22nd, 2011 | 12:56 pm
What is doubly strange about Pelosi’s comments is her appeal to her self-identity as if it makes any difference. For example, my being or not being a Muslim has no bearing on whether the law ought to coerce Muslim deli owners to give away ham sandwiches on Saturdays to non-Muslim patrons. It seems to me a violation of their conscience, even if I don’t share their theological beliefs. Nevertheless, I stand with them, and support their right to conscience. It adds nothing to that judgment to say that “I am a devout Muslim.” In fact, if I said that and then subsequently ridiculed and diminished their right to conscience, I would be the worst sort of fellow believer, someone willing to betray my brothers and sisters in order to procure praise from those who hate them.
Appeals to personal subjectivity on a matter of objective right is as much a category mistake as claiming that the number 3 is taller than the color blue.
November 22nd, 2011 | 6:22 pm
Dr. Beckwith,
“Appeals to personal subjectivity on a matter of objective right is as much a category mistake as claiming that the number 3 is taller than the color blue.”
Well said.
November 22nd, 2011 | 7:26 pm
If she is such a devout Catholic herself, why does she refer to Catholics as “they”?
November 23rd, 2011 | 4:33 am
Lord Macaulay was right, when he observed “Man, in short, is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another… We know through what strange loopholes the human mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to avoid a disagreeable inference from an admitted proposition. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doctrines which he pronounced to be heretical…”
Perhps, the bishops are better judges of human nature than their critics allow.
November 23rd, 2011 | 7:36 am
No woman has to die unless she gets an abortion. Abortion refers to the act of deliberately killing a fetus that might otherwise live.
It might be true that a woman might die unless the fetus is removed from her body, but the woman’s chances of survival do not improve if you intentionally kill the fetus (as opposed to simply allowing it to live or die, as it will, or even actively trying to save its life).
November 23rd, 2011 | 7:52 am
“For example, my being or not being a Muslim has no bearing on whether the law ought to coerce Muslim deli owners to give away ham sandwiches on Saturdays to non-Muslim patrons”
There’s a rule in Islam that not even male doctors may view a naked woman, and often female patients will have to use dolls to point out where their afflictions are. The doctor won’t directly see the problem. This of course has great implications for the woman’s health, but what about the doctor’s conscience?
November 23rd, 2011 | 9:01 am
[...] much to the chagrin of Congressional Democrats, who, as Joe Carter has noted in another post, are probably even less friendly to religious freedom than in the White House, that may be about [...]
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:39 am
“There’s a rule in Islam that not even male doctors may view a naked woman, and often female patients will have to use dolls to point out where their afflictions are. The doctor won’t directly see the problem. This of course has great implications for the woman’s health, but what about the doctor’s conscience?”
In the US, that will just have to mean that a Muslim doctor will have to go into an area where he doesn’t have to interact with female patients. But that’s not the same as having to perform a *specific procedure* just because someone wants it.
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:29 am
In the US, that will just have to mean that a Muslim doctor will have to go into an area where he doesn’t have to interact with female patients. But that’s not the same as having to perform a *specific procedure* just because someone wants it.
The first problem with the specific procedure is that it contradicts the vow that ethical medical providers take: “first, do no harm”.
The second problem is that it’s not a genuinely medical procedure. What is and is not “medical” is being redefined away from what “medicine” is, in a deliberate attempt to manipulate this very issue. Not everything that requires anatomical knowledge and/or carries risk is “medicine”. There is no healing involved in getting an abortion.
There is no reason why wanting to be a doctor or nurse for your career necessarily includes procedures that are not about healing – including not only abortion but birth control, breast implants, tattoos, and administering the death penalty.
“Medicine” can and will become anything and everything if we deprive medical practitioners of their right to decide what they will and will not participate in.
Incidentally the question of conscience is actually very easily decided fairly by recognizing that rights are not equal: some rights are more fundamental than others. I think everyone would agree that the right to life is more fundamental than any right to conscience; therefore nobody has a “right to conscience” that grants them the right to let another person die (example: a doctor who morally disapproves of gays, and so will not treat HIV patients. The right to treatment in this case is more fundamental than the right to refuse treatment.) Other rights would require some discussion – but since it’s a discussion we would all benefit from, it would do us good to spend some time talking about/thinking about why one person’s right to an abortion is more compelling than another person’s right to a conscience (or why one person’s right to have a relationship or a child is more compelling than another person’s right to have a relationship with both parents, etc.)
Too often we determine which rights are more important than other rights according to the identity of the persons involved – it’s taken to ridiculous extremes in places that actually buy into identity politics, where people can say absolutely crazy things (black trumps female, so is it a civil rights violation if a white woman reports a rape if the rapist is black?).
But it’s a perversion of both justice and equality to do it that way; the only legitimate way to determine which rights are most important is to look at the rights, not the identity of the people involved in the dispute.
November 23rd, 2011 | 12:22 pm
This could be a deal breaker for the Muslim doctor. Since half the population is female, it is likely that his employer is going to demand he must treat women, which would involve seeing them at least partially nude. Why can’t the US make a law that gives him conscience protection? The law could force hospitals to not be allowed to fire him or reduce his salary if he refuses to treat female patients. In any event, fundamentalist Christians against birth control and abortion can’t be the only group that gets conscience protection — you must give it to every group.
And the fundamentalist Christian and the Muslim have merely religious objects. What about the employees who have very real, reasonable objections? For example, what about a prison warden who is asked to imprison a person for 8 years because he was caught with an illegal drug?
November 23rd, 2011 | 2:35 pm
“Since half the population is female, it is likely that his employer is going to demand he must treat women, which would involve seeing them at least partially nude.”
Doctors have traditionally been self-employed. Though it is becoming more common for them to be someone else’s employee, it is by no means uncommon for doctors to be independent. A doctor who does not wish to be compelled to *normally engage in the medical profession* by an employer, has to find a way to engage in a rather abnormal variant of that profession.
Again, there is a distinction between a doctor who has a belief that prevents him from giving reasonable service to a large number of people in very ordinary circumstances, and a doctor who is willing to engage fully in his profession to the benefit of any patient he might encounter, with the exception of one procedure that has historically been frowned upon by the majority of the profession anyway. In the former case, the doctor is being foolish if thinks he should be able to pursue his profession in any ordinary sort of way; in the latter, there is no good reason why a doctor should be compelled to perform every procedure that someone else wants, or thinks is desirable.
November 23rd, 2011 | 2:37 pm
“For example, what about a prison warden who is asked to imprison a person for 8 years because he was caught with an illegal drug?”
Imprisoning people regardless of your opinion of the justice of a particular law is inherent to the profession of prison warden.
Abortion is not inherent to the profession of physician. Historically, it has been considered outside the domain of responsible practice. Your parallels need to get a bit more parallel before they’re of any use.
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:15 pm
I suppose conscience only counts if you’re against birth control or abortion. If any body else has a conscience objection at their job, they can quit.
There has been another argument raised that by not having exemptions that allow a pharmacist to say, not have to distribute birth control, then many pharmacists will just quit their career and we won’t have enough pharmacists. I almost have to laugh at this, because I know “God” has a way of changing his mind when his degrees become too burdensome for his followers. I wonder how many people will just walk out of an $180,000 dollar career because of a religious objection. Furthermore, you remember the problems so many religious folks had about the full-body scanning machines at airports? What ever happened with that? They basically were told they can either get over it or drive to their destination. Guess which one virtually all of them choose?
November 25th, 2011 | 3:32 am
The secularism of state hospitals is not restricted, in the case of staff, to respect for their freedom of conscience: it essentially consists in excluding religion from state institutions and it therefore imposes a duty of restraint on staff in their behaviour, since they find themselves in a place pertaining to the public sphere. On the other hand, employees’ freedom of conscience, which is an internal freedom, in no way gives them “the right to express and manifest their religious beliefs” in state institutions, for that involves external acts which improperly introduce religion into the public domain of the hospital.
November 25th, 2011 | 8:52 am
I suppose conscience only counts if you’re against birth control or abortion. If any body else has a conscience objection at their job, they can quit.
The problem is that birth control and abortion are both non-medical procedures, so there’s a legitimacy crisis in trying to force medical professionals to do these procedures.
When your profession derives its legitimacy from the well-known oath “First, do no harm”, it becomes a question of whether the government has the right to force you to betray your profession as a precondition of practicing your profession.
November 25th, 2011 | 6:03 pm
[...] The Problem With Catholics is Their Conscience Thing (First Things) [...]
November 28th, 2011 | 9:21 am
“Whether the government has the right to force you to betray your profession as a precondition of practicing your profession.”
No, the question is whether religious belief should be excluded from intervention in, or impact on, the relations between private individuals and public authorities. Its character is purely negative.
December 5th, 2011 | 8:00 pm
Freedom of Religion is the Law in our great country.
Freedom of “Worship”, on the other hand, is not.
“On the other hand, employees’ freedom of conscience, which is an internal freedom, in no way gives them “the right to express and manifest their religious beliefs” in state institutions, for that involves external acts which improperly introduce religion into the public domain of the hospital.”
Our right to Religious Liberty is protected…it is not a thing to be confined, segregated, or socio-eugenically denied its constitutional right.
December 5th, 2011 | 8:15 pm
Moreover,
A “hospital” is not a “state” institution. (Although many may be supported by local governments, i.e. city/county, using the term “state” is disingenuous at best.)
Many are religiously funded (pun intended). An intrusion on its rights intrinsically violates multiple portions of the Bill of Rights.
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