Christians in the West can no longer take their once-comfortable cultural hegemony for granted and ought to prepare for sacrifice–maybe even persecution–Fr. George W. Rutler writes in Crisis. Surveying the scene twelve years into the new millennium, he says St. Paul’s basic, clear vision of what the Christian life really entails merits new attention:
Shortly before he died in Oxford in 1988, the Jesuit retreat master and raconteur, Bernard Bassett, in good spirits after a double leg amputation, told me that the great lights of his theological formation had been Ignatius Loyola and John Henry Newman, but if he “had to do it all over,” he’d only read Paul. “Everything is there.” There is a temptation to think that God gave us the Apostle to the Gentiles in order to have second readings at Sunday Mass, usually unrelated to the first reading and the Gospel. But everything truly is there. [...]
There is in Paul a model for Catholics at the start of the Third Millennium which began with fireworks and Ferris wheels but is now entering a sinister stage. Like Paul, it is not possible to be a Christian without living for Christ by suffering for him, nor is it possible to be a Christian without willing to die for him when he wants. The Christian veneer of American culture has cracked and underneath is the inverse of the blithe Christianity that took shape in the various enthusiasms of the nineteenth century and ended when voters were under the impression that they finally had a Catholic president.
Read the rest of Fr. Rutler’s provocative piece here.
July 16th, 2012 | 1:48 pm
One can only hope a sufficient number of U.S. bishops have as firm a grasp of the the urgency of the current situation as does Fr. Rutler.
July 16th, 2012 | 3:36 pm
With all due respect to Fr. Rutler, much of what he writes doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.
This assumes that either Christians will rise up and vote out Obama on the grounds that he is infringing on religious liberty, or Obama will win (and of course continue his nefarious anti-religious campaign). I wish I were so confident in an Obama victory! And it assumes that if Obama wins, those with views as allegedly anti-religious as Obama will win in 2016, 2020, 2024, and so on in perpetuity. It’s going to be a close election. Obama may very well lose on the basis of the economy (not religious liberty), and there is nothing at all to prevent a Republican victory in 2016. In fact, if Obama win’s, it’s a good bet a Republican will win the presidency in 2016.
Fr. Rutler also seems to assume that the Supreme Court that decided the Hosanna-Tabor case 9-0 against the Obama administration has no interest in religious liberty. Apparently the presence of six Catholics and three Jews on the court with a Catholic (Kennedy) generally regarded as the swing vote and a Catholic Chief Justice and conservative with probably twenty more years to serve doesn’t do anything at all to calm Fr. Rutler’s fears that the First Amendment will be a dead letter in the event of a second term for Obama.
As analysts have figured, an employer offering a health plan that does not comply with the preventive services package and other requirements under the federal health plan could be subject to a confiscatory penalty. The fine, imposed through a civil penalty or excise tax on a non-exempted religious employer could be as much as $100 a day for each employee insured under a plan at variance with federal law. The burden would amount then to $36,500 for each employee.
I do hope that some compromise on the “contraceptive mandate” more acceptable than the current one is found, but the above first of all describes what is theoretically possible in a worst-case scenario, and part of the worst-case scenario is a religious institution that is not exempt from the mandate defying the law by continuing to offer a plan that is not approved. First, it is difficult to imagine how a religious employer could do such a thing, since the burden is on the insurance company, not the employer, to arrange for contraceptive coverage. Exactly how a religious employer could find an insurance company willing to defy the law is difficult to imagine. It also assumes a religious organization would actually decide to defy the law by offering a noncompliant plan instead of merely dropping insurance coverage for its employees. Yes, it faces a $2000-per-employee fine (or, as John Roberts sees it, a tax) it it does not provide insurance coverage, but since providing insurance costs less than $2000 per employee, that (in an of itself) does not place a burden on the employer.
Add to that the approaching discrimination against Catholics seeking positions in commerce and public life. Catholics will not be suitable for public charities, medicine, education, journalism, or in the legal profession, especially judgeships and law enforcement.
How so? How is it possible to reach this conclusion? Even if the contraceptive mandate stands, how in the world will the above happen?
I just recently discovered Religion Clause Blog, which exhaustively tracks freedom of religion cases here in the United States (and sometimes abroad), and I simply don’t see a trend against freedom of religion in the United States. I certainly understand why the contraceptive mandate is seen as a threat in this one (not insignificant) respect, but Hosannah-Tabor (as I mentioned above) was seen as the last major case, and it was decided 9-0 against the administration. It seems to me that in the day-to-day cases one finds on Religion Clause Blog, there is no trend away from religious liberty.
As I have said a number of times, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and I perfectly understand the tendency and the right of people to cry bloody murder over any case that they see as a threat. But even if the contraceptive mandate is ultimately upheld by the courts, that is not the end of freedom of religion in the United States, nor is it the beginning of the end. Religious liberty is not absolute, and if the contraceptive mandate passes all the tests of constitutionality (which I doubt it will), I can understand why the Catholic Bishops might be very distressed. But it will mean it was given every consideration in our free and democratic society, and it passed the test.
July 16th, 2012 | 4:38 pm
“Religious liberty is not absolute, and if the contraceptive mandate passes all the tests of constitutionality (which I doubt it will), I can understand why the Catholic Bishops might be very distressed. But it will mean it was given every consideration in our free and democratic society, and it passed the test.
Just like Plessy vs. Ferguson established the constitutionality of “separate but equal”….and Roe vs. Wade was the final word on abortion.
Because we all know, whatever the Supreme Court says…well that is the ultimate test of consideration in a free and democratic society.
Sure, you betcha.
July 16th, 2012 | 4:55 pm
It is good to see this site back in action.
Although rightly condemning the mandate as a terrible infringement on religious liberty, I fear the author has confused this particular tribulation with THE tribulation. As to whether this election will permanently misshape the soul of America, I can only refer him to Isaiah 1:18.
July 16th, 2012 | 5:36 pm
Steve Billingsley,
It’s time to get over at least Plessy vs. Ferguson.
As I have been saying recently, back in the 1960s conservatives used to say, “America—love it or leave it!” and “My country, right or wrong!” Conservatives in the 1960s would have found a way to take Plessy vs. Ferguson in stride. But now conservatives who used to claim liberals wanted to “blame America first” compete with each other to say what a terrible country we live in. Fr. Rutler seems to believe everything good and decent can be lost in one election. Why don’t people have a little more faith in American democracy? If Americans want to go to a country where there’s more freedom and more religious liberty than in the United States, please tell me where that would be?
July 16th, 2012 | 5:56 pm
David Nickol First, it is difficult to imagine how a religious employer could do such a thing, since the burden is on the insurance company, not the employer, to arrange for contraceptive coverage. Exactly how a religious employer could find an insurance company willing to defy the law is difficult to imagine.
Many “religious” employers (EWTN, Belmont Abbey College, etc.) are self-insured. They don’t have to “find” such an insurance company; they are directly affected, because the administration doesn’t consider them “religious”. Self-insurance is how many such institutions have avoided similar mandates in some state legislation, but the administration wouldn’t stand for that, and is playing legal games to delay the inevitable reckoning.
You really didn’t know this?
July 16th, 2012 | 9:03 pm
WD wrote:
An excerpt from Jack Willke’s Abortion and Slavery – History Repeats, published a quarter century ago, seems worth considering again:
This is the spirit in which they now want to force the Catholic Church to give the killing its “blessing,” via the HHS mandate, by forcing it to directly involving itself in the distribution and provision of abortifacients. This is the abortion rights movement’s version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which imposed penalties on those who considered slavery an intrinsic evil if they refused to directly involve themselves in imposing it upon innocent human beings in terms of assisting in the capture and return of runaway slaves.
History does indeed repeat. We know where the blatant violation of the human rights of a segment of the human family and the amazingly hardhearted, asinine attempt to force others to “approve” of it and become involved in it eventually led once before. We know the terrible price America had to pay to bring cruel inhumanity to an end when simple justice and respect for other human beings became incomprehensible to those in whom evil had hardened.
WD, I hope you are right about Isaiah 1:18 being applicable here. Some may have drawn consolation from it in 1850 in terms of the national sin of slavery being “like scarlet” and as “red as crimson.” And I suppose America was made “as white as snow” in the sense that slavery went from being the status quo to being unthinkable in a few short years. But there was quite a chastisement between our “red as crimson” state and our “white as snow” state.
History does indeed repeat itself and I think Fr. Rutler’s seeing dire consequences in the near future for America and for Catholic Americans in particular is realistic.
July 16th, 2012 | 9:11 pm
Oops. “by forcing it to directly involving itself” should have been, of course, “by forcing it to directly involve itself”
July 16th, 2012 | 10:09 pm
After the election of 2000, conservatives are discovering concerns about free elections?
After inventing ways to deter voters with voter ID laws, inventing a problem that doesn’t exist, conservatives are fearing for “free elections?”
Have you no shame?
July 17th, 2012 | 12:28 am
Many “religious” employers (EWTN, Belmont Abbey College, etc.) are self-insured. They don’t have to “find” such an insurance company; they are directly affected, because the administration doesn’t consider them “religious”.
Jack Perry,
Here is an excerpt from the advance notice of proposed rule making from HHS on what we’re calling the “contraceptive mandate.”
Comments were submitted from March 21 through June 21. You can read all 62,573 comments here. When HHS has assessed all the comments, a final rule will be written. There are already court cases challenging the rules, which strike me as premature, since the rules aren’t written yet. But in any case, everything will certainly go through the courts.
When an organization is self-insured, it will typically still have a health insurance company involved as a “third party administrator.” Self-insured is something of a misnomer. Self-funded seems more accurate to me. Organizations that have self-funded health care plans, instead of buying insurance for their employees, simply use company money to pay all the claims submitted by their employees. Typically, though, they do not have a unit within the company that acts like a little insurance company, doing things like pre-approving medical procedures and paying claims. They outsource the whole operation to a third party administrator (an insurance company) who already has expertise in this area. Although the final rules have not been written by HHS, it looks like third-party administrators, or some other entities aside from the self-insured organizations themselves, will be responsible for providing (and bearing the cost of) contraceptive coverage.
You really didn’t know this?
I didn’t know the part about the Obama administration “playing legal games to delay the inevitable reckoning,” or rather, I don’t believe it to be true. Obviously there will come a time when the final rules are written and then implemented, but I don’t believe anyone knows the details of the final rules. And as I said, there are already court challenges. I have enough faith in the American democratic process that when the whole thing is worked out, although not everyone will be happy with it, there will not be something that is an egregious violation of religious liberties, there will be no sharp break from First Amendment rulings of the past, and there will not be bishops and priests in government-run reeducation camps.
July 17th, 2012 | 5:33 am
David Nickol
Why do you suppose there would even be elections in 2016?
We have already seen the US adopt the Patriot Act, its inspiration obviously being the Reichstagsbrand Ermaechtigungsgesetz enacted after the Reichstag Fire. If Christians oppose his legislation, why would the president not declare a state of emergency and obtain an Enabling Act, along the lines of the Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich, his opponents in the legislature having been taken into protective custody and the people cowed by a professional army of the lumpen proletariat?
July 17th, 2012 | 7:24 am
Is David Nickol a joint creation of the First Things staff, invented to make sure the posts have long discussions? Because he seems to post on every essay, or at least all the ones I read, and to make long arguments that either miss the point or distort one of the premises.
Fr. Rutler is right. If we lose this one Americans will have already lost freedom of religion by establishing the precedent that will further take it away in the future. This is a blow, perhaps a fatal one, to our country as it was conceived. He is also right about Catholicism, and if people can’t see that it’s because they are not looking at the implications of what is already happening right now for the future — just as Humanae Vitae spelled out what would happen if the sexual mores of the time continued. Everyone thought that was nuts, too.
Does that mean it could never change? No. No one can predict everything. if we have more terrorist attacks, if we get in an actual war instead of these weird half-wars we’ve been fighting, if Europe is overtaken by Islam, if we have a major epidemic — who knows how any of that would change things? But looking solely at our domestic situation under the conditions we have now, it does not look good for freedom of religion.
July 17th, 2012 | 10:32 am
We have already seen the US adopt the Patriot Act, its inspiration obviously being the Reichstagsbrand Ermaechtigungsgesetz enacted after the Reichstag Fire.
Michael PS,
I doubt that even the most fierce opponents of either Obama or Bush would consider the Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to have been inspired by the legislation granting emergency powers to the German government in response to the Reichstag fire! It would be ironic indeed if a Republican president would have welcomed legislation that laid the groundwork for his Democratic successor to become dictator.
If Christians oppose his legislation, why would the president not declare a state of emergency . . .
Aside from the fact that it is extraordinarily farfetched, there is majority support, even among Catholics, for the contraceptive mandate.
July 17th, 2012 | 10:56 am
What if certain strident atheists who predict an American theocracy are just as wrong as others who predict an ‘atheocracy’?
July 17th, 2012 | 10:57 am
David Nickol Here is an excerpt from the advance notice of proposed rule making from HHS on what we’re calling the “contraceptive mandate.” …[snip]
What you wrote merely confirms that what I wrote; the administration is playing legal games to avoid the inevitable reckoning. They realize this has little chance of standing up even in a Roberts court (9-0 Hosanna Tabor, anyone?), and are stirring up the electoral base for the upcoming election. Hence their haste to characterize opposition to the rule as a “war on women”. The defenders of both this poorly written law and this noxious regulation do themselves no service by hemming and hawing that rules still have not been finalized, when the rules yet to be finalized are nothing more than attempts to find new procedures to hide how offensive their actions really are — word games like, say, requiring insurers who provide insurance to provide free contraception, rather than religious employers to buy insurance that provides free contraception. The notice you copy above is nothing more than that sort of word game.
To wit, it refers repeatedly to “final regulations” that have already been made, e.g., On February 10, 2012, when the final regulations concerning the
exemption were posted…, or the Departments announced plans to expeditiously
develop and propose changes to the final regulations. [emphasis added] Take note of the following example: If the [Catholic] school’s employees receive health coverage through a plan established or maintained by the school, and the school meets the definition of a religious employer in the final regulations, then the religious employer exemption applies. [emphasis added] It has been pointed out repeatedly that the administration’s “narrow” definition would actually exclude such schools, as well as Catholic hospitals, charities, and other organizations. This is the very reason the Catholic bishops are in an uproar over it. (Remember the administration’s novel argument in Hosanna Tabor, that they could decide who is a religious minister, not the religious organization.)
You complain that lawsuits are popping up even though the rules haven’t been written yet, but that’s not true — the rules have been written, and the administration is trying to write more rules in order to avoid defending the rules it has written. Asking for comment on this is ridiculous; it’s not as if there wasn’t an abundance of comment provided on this very subject for the original proposal, which is now a finalized rule.
Others Please remember the law of charity, and don’t insult David Nickol. It’s bad enough that the secular comment boards are filled with invective; we shouldn’t let that poison come here, as well. The devil works in more ways than one.
July 17th, 2012 | 11:08 am
David Nickol I doubt that even the most fierce opponents of either Obama or Bush would consider the Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to have been inspired by the legislation granting emergency powers to the German government in response to the Reichstag fire!
Are you serious? Maybe I’m just unlucky enough to have spent every year since 1999 in academia. While it’s not the Reichstag, this faux bumper sticker illustrates how credible the charge is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyoverliving/424541463/
July 17th, 2012 | 11:18 am
David, I must respectfully disagree. I recall rather a lot of agitation against the Patriot Act when it was being pushed through Congress, and afterward, that took exactly that line. Indeed, it’s not hard to find people making that comparison today: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=patriot+act+Reichstag
And, in fact, during the Bush presidency, there was a phrase going around, warning “If George can take your 4th amendment to fight terrorists, Hillary can take your 2nd.”
That said, I find the odds of elections being canceled in 2016 to be… um… er… farfetched too.
July 17th, 2012 | 12:11 pm
“It’s time to get over at least Plessy vs. Ferguson.”
Really, you don’t think the fruit of that is still with us?
I am not an alarmist about the HHS mandate – but bad decisions, even if the process eventually undoes some of the effects of that decision, still have consequences. Particularly if (like Plessy vs. Ferguson) decisions stand for half a century or more.
I think the HHS mandate will be overturned by the Supreme Court (if not undone by electoral means in November) – but if it were allowed to stand for a significant period of time then it would have real consequences shrugging one’s shoulders and saying “well at least the process got to play out” wouldn’t be much of a consolation. Injustice is injustice – regardless of whether it is done with due process or not.
July 17th, 2012 | 12:21 pm
Jack Perry and Ray Ingles,
I stand corrected on people not equating the legislation in response to the Reichstag fire with the Patriot Act as a response to 9/11. However, I certainly don’t believe the Patriot Act really was inspired by the German legislation. I don’t think anybody, in the aftermath of 9/11, said, “We must take a lesson from the German reaction to the Reichstag fire and do something similar!” It was the opponents of the Patriot Act who made the comparison, not the proponents.
July 17th, 2012 | 12:26 pm
Hello, Forum Moderator, If this is way too long I won’t mind at all if you decide not to include it in the discussion.
Whether or not Fr. Rutler is correct in all the details, common sense indicates that the current situation is gravely serious and that dire consequences of some kind or another are inevitable.
It is people of faith vs. radical, atheistic secularism. That there are irreconcilable differences between them is revealed by the ever increasing polarization of Americans. It is reasonable to assume that unceasing polarization must eventually culminate in a crisis the magnitude of which will make a single government for both sides an impossibility. This situation will, I think, ultimately give way to a resolution that involves one side forcibly subjecting the other to its own core principles. It is either that or one side will eventually willingly cast off its core beliefs and embrace those of the other.
Consider the thought of Abraham Lincoln concerning a nation divided over irreconcilable differences regarding fundamental principles:
America’s current irreconcilable differences are essentially of the same kind as those of which Lincoln spoke: core beliefs regarding the essential dignity and worth of any and every human being and the very nature and purpose of human government.
If each and every human being possesses an inestimable and intrinsic dignity and worth the protection of which necessitates humanity’s bringing the state into being, then the very nature and purpose of government is such that it cannot authorize the violation of the dignity of one segment of humanity by another, but instead must ensure that each and every human being is able to freely exercise the inherent, natural rights consistent with and demanded by the very nature of their humanity. In this conception of government Caesar becomes primarily the servant and protector of humanity, rather than primarily a ruler over it who sees himself as managing a human herd such that his own agenda is served instead of the common good of humanity.
Slavery being “legal” (although it is intrinsically illegal according to the conception of government briefly set forth above, a conception set forth much more eloquently in our Declaration of Independence) was the source of unceasing polarization due to irreconcilable differences regarding fundamental principles. A single government for both sides became an impossibility. Ultimately the victorious side forcibly subjected the other to its own core principles, and eventually that side willingly cast off its core beliefs and embraced those of the other. Nobody openly advocates the reestablishment of slavery in America today.
In the 19th century America corrected its unfaithfulness to the principles set forth in its Declaration of Independence; slavery was ended and the states explicitly and officially acknowledged the intrinsic illegality of taking the life of the the child in the womb. The momentum was towards faithfulness to our founding principles. This seemed to be the right course as America became the most free, prosperous, powerful and successful nation on Earth.
In the mid 20th century things changed. America slowly, and imperceptibly to many, reversed course. Eventually Caesar, contrary to the very nature and purpose of his legitimate authority, illegitimately pretended he actually had the authority to “legalize” the killing of the child in the womb. Slavery was brought back but outsourced to China, as those wanting access to the dirt cheap labor that can only be obtained with the violation of the human dignity of the work force, were ashamed to openly advocate its reestablishment here. Normalizing trade with a tyrannical government that had a billion people under its thumb would work just as well. A tyranny so egomaniacal and ruthless, so filled with arrogant and delusional confidence that it alone knows what’s best for the “herd” it manages that it hunts down and forcibly aborts women in the third trimester of pregnancy – a government as perverse as that, even though it is no more trustworthy than a rattle snake, CAN be trusted to brutally extract the highest productivity from the work force at the lowest possible prices. The Chinese tyranny epitomizes the opposite of the conception of government mentioned previously; Caesar in China sees himself primarily as the manager of a human herd he uses in order to implement his own self-serving agenda instead of serving the common good of humanity. Such is China’s ruling class.
The confidence of America’s ruling class is becoming just as arrogant and delusional as theirs; our ruling class shares with China’s the profits from their cruel exploitation of the Chinese people at the expense of American jobs and the standard of living of ordinary Americans. If it is outrageous to forcibly abort women in the third trimester, it is also outrageous to arrange abortions for minors without their parents’ knowledge or consent, even though the parents consider that nothing less than the brutal exploitation of their desperate and frightened child and the murder of their grandchild. And when those abortions are botched, taking the life of their daughter as well, as sometimes happens, the parents experience directly the practical results of the arrogant and delusional confidence of America’s ruling class, self appointed social engineers convinced that they alone know what’s best for their “herd.”
The current ever increasing polarization is to be expected as our original government, which was founded upon theism and natural law, has slowly but successfully been overthrown and replaced with one founded upon a radical, atheistic secularism, creating irreconcilable differences over fundamental principles.
The rejection of theism and natural law pulled the foundation out from under American jurisprudence and left it with no foundation at all other than the raw power of the state. Rejecting the notion that biological humanity alone merited one the protection of law, it uses “legal personhood” as the basis for that, a personhood which the atheistic, secular state very conveniently has the authority to bestow and withdraw as it sees fit. Corporations get it (to which I do not object), but the child in the womb does not, as biological humanity is no longer a particularly significant factor in determining who or what is a legal person. It is now an entirely subjective determination, which enables them to withdraw the protection of law from vast segments of the human family according to their own or popular bigotry. (Retired seniors, the disabled, anybody who is seen as a burden living off of entitlements, beware!)
Such a government cannot guarantee minority rights. Naturalism, as a school of jurisprudence, maintains that the law must reflect eternal principles of justice and morality — the laws of nature and nature’s God — that exist independently of the state. Our government once acknowledged these eternal principles, making it possible for representative democracy to avoid becoming totalitarian in that the majority cannot tyrannize the minority because a baseline of inalienable rights which cannot be violated is established by the law’s recognition of eternal principles of justice; this protects the rights of the minority. Under our new, atheistic government, which is hostile to theism and natural law, minority rights are only protected to the extent the government deems appropriate, as it recognizes no authority above its own. It refuses to acknowledge preexisting “eternal principles of justice” which restrict what it can do. Only whatever and whoever it deems a “legal person” has rights, and that, as we have seen, does not necessarily include all human beings.
By the way, Chief Justice Joseph Story used the phrase “eternal principles of justice” in his opinion in the famous Amistad case where the Supreme Court ruled that Blacks being transported from Africa contrary to international law, and who had successfully taken control of the slave trader’s ship which was eventually intercepted by the U.S. navy, must be set free. John Quincy Adams, in his defense of the Africans, repeatedly referred to the Declaration of Independence as our most authoritative legal document. The Supreme Court, the majority of which owned slaves, was forced to acknowledge that there was an authority above itself. The force of Adams’ argument required the Court to acknowledge for the moment, however insincerely (the infamous Dred Scott decision was still to come), its unfaithfulness to the principles set forth in the Declaration.
An intellectual defense of the intrinsic, inalienable rights of humanity cannot be constructed upon an atheistic foundation. The government the Founders created could carry out its purpose, founded upon theism at it was, and also tolerate atheism. It cannot do the reverse: fulfill the purpose for which it was created – to protect the inalienable rights of humanity – with atheism as its foundation. Why? If humanity is merely the product of a mindless, purposeless process which quite accidentally spewed us forth, then there is no such thing as inalienable rights; we are just animals with greater intellectual capacity than other animals; we have no more intrinsic, inalienable rights than does a cow. Cows get butchered by the millions. So do unborn human beings under America’s current, atheistic, radically secularized ruling class. In a government that has rejected theism and natural law there are no inviolable ethical principles limiting the actions of those in power as they “do what they know is best” to those who aren’t.
The situation is gravely serious as there exist irreconcilable differences over fundamental principles regarding the nature of humanity and the implications of that in terms of just what constitutes legitimate government. Ever increasing polarization continues and must reach a crisis state eventually, whether it be as soon as the 2012 elections or in another decade or two.
July 17th, 2012 | 12:51 pm
Whether Fr. Rutler is exactly right, I do think that he used a bit of hyperbole, he is at least partially right. The times they are a’changing. The arrow of change is difficult to chart. One example of this difficulty is on display in this whole contraception uproar. Who would have imagined a year ago that contraception would be a large part of our national conversation and yet here it is a politically laced part of ” the war against women”, the HHS fiat with its religious liberty component and the larger questions regarding the “ACA”. It would seem to me the question that needs asking is how and why did this come about and depending on the answer to those questions Fr. Rutlers fears become more realistic.
July 17th, 2012 | 1:56 pm
harry,
Setting aside the moral questions of slavery and contraception, it is a little difficult for me to figure out whether your position is more analogous to the North or the South leading up to the Civil War. Your position, as I take it, is that the federal government is dictating something it has no right to, consequently its authority is, or will soon be, illegitimate. That, it seems to me, is more analogous to the position of the Southern secessionists. And also I would note that we have had at least one very conservative contemporary (Rick Perry), flirt with the the idea of seceding from the union.
It was, after all, the North that did not let the South have the freedom that they demanded. It even waged war against them and conquered them (rather brutally, I might add).
July 17th, 2012 | 2:25 pm
Injustice is injustice – regardless of whether it is done with due process or not.
Steve Billingsley,
At least part of the arguments going on here seem to hinge on how much values, and has faith in, American democracy. What should be our attitude when the Supreme Court, in our opinion, is wrong in a major decision, particularly when the decision is 5-4, as so many of them seem to be nowadays?
It seems to me you can (1) grumble and accept the decision, (2) consider it wrongly decided and work to undo it, or (3) threaten defiance and even violent resistance. Alarmingly, we have had occasional hints of 3 in these discussions. Stable government depends on going the route of 1 or 2.
Bringing up past cases like Plessy vs. Ferguson or the Dred Scott decision can be done, it seems to me, by people who take positions 2 or 3. Both those decisions were, ultimately, negated, and one can take the attitude (2) that although it make take a long time, eventually American democracy works its way to the correct conclusion. Two cheers for American democracy. It’s better than any alternatives one can come up with. Or one can take the attitude (3) that the court has proven itself to be downright wrong in the past, and if it is downright wrong in the future (say, by upholding the contraceptive mandate), it should simply be defied. Why go along with a court decision that’s just plain wrong? What is the value of due process if it arrives at the wrong position?
I find position 3 very disturbing, because I still believe in American democracy. One of the problems with the campaign against the contraceptive mandate, it seems to me, is that the American bishops have spent a great deal of effort and energy trying to convince the public that the contraceptive mandate is not just wrong, but a clear violation of the First Amendment. What will the bishops do if the contraceptive mandate is upheld by the courts. I am guessing it won’t be, but there is a good chance that it will be. The bishops will be in position 2 if not 3, as are many people now who argued that ACA (and in particular the individual mandate) were clearly and self-evidently unconstitutional.
Although it has no bearing on who is right and who is wrong about the contraceptive mandate, if it does somehow happen that the bishops go to the barricades over the issue, the fact of the matter is that not only don’t most Catholics oppose the contraceptive mandate, most Catholics don’t agree with the bishops on contraception itself. For those who believe (bizarrely) that this is all a plot by Obama to drive a wedge between the bishops and their flocks, it seems to me they should be concerned the bishops are playing right into Obama’s hands. How many Catholics are going to enlist as soldiers for the Church in a civil war against contraception?
July 17th, 2012 | 3:37 pm
harry –
A recurring theme of yours that I’ve disputed before.
July 17th, 2012 | 4:06 pm
“This situation will, I think, ultimately give way to a resolution that involves one side forcibly subjecting the other to its own core principles.
A call to arms, Harry?
“Why do you suppose there would even be elections in 2016?”
Same question to you, Michael.
July 17th, 2012 | 4:29 pm
Hello, joe mcFaul,
It is you that bring up a call to arms, not me.
I am just proposing that the inevitable consequence, whatever it may be, of Caesar playing God in America, will have to end in either people of faith or atheists prevailing. Admitting there are irreconcilable differences regarding fundamental principles and that that situation cannot last, is nothing new. See Lincoln’s remark cited in my post.
I suspect people of faith will ultimately prevail, as mere mortals playing God and treating humanity like it is their private herd of animals to manage just doesn’t work here. Americans may put up with that for a while, but it can’t last indefinitely. It goes against the core principles of most Americans.
July 17th, 2012 | 5:03 pm
Harry, I treat your coy answer as “Yes.”
That said, it is very difficult to play the martyr when nobody’s trying to kill you.
Unlike here: http://www.franks.house.gov/press_releases/506
For Harry and Mike and Fr. Rutler, here’s the “canary in the coal mine” test: Do religions pay property taxes on church buildings and do they pay income taxes on their collections?
As long as the answer is “No” then there’s no serous religous persecution in the United States. The 2016 elections will be held as scheduled.
July 17th, 2012 | 5:17 pm
Protest and the possibility of civil disobedience is what the bishops have chosen thus far. Civil disobedience can be very effective, but it does come with a cost (ask the civil rights marchers on the other end of Bull Conner’s dogs and fire hoses about that). If the mandate is upheld, you could see arrests/fines of bishops or leaders of Catholic institutions (and other religious groups). I take that pretty seriously even if it isn’t some mass armed uprising. Who would blink first if it came to that? I don’t know, but I don’t really want to find out.
July 17th, 2012 | 7:06 pm
Hello, joe mcFaul,
It is a fact that you brought up a call to arms, not me. If my pointing out that fact is “coy” according to you, that is beyond my control, as is your treating my answer as “yes” when that is not my answer, and as would be any hallucinations you may currently be experiencing.
As for churches paying taxes being a “canary in the coal mine” test for religious persecution taking place, you can decide whatever you want. Go for it.
July 17th, 2012 | 7:11 pm
Steve Billingsley,
It seems to me the only kind of civil disobedience open to Catholic bishops or other Catholics opposed to the contraceptive mandate is somehow defying the law itself. If there are any Catholic principles that could justify occupying buildings, blocking traffic, or taking over public parks, I am unaware of them.
As I have said a number of times before, it seems to me the time for digging their heels in and saying, “We will never comply,” was about a decade ago when states began enforcing mandates. The fact that many Catholic organizations (particularly in New York and California) have already complied and already offer insurance that covers contraception makes it difficult, in my opinion, to claim complying is utterly unthinkable. Cardinal Dolan himself has Catholic organizations in his archdiocese that cover contraception in the insurance they provide. Why doesn’t he insist they cease immediately?
July 17th, 2012 | 9:03 pm
“If the mandate is upheld, you could see arrests/fines of bishops or leaders of Catholic institutions (and other religious groups).”
No Bishops will be arrested. That’s where the laity comes in.
Here’s what happens when you violate the law on religious grounds:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0726-01.htm
http://www.soaw.org/soaw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3187&catid=92:press-releases&Itemid=79
I predict the laity will not show up in appreciable numbers. Talk is cheap. Prison time is hard.
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