I typically draw back and become more sceptical when I read a piece that has a tone of towering moral superiority and authority in which the writer gives no hint that there might be more than one side to an issue or that he might not have a hotline to Absolute Truth. This piece qualifies.

One feature that struck me was the identification of any Catholics who were willing to tolerate the revised health care mandate as "nominal" Catholics--imitations rather than the real thing. Of course, these traitors, such as the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious are just groups of nuns without the doctrinal authority of the bishops. But at the same time, Catholic affiliates such as hospitals and colleges are regarded as full-blooded, strictly Catholic organizations. Is it possible that there is some self-serving slight-of-hand in these definitions?

The other thing that struck me was the assumption that whoever the reigning ecclesial authorities are must be considered the true foundation and nexus for the faith, around whom all the faithful must rally. Certainly there is strength in clearly recognized authority, but I couldn't help thinking of the example of Jesus, who is, in fact, the true Foundation and Nexus of the Church--not the bishops. He got himself into all kinds of trouble by defiantly excoriating the established leaders of his religion. He taught that the true faithful would see through the self-serving hypocrisies of the priests and pharisees. Is it possible that the established religious leaders of today might be just as false...or at least fallible in their judgements?

Although I agree that the Obama "accommodation" (forcing insurance providers to pay the cost of employee contraceptive services if the otherwise responsible church institution objects) is a "false flag" as well as "a shell game and a ruse"and that we ought to make that argument in court, any such argument will turn on complicated and controvertible facts (primarily revolving around whether the costs nevertheless would be passed on to the church institution). Controvertible facts mean long complicated trials, appeals, etc. IOW, probably no summary judgment.

There is a simpler argument that ought to be pursued in tandem with the above reliance on a "Free Exercise violation" argument: an argument that the "accommodation" ipso facto violates the Establishment Clause and is therefore unconstitutional whether the church institution can be kept insulated from bearing the cost or not. Simply put, what the Establishment Clause means at a minimum is that private entities cannot be forced to contribute to the costs of a church or religious institution on account of the religious beliefs of the institution. That is the teaching of Everson (330 US at 15) and of the Virgbinia Act relied on in Everson.

The best part of making this supplemental argument is that it avoids the forensic messiness of being forced to prove that the church institution would in the end have the costs passed on to it or not. In court, one can make alternative arguments and so-called "assuming arguendo" points, as in:

"let us assume for the sake of argument (albeit contrary to fact) that the church institution could be insulated from any of the costs of the provision of the contraceptive services and that the insurance company would in fact bear the entire cost of those services instead of the church institution, the Obama mandate would still violate the First Amendment because private individuals cannot be forced to support churches financially."

In essence, were we to make this supplemental argument, the Obama Administration would be caught between the Scylla of a Free Exercise Violation and the Charybdis of an Establishment Clause violation.

Hmm. Seems like only yesterday I was noting how confused and self-contradictory the liberals were sounding on this really very straightforward issue.

I think we need to start making a distinction between liberal Catholics and Catholic liberals. Liberalism is a different church, a materialist faith that inverts the truth by ignoring it.

That's how governmental opposition to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is rationalized as a "women's health issue." Not to mention how the child in the womb is rationalized into being a kind of growth, matter that can be nurtured or excised depending on the decision of the omnipotent humans involved in "its" care.

@Rick
You write:
"The other thing that struck me was the assumption that whoever the reigning ecclesial authorities are must be considered the true foundation and nexus for the faith, around whom all the faithful must rally. Certainly there is strength in clearly recognized authority, but I couldn't help thinking of the example of Jesus, who is, in fact, the true Foundation and Nexus of the Church--not the bishops. He got himself into all kinds of trouble by defiantly excoriating the established leaders of his religion. He taught that the true faithful would see through the self-serving hypocrisies of the priests and pharisees. Is it possible that the established religious leaders of today might be just as false...or at least fallible in their judgements? "

This is not a position consistent with the ecclesiology of the orthodox catholic faith received from the apostles. Right from the start, the Church ruled on issues of Faith and morals through the conciliar authority of its apostles (the predecessors of the bishops), and under the leadership of Peter as Acts 15 demonstrates. And that authority was passed on through apostolic succession, as the appointment of bishops by the apostles shows. Paul speaks eloquently of the passing on of teaching authority through the imposition of hands and the need to guard the deposit of faith and for the bishopto pass it on to successors in 2 Timothy 1:6, 13-14, 2:2. That is what the real Bible teaches.

The Christians of the Ancient Period recognized that need for apostolic succession to ensure faithfulness to the Magisterium (which of course anteceded the writing of the New Testament). That is why Eusebius spent so much time in his Ecclesiastical History setting forth the successions of the major sees of the church. That is also why Bishop (or if you wish Overseer) Irenaeus spent time explaining the need above all to stay in communion with the Church Catholic and in particular with the successor of Peter in the Church of Rome. See Adversus Haereses 3:3:2.

This is the Real Catholic Faith which means that in matters of faith and morals, nuns (inter alias) need to take the direction of their bishops, even if that means their businesses might have certain issues with an oppressive government which is trying to get them to act in unCatholic ways.

Throughout the debate over the HHS debate one underreported piece of information is that the Catholic institutions that are most affected by the mandate are increasingly dependent on a non-catholic, or, at the very least, non-clergy employment base to carry out their mission. Surely, many, if not a majority of employees at the various schools, hospitals and other institutions affected by the mandate are Catholic -- although we have seen as this debate unfolds that the definition of "Catholic" varies widely.

The problem for these Catholic institutions is that as they become more dependent on secular support to survive -- whether it is because of their employees or their dependency on government payments through Medicare and Medicaid and other public programs -- the struggle to be free of any taint of practices that go against traditional Catholic teaching is going to be more difficult.

Patrick:

You and the author seem to assert that the bishops are given great authority by the Church, and that we must therefore follow them exactly. But even if the bishops are given a certain authority? God and the church, did not guarantee that they will be infallible. Either day to day, or even in the interpretation and administration of doctrine.

It is often said for example, that the apostle St. Peter - from which apostolic succession is said to have derived - at least once, turned on Jesus and told Jesus that Jesus was wrong. Jesus told Peter that Jesus must be, crucified and killed; and Peter quickly tells Jesus that Jesus was wrong; this "will never happen." So that? The first Pope here differs with Jesus himself, on the matter of the necessity of the crucifixion (Mat. 16). While even after having received the Holy Spirit, St. Peter/ "Cephas" makes another mistake according to Paul; and is chastized by Paul for being a "hypocrite."

So what really is the final position of the Church? On the authority of various functionaries, like bishops and so forth? The Church, the catechism, acknowledges the authority of the Bible; and of such incidents as Mat. 16. So, following those, what did the Church ultimately say about its own authority?

Partially acknowledging problems therefore even with the highest apostles and their associates - including Popes and even bishops - finally the Church itself began to admit that after all, perhaps even its very highest authorities were often wrong. The Church itself finally extending "infalliblity", only to the Pope himself. And then, to the Pope himself, only when speaking officially, from the throne.

So if even if nearly all our diocesan bishops tell us this, or that? Still the bishops can be simply, wrong.

Or indeed, if you insist we follow "the" bishops? Then what if all the c. 187 or so "diocesan" bishops agree here? What about the other 200 American bishops? The higher-ranking bishops who apparently, do no all agree?

Who are "the" bishops we should follow here? Should we following our local bishop? Or his boss? Or?

George Weigel complimenting liberal Catholics for their 1950's stance on religious freedom. What a breakthrough! But remember that the liberal stance on religious freedom (not to mention freedoms of the press, speech, and conscience) was in direct opposition to the official doctrine proposed throughout the 19th Century and held tenaciously by the conservatives at the Council. Many of us feel we are in the same position today. The Church consistently lags social democracy in its social teaching by approximately seven or eight decades. The fact that it gets there at all is due to the efforts of good liberal Catholics. We are confident that doctrines on contraception and homosexuality will give way to common sense sooner or later. Our intention is to minimise the damage to the Church in the meantime. Thank for the encouragement George.

I'm in essential agreement with commenter Rick. Mr. Weigel often tries mightily to frame arguments in the starkest terms possible, as if the desired outcome is schism rather than cooperation, understanding, and reconciliation.

After all, it's not as though there is a unifed body of thought among the bishops and cardinals, either! Witness the contrary opinion of this giant of 20th Century American Catholic thought:

“I as a Catholic have absolutely no right in my thinking to foist through legislation or through other means, my doctrine of my church upon others. It is important to note that Catholics do not need the support of the civil law to be faithful to their religious convictions,” - Boston’s late Richard Cardinal Cushing, 1965, the man who married John F Kennedy.

This seems self evident to me: one can be a liberal Catholic but one can't - inspite of one's self-perception, be a pro-choice Catholic or a Catholic who doesn't believe in an after-life or in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

There many things to be liberal about in the RCC but not everything.

What I'll never understand is why a person would rather criticize the RCC than respectfully excuse themselves and join a Church that they agree with and believe in? I would leave the RCC in a heartbeat if I honestly after much soul searching really believed it is wrong about which pairing can bring forth new human beings and therefore deserves recognition for the common good.

Why aren't others as honest with themselves as they insist the Church be with itself?

@Paul
Re "The problem for these Catholic institutions is that as they become more dependent on secular support to survive"

True, it is a problem they face. However, the more important moral question is why?

The President of Harvard, back in the early 1980s, wrote a widely carried opinion piece on the dangers to an institution's independence by taking public funds; in that case the nexus of cultural and educational independence.

The issue for the Catholic Church in America now shares these problems, but the reason it does, and the foundations of the reasons underlying the sexual scandal are the same. Specifically, abuse of what Vatican II really intended. The mere fact that "intended" enters the conversation is evidence of the "success" and character of the Council's documents, as well as the professional laity involved in the Council.

ALL of these issues can be tied to two critical manifestations of the fundamental error. 1st, what I call the "turning around of the priests". 2nd, the turning from a Sacramental focus to a Social Justice focus by the religious. Both are intrinsically tied, and both are turns to the whisper of Satan. They are the embers from which the Smoke of Satan rose forth and now blinds and chokes the faithful and the Faith.

I also agree with Rick who framed his thoughts eloquently. In the end it is not about the doctrine that is advanced by the bishops so much as it is about the long-standing failure of the bishops to teach, educate, model and advance their doctrines through their work as shepherds of their flocks. And because of these failures, they now seek to enlist the government to do their work for them and frame the effort as "religious freedom." That catchphrase appeals to many Americans. But not everyone is Catholic as has been pointed out, and not all Catholics accept the lines in the sand drawn by many current bishops. It was not like that growing up in the fifties and sixties. The bishop I admired was Bernardin. Unfortunatly, his saintly example is nonexistent today.

"Others disperse." Those two words explain centuries of history. This mandate will not affect many catholic health care facilities, who have the "common sense" to give out contraception to most all who want them. Sheehan and her layers of Elbonian managers make a lot of money at the top, not doing any medicine, but talking and meeting and flying around with the money that doctors bring into medicine. They have ethicists, too, in the CHA. It's so fancy.
The poverty that has been placed on women because of the consequences of contraception is in every town in America. Males have abandoned women and their children, makeing a new class of "widows and orphans". The children will grow up will some withered familiarity with marriage, but their offspring will have less and less. Social pathology will increase more (my daughter cannot walk to school because there are several sex offenders on the route). Who doesn't know this? So the dispersal is happening, not just from the teachings of the Church, but dispersal from intact families, which leads to dispersal from societal obligations which leads to collapse. When things collapse around you, people usually disperse even more. But there will be this apostolic succession hanging around, they irritate people. They are trying to prevent, 50 years too late, more orphans and widows. Obama, Sheehan and her Ethicists still think exogenous hormones can save us.

Thank you George Weigel. From the comments I've read your postion has been justified.

"We are confident that doctrines on contraception and homosexuality will give way to common sense sooner or later. Our intention is to minimise the damage to the Church in the meantime."

Michael, your definition of "minimizing the damage to the Church" is ironic, given that contraception and homosexuality are demonstrably harmful to human beings.

Truth doesn't change. What's accepted as mere "common sense" in this country today is hardly sensible. Even if homosexuality becomes accepted as "normal" in this country, it will never be by the majority of people throughout the world--and the examples of ancient Greek and Samoa give clear evidence of that fact.

And while I condemn as evil all violence done to anyone because of mere sexual inclinations, I find it surprising that liberals don't see the fundamental conflict between their belief system and Islam. They still kill homosexuals in many Muslim countries. Islam is, according to some, the fastest growing religion in the world.

If liberalism becomes the ideology of the West, there will inevitably be a showdown between it and Islam, and Liberalism will lose, especially because so many liberals don't have the courage/fortitude to 1) have babies at greater than the replacement rate and 2) won't use force/war to defend the innocent.

While I am in general agreement with Weigel on this issue, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act he mentions does not help our case because it was struck down by the Court in City of Boernes v. Flores. To make matters worse, Scalia and Thomas voted with the majority.

re. Michael Black:
No argument is lazier and more fallacious than the "get with the times!" reproach that is always made against the Church. It is nonsense: is infanticide and getting rid of the old and infirm the latest thing? Stop being so square and get with the times! In fact, it is a veiled version of the "argumentum ad baculum" (appeal to force), since it basically bases truth or falsity of a position on who "wins" the game of history rather than on the inherent truth or falsity of the position itself. The irony is that Western secular societies are aborting and contracepting themselves out of existence, and yet we're told "get with the times!" The Church is too old to accept such puerile arguments and, indeed, is still around after 2,000 years when all its purported gravediggers have been buried precisely because it hasn't and never will.

When looking at possible models for a better Catholic Church, it is tempting to retreat back, into an imagined purity. And to turn one's back on suffering humanity. While indeed, any intermixing of the Church with "world" is frought with dangers of corruption and so forth. Particularly, there has been the constant danger of picking up political ideologies, the worst "traditions of men," too completely.

And yet however? Though Jesus was said to have left the "world" for an ideal Heaven, 2,000 years ago? And though generations of religious ascetics attempted to similarly remove themselves from the cares of the "flesh" and the "world," in various monasteries and hermitages? There was always an element of the Church, that knew. That knew that Jesus had come to this "world," after all, not to condemn it, but to save it. And to help the sick and the poor, often in very concrete ways.

And indeed? If for a very long time our Christianity has floated away from real involvement in this material sphere? There was always, all along, the Tradition, the prophesy. That after all, one day or another, God (and religion?) would return. To this physical existence, this world.

It is with this Tradition in mind in part, that the priest now turns to face the members of the Church; the physical body of Christ. And to begin, actually, a dialogue with the members of his body.

"The bishop I admired was Bernardin. Unfortunatly, his saintly example is nonexistent today."--Richard

And tell me, Richard, how many bishops do you personally know, that you can make such a broad claim?

Three of the four I've known were saintly men. Two are still alive. One (Bishop Ed Rice of St. Louis) was so widely acknowledged as a saintly man that there wasn't even standing room for all the people who attended his ordination in our Cathedral.

Jason: , "the Religious Freedom Restoration Act he mentions does not help our case because it was struck down by the Court in City of Boernes v. Flores"

No, it was only held to be inapplicable as to state laws through the 14th amdendment. It still has force as to federal law. Since this Heatlthcare law is federal, it is subject to RFRA.

@Corpus: What did Jesus mean when he said to Peter "What YOU bind on earth is bound in heaven, what YOU loose on earth is loosed in heaven"? Mt. 16:16 as well to his Apostles Mt. 18:16, The Church's magisterium has been given the gift of infallibility on matters of Faith and Morals which include sexual and reproductive morals. Like it or not. so if we follow the teaching of our Bishops that are in union with the Bishop of Rome, then we can be assured that we are following infallible truth. If we decide to make up our own truth then the consequences are grave, just look at the shape our society is in now. It is only going to get worse, Rom 1:24-32.

@Corpuschristi:
You write:
"You and the author seem to assert that the bishops are given great authority by the Church, and that we must therefore follow them exactly."

This is the non-sequitur upon which you begin a strawman argument in which you suppose that the bishops might even be infallible in my opinion. While the first premise is correct, infallibility surely doesn't follow. Yet, in the governance of the Catholic Church in the US, the ultimate authority (subject, of course, to Rome) on matters of faith and morals is the USCCB and not some nuns running a hospital group or the like.

And as for your highly selective reading of Scripture on the authority of Petyer, you omit the fact that after Peter had thrice denied Christ on the Night of the Passion, Jesus thrice told him to be the pastor of His flock. John 20:15 et seq.

And as for Paul criticizing Peter, remember that Paul took the dispute he had with James's judaizers (on which Peter had not commented while at Antioch) and it was resolved at the Council in Jerusalem. Even though Peter was on the lam from Herod's Prison (Acts 12:3-18), he returned to Jerusalem and presided over the Council and pronounced the circumcision ruling (Acts 15:7 et seq.) that Paul and James and then the whole Council accepted and incorporated into the first--what one could call--encyclical letter fo the Church (See Acts 16:3-5).

@Charles Lee:
You write:

"“I as a Catholic have absolutely no right in my thinking to foist through legislation or through other means, my doctrine of my church upon others. It is important to note that Catholics do not need the support of the civil law to be faithful to their religious convictions,” - Boston’s late Richard Cardinal Cushing, 1965, the man who married John F Kennedy. "

The Church, through the USCCB, objects to the Obama Mandate not because the Church wants the support of the State to foist some opinion on others, but because it does not want the State compelling it to do something in violation of its conscience. Quite a different thing from what Cardinal Cushing was addressing.

@Heraclitus:
You write:

"The Church is too old to accept such puerile arguments and, indeed, is still around after 2,000 years when all its purported gravediggers have been buried precisely because it hasn't and never will. "

Amen to that.

I love the Baths in the Musee de Cluny in Paris (down in the basement almost like a grave). They contain the original heads that the revolutionaries cut off the statues on the front of Notre Dame. You see, the revolutionaries didn't just get rid of the Christian Calendar and replacd it with a revolutionary one. Nor did they just they get rid of the Catholic Church and replace it with a Constitutional Church. they even went to the extreme of cutting off the heads of the saints and others on the front of Notre Dame so the statues could share the same fate that enemies of the Regime faced on the block of the Guillotine! And yet, ten years later (after the Revolution had even killed off Pius VI), Napoleon asked Pius VII to come to Paris to crown him in the same Notre Dame. Now, it is true that Napoleon later imprisoned Pius VII, but when Napoleon fell, Pius returned to Rome and was greeted all along the way by cheering crowds. And the Church went on through several more assaults in France (e.g., the Third Republic culminating in 1905) but always survived.

Then again, a similar thing happened after WWII, with the Communist takeover of Central Europe. The Church was suppressed throughout Eastern Europe with Cardinals being imprisoned (Stepinac, Mindzenty and Wyszynski), yet a pope arose from Cracow and the whole apparatus of Communism fell with the Berlin Wall.

In this country, we are starting to see another apparatchik, Barack Hussein Obama, try to force equally totalitarian stuff down the Church's throat but it too shall pass, hopefully by Early November. If not, we shall all need to stand together as Catholics and so, after some indeterminate time, I am confident that Obama's assault on the Church will end unsuccessfully.

I feel strongly that the US Government should not function as a subsidiary branch of the Curia. I have known many non-Catholic employees of Catholic institutions who practiced contraception (and for that matter, many Catholics too), and I do not feel that a Catholic employer is entitled to act as the "conscience" of its employees. Moreover, no one is obliged to use contraception just because it's covered by his insurance. I'll be interested to see what becomes of this issue if it reaches the Supreme Court.

We are drowning in rhetoric. The term 'pro-choice Catholic' is an oxymoron. The church is not a democracy and it has been in existence for millenia before the Democratic party. No one has a gun at their head and is being forced to stay in the church... but to pretend that the Bishops do not have the spiritual authority to make this call is ridiculous.

Markey: what does it mean indeed, when Jesus seems to appear to give Peter the power to "bind" things in "heaven"? Is Jesus giving Peter power even over Heaven, and God (in Heaven)? That seems unlikely, doesn't it? So that the powers of Peter must be in some way, more limited than this language might seem, to some, to imply.

In any case, whatever great powers it might seem Peter was given, they are immediately revoked in Mat. 16.23; where Peter finally makes errors so extreme, that Jesus himself calls Peter, "Satan."

Pat: Peter, from whom all alleged "infalliblity" and authority flows for some, himself fell, erred, over and over. So that? We never know when he - and/or his successors - are being reliable or not. Jesus ordered Peter to take care of his flock; but giving someone an order - especially repeatedly - is never a guarantee that they will obey it.

Indeed, St. Paul found Peter to be a "hypocrite" or "insincere." And? St. Peter - said by some to be the head of the Church of the time - amazingly, accepted Paul's criticism, as if hearing correction from a superior. And then some say, Peter reversed himself. At the behest of another, different apostle.

All that suggesting that Peter - from whom even bishops might be said to have derived their authority (by way of the Pope, and apostolic succession) - was not in fact, the head of the Church. Since he was in effect taking correction, by others. Like Paul.

Today and for some time, many bishops and Popes have ignored all this. Just as Pat does. And have continued to blandly insist that Peter was a great authority; and that the Popes and perhaps the USCCB, derive firm authority. In part from highly selected Biblical passages, like the "binding" passage. And yet however, we are beginning to show here and elsewher, that the passages cited by many, to enforce the bishops' authority, are themselves highly selected; and do not tell the larger story.

Which is? In part, the foundation of the Protestant Reformation. But also the foundation for determined Liberal Catholics. For those who believe firmly that they are following Jesus and the Bible - even as they note sins and errors, in our Popes and Bishops. Noting that "all have sinned." And that "no one is good but God."

No doubt, not every one of us, should presume to overrule bishops at the drop of a hat. And yet? Those of us who have grown up a bit, those of us who have learned to see the Church, warts and all? Might well correct even the HOLY USCCB.

Indeed, every Protestant in effect already does that. And they've done well enough. In spite of constant dire predictions of disaster, Protestantism has governed many of the most powerful nations of the earth; even founding the United States of America, for example. Though there were a few Catholic signitaries in our founding documents, the first 34 Presidents of the United States, were all Protestants.

So who or what really IS the authority in the Church? Or from God? Those of you who see sins in bishops - as in the recent molestation scandal - but who continue to follow the bishops all-too-slavishly? You have not read your Bibles closely enough; you have not really paid attention, to the hundreds, thousands of warnings about bad things, in every element of even Christian religion. And furthermore, the forwarned, awful encroachement of evil even within elements of alleged Christianity, was an encroachment which I assert, does not lie in our future; but that happened long, long ago. Indeed, what passes for Christian religion, was already corrupted, by the time of ... even St. Peter himself. As Peter attempted to give Peter great authority ... but then Peter immediately failed him, and us. (As Jesus himself noted in Mat. 16.23).

Peter and his successors having failed us time after time? Therefore, we must seek better means, of validating and checking and advancing our alleged holy authorities. And for that? I and others suggest the emerging critical Science of God.

On the one hand, it might seem rash to partially abandon very traditional authority. Yet? Jesus and the Bible warned constantly, even about the very highest authority, like Peter. And indeed, given all that, it is far more rash and irresponsible, to continue to follow bishops so totally; and thus to ignore constant biblical warnings about huge sins, even in the best of them.

And it is foolhardy too, to ignore recent experience with the bishops: to continue to follow the bishops so slavishly\ - even in light of the crystal-clear evidence of their complicity with sin, in the pederasy scandal; in its coverup.

Given huge problems with the Church in fact, name-calling applied to Obama, is ... hugely unselfaware, and un-Christian: "All have sinned"; "look at the beam in your own eye."

But by now, Conservative Christians, Catholics of course, have a hundred arguments, to avoid that self-critical moment.

That Jesus called for.

And so? The religious world particularly - as foretold - is "blind," and "deaf." "No one is as blind" as "his servant."

@Gail White:

"...I do not feel that a Catholic employer is entitled to act as the "conscience" of its employees." Surely the employer is allowed to do his own actions according to his conscience-in other words, not be an accessory to the sin of the employee, who is perfectly free to obtain contraception elsewhere. The Church can only advise the conscience of the employee, but it must obey its own.

Patrick Sarsfield, you are a passionate, compelling, convincing and articulate defender of the faith. Do you blog somewhere? If not you should. BTW, Cromwell and his goons did exactly the same thing to statues in Westminster Abbey during their reign of blood lust in England and Ireland. It is something to see, and a real reminder of the power of the state. I appreciate your optimism but fear it will get quite a lot worse before it gets better. Keep clinging to your guns and religion because they are coming for both and you will need both when they knock on our doors. They are relentless.

"The fact that it gets there at all is due to the efforts of good liberal Catholics. "

Maybe this writer forgot about the French revolution? Or the upheavals brought by those "good Catholics" who bought into liberation theology? Were there "good liberal Catholics" who thought the Communists had some answers? "Good liberal Catholics" do not always bring good. In spite of claims for the "right side of history", well, the future ain't what it used to be and never has been.

The Catholic Church will always need reform, that's a given. As Catholics we must trust in Jesus' promise that the gate of hell will not prevail.

@Gail White:
You write:

"I feel strongly that the US Government should not function as a subsidiary branch of the Curia. I have known many non-Catholic employees of Catholic institutions who practiced contraception (and for that matter, many Catholics too), and I do not feel that a Catholic employer is entitled to act as the "conscience" of its employees."

Sorry, but you have no idea what is going on. What a bizarre thought: far from "acting as a subsidiary of the Curia," Obama is acting more like a "Commissar of Religion."

Nor is a church institution trying to act as a conscience of its employees. To the ontrary, the employees retain the complete freedom to use any contraceptives they choose and even to contract for the slaughter of any pesky children they happen to bear (if their own consciences don't stop them from such an heinous act).

What the Church doesn't want to do is to have to be part of the contraceptive and abortifacient delivery systems. The Church finds that morally abhorrent, although employees are free to do whatever they want on their own.

You note that no one is required to use contraception because it's covered by insurance. Okay, but by the same token: no one in America is forbidden from using contraception just because it isn't covered by insurance. So the way to accommodate the two interests (Church conscience and employee freedom) is to permit a conscience exception to the contraceptive mandate. If the employee wants to use contraception, let him or her pay for it. Or if he/she wants the employer to pay for it, let them find an employer who will.

To Corpus Christi:
The human mind is so constituted that it colours with its own previous conceptions any new notion that presents itself for acceptance. Though truth be objective and of its nature one and unchangeable, personal conditions are largely relative, dependent on preconceptions, and changeable. The arguments, for example, which three hundred years ago convinced our fathers of the existence of witches and sent millions of them to the torture and the stake, make no impression on our more enlightened minds. The same may be said of the whole theological controversy of the sixteenth century. To the modern man it is a dark body, of whose existence he is aware, but whose contact he avoids. With the controversies have gone the coarse, unscrupulous methods of attack. The adversaries are now facing each other like parliamentarians of opposite parties, with a common desire of polite fairness, no longer like armed troopers only intent on killing, by fair means or foul. Exceptions there are still, but only at low depths in the literary strata. Whence this change of behaviour, notwithstanding the identity of positions? Because we are more reasonable, more civilized; because we have evolved from medieval darkness to modern comparative light. And whence this progress? Here Protestantism puts in its claim, that, by freeing the mind from Roman thraldom, it opened the way for religious and political liberty; for untrammelled evolution on the basis of self-reliance; for a higher standard of morality; for the advancement of science — in short for everygood thing that has come into the world since the Reformation. With the majority of non-Catholics, this notion has hardened into a prejudice which no reasoning can break up: the following discussion, therefore, shall not be a battle royal for final victory, but rather a peaceful review of facts and principles.

I agree with the comment Don made.

As things stand now, liberal Catholics are presented with a choice. The Bishops, without exception, have spoken with one, clear, confident voice. Caesar, likewise, has stated his position very clearly. On the fundamental religious and moral issue at hand, the two voices are not in agreement.

Given this stark new situation, to continue the old liberal Catholic practice of nuancing the meaning out of clear realities, would be ridiculous.

To Corpus Christi:
At first sight it seems that private judgment as a rule of faith would at once dissolve all creeds and confessions into individual opinions, thus making impossible any church life based upon a common faith. For quot capita tot sensus: no two men think exactly alike on any subject. Yet we are faced by the fact that Protestant churches have lived through several centuries and have moulded the character not only of individuals but of whole nations; that millions of souls have found and are finding in them the spiritual food which satisfies their spiritual cravings; that their missionary and charitable activity is covering wide fields at home and abroad. The apparent incongruity does not exist in reality, for private judgment is never and nowhere allowed full play in the framing of religions. The open Bible and the open mind on its interpretation are rather a lure to entice the masses, by flattering their pride and deceiving their ignorance, than a workable principle of faith.

The first limitation imposed on the application of private judgment is the incapacity of most men to judge for themselves on matters above their physical needs. How many Christians are made by the tons of Testaments distributed by missionaries to the heathen? What religion could even a well-schooled man extract from the Bible if he had nought but his brain and his book to guide him? The second limitation arises from environment and prejudices. The assumed right of private judgment is not exercised until the mind is already stocked with ideas and notions supplied by family and community, foremost among these being the current conceptions of religious dogmas and duties. People are said to be Catholics, Protestants, Mahommedans, Pagans "by birth", because the environment in which they are born invariably endows them with the local religion long before they are able to judge and choose for themselves. And the firm hold which this initial training gets on the mind is well illustrated by the fewness of changes in later life. Conversions from one belief to another are of comparatively rare occurrence. The number of converts in any denomination compared to the number of stauncher adherents is a negligible quantity. Even where private judgment has led to the conviction that some other form of religion is preferable to the one professed, conversion is not always achieved. The convert, beside and beyond his knowledge, must have sufficient strength of will to break with old associations, old friendships, old habits, and to face the uncertainties of life in new surroundings. His sense of duty, in many eases, must be of heroical temper.

A third limitation put on the exercise of private judgment is the authority of Church and State. The Reformers took full advantage of their emancipation from papal authority, but they showed no inclination to allow their followers the same freedom. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox were as intolerant of private judgment when it went against their own conceits as any pope in Rome was ever intolerant of heresy. Confessions of faith, symbols, and catechism were set up everywhere, and were invariably backed by the secular power. In fact, the secular power in the several parts of Germany, England, Scotland, and elsewhere has had more to do with the moulding of religious denominations than private judgment and justification by faith alone. Rulers were guided by political and material considerations in their adherence to particular forms of faith, and they usurped the right of imposing their own choice on their subjects, regardless of private opinions: cujus regio hujus religio.

The above considerations show that the first Protestant principle, free judgment, never influenced the Protestant masses at large. Its influence is limited to a few leaders of the movement, to the men who by dint of strong character were capable of creating separate sects. They indeed spurned the authority of the Old Church, but soon transferred it to their own persons and institutions, if not to secular princes. How mercilessly the new authority was exercised is matter of history. Moreover, in the course of time, private judgment has ripened into unbridled freethought, Rationalism, Modernism, now rampant in most universities, cultured society, and the Press. Planted by Luther and other reformers the seed took no root, or soon withered, among the half-educated masses who still clung to authority or were coerced by the secular arm; but it flourished and produced its full fruit chiefly in the schools and among the ranks of society which draw their intellectual life from that source. The modern Press is at infinite pains to spread free judgment and its latest results to the reading public.

It should be remarked that the first Protestants, without exception, pretended to be the true Church founded by Christ, and all retained the Apostles' Creed with the article "I believe in the Catholic Church". The fact of their Catholic origin and surroundings accounts both for their good intention and for the confessions of faith to which they bound themselves. Yet such confessions, if there be any truth in the assertion that private judgment and the open Bible are the only sources of Protestant faith, are directly antagonistic to the Protestant spirit. This is recognized, among others, by J. H. Blunt, who writes: "The mere existence of such confessions of faith as binding on all or any of the members of the Christian community is inconsistent with the great principles on which the Protestant bodies justified their separation from the Church, the right of private judgment. Has not any member as just a right to criticise and to reject them as his forefathers had a right to reject the Catholic creeds or the canons of general councils? They appear to violate another prominent doctrine of the Reformers, the sufficiency of Holy Scripture to salvation. If the Bible alone is enough, what need is there for adding articles? If it is rejoined that they are not additions to, but merely explanations of, the Word of God, the further question arises, amid the many explanations, more or less at variance with each other given by the different sects of Protestantism, who is to decide which is the true one? Their professed object being to secure uniformity, the experience of three hundred years has proved to us what may not have been foreseen by their originators, that they have had a diametrically opposite result, and have been productive not of union but of variance" (Dict. of Sects, Heresies, etc.", London, 1886, s.v. Protestant Confessions of Faith).

By pinning private judgment to the Bible the Reformers started a book religion, i.e. a religion of which, theoretically, law of faith and conduct is contained in a written document without method, without authority, without an authorized interpreter. The collection of books called "the Bible" is not a methodical code of faith and morals; if it be separated from the stream of tradition which asserts its Divine inspiration, it has no special authority, and, in the hands of private interpreters, its meaning is easily twisted to suit every private mind. Our modern laws, elaborated by modern minds for modern requirements, are daily obscured and diverted from their object by interested pleaders: judges are an absolute necessity for their right interpretation and application, and unless we say that religion is but a personal concern, that coherent religious bodies or churches are superfluous, we must admit that judges of faith and morals are as necessary to them as judges of civil law are to States. And that is another reason why private judgment, though upheld in theory, has not been carried out in practice. As a matter of fact, all Protestant denominations are under constituted authorities, be they called priest or presbyters, elders or ministers, pastors or presidents. Notwithstanding the contradiction between the freedom they proclaim and the obedience they exact, their rule has often been tyrannical to a degree, especially in Calvinistic communities. Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was no more priest-ridden country in the world than Presbyterian Scotland. A book-religion has, moreover, another drawback. Its devotees can draw devotion from it only as fetish worshippers draw it from their idol, viz. by firmly believing in its hidden spirit. Remove belief in Divine inspiration from the sacred books, and what remains may be regarded as simply a human document of religious illusion or even of fraud. Now, in the course of centuries, private judgment has partly succeeded in taking the spirit out of the Bible, leaving little else than the letter, for critics, high and low, to discuss without any spiritual advantage.

@Corpus:
You finally spoke truth:

"the larger story. Which is? In part, the foundation of the Protestant Reformation. But also the foundation for determined Liberal Catholics. "

How true that the way of the Protestant Reformation is the way of Liberal Catholics. And it leads to the same futile end. Into atomistic division based on solipsistic pronouncements because the Liberal Catholics sit in judgment not just on the Church but on one another and always find everyone but themselves wrong.

Patrick, you wrote-"What the Church doesn't want to do is to have to be part of the contraceptive and abortifacient delivery systems. The Church finds that morally abhorrent, although employees are free to do whatever they want on their own." So George Weigel, what does the american catholic church intend to do about it? I wouldn't be wrong if I said the church could have stopped obama and his HH machinery dead in his tracks if it really needed to do so. But democracy or its strictly secular face still holds say in many american catholics who believe that to choose one's faith over one's political ideology is just not done, hence the present discussion.

George Weigel says, "As this battle unfolds, there is every reason for the bishops and those gathered around them to be confident of success."

Amen to that. I find it breathtaking that the American bishops are unified in one voice against President Obama's fatwa. Thank God for the Holy Spirit.

What about this as an interesting parallel case of the violation of religious conscience:

A Jehovah's Witness institution which has over 50 employees is required by federal mandate to provide a group health care plan for its employees that must include the availability of blood transfusions. The entire Witness population in America erupts in protest, since it is a violation of their religious beliefs to make blood transfusions available, even if it may benefit non-Witness employees. So, the gov't compromises by stipulating that the blood transfusions can be provided to the same employees (if they want them, of course), directly from the insurance company, rather than bundled with the other benefits in the HR package from the Witness institution. No matter, the Witnesses call it a "shell game" that still violates their religious conscience. Blood transfusions clearly go against God's teaching in Holy Scripture, and they don't want to be coerced into even indirect association with such an abomination being provided for their employees--even non-Witness employees who have to undergo surgery. Dark suspicions circulate in the Witness community that the Obama administration has created the health mandate as part of a grand scheme to undermine, or even destroy, the Witnesses in America.

I'm not trying to be flippant here. This strikes me as a reasonable parallel. If it is not, I would be sincerely interested to hear why.

Rick you are either Catholic or you are not. And if you go against what the Church teaches then you are NOT. There is no grey area when it comes to truth. If you DO NOT believe what the Church teaches than leave the Church. I don't get this mentality among song so-called catholics where they believe that they can just pick and choose what is convenient for them to believe. Even if a majority of so-called catholics think the Church's teaching on contraception is wrong...the Church is not a democracy. Truth does not change because it is unpopular. You accept ALL the teachings of the Church or you might as well accept NONE of them. A little advice...educate yourself on your faith and maybe you will understand why the Church teaches what it does.

Corpus

Nothing can be more fallacious than attempting t define Christians by their tenets, or the church by its teachings. Whatever doctrinal test one establishes has to be itself justified.

Catholics avoid this question-begging assumption. As Mgr Ronald Knox put it, "The fideles, be they many or few, be their doctrine apparently traditional or apparently innovatory, be their champions honest or unscrupulous, are simply those who are in visible communion with the see of Rome."

He adds, "in fact there can be little doubt that, in the West, our labelling of this party as orthodox and that as heterodox in early Church history comes down to us from authors who were applying this test of orthodoxy and no other."

"I do not feel that a Catholic employer is entitled to act as the "conscience" of its employees." --Gail White

Gail, you miss the point entirely. If you believe what you say, then you should also believe the government has no right to act as the conscience of employers, or its citizens, which is precisely what it is doing in this case. No employer is currently firing someone for procuring these "services" with their own money--they just object to being forced to provide them for free out of the employer's own funds.

Of course, you could also be a hypocrite with a double standard. We're seeing a lot of those defending the mandate these days.

The government is telling all employers they must pay for their employee's sexual whims and fancies, no matter the cost, or if it violates their own morals. If the government demanded you pay for the contraceptives of your neighbor, I dare say you'd object. This is little different.

What is it going to take before some of you start to see how serious this truly is, armed revolution?!

@Rick,
The problem with your supposedly parallel Jehovah's Witnesses example is that the "accommodation" posited is the same unconstitutional one proposed by the Obama Administration for the tremendously larger Catholic hospital situation: a government mandate that insurance companies pay for a church institution expense based on the tenets of the religious institution. Government requirements that private individuals contribute to a church institution on account of the religion's doctrines is a clear violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

A far simpler and constitutional accommodation would be for the Government to provide a conscience exception for the church institutions as supposedly was done for churches themselves.

Another way to look at this is what would happen if the secular world in America were to lose Catholic health care? Would there not be a crisis of almost unimaginable suffering? Just because the secular world is required to "help" support Catholic health care institutions, that it personally benefits from, doesn't give it the right to control that operation and mission. The mission is not to make it convenient for anybody to pervert the act of procreation but to heal the sick.

The secular world owes a debt of gratitude it will never be able to pay back for the services already provided and may be provided in the future.

Again, what would happen if Rome chose to shut down all "Catholic" health care institutions in the USA? Do you think Americans would be pleased with this President's decision to have a woman's "choice" trump the healing of the sick, at such tremendous cost to society?

What is to be remembered is the truth that what the President chooses to fight for is an intrinsic evil, not the healing of the body or mind.

I am utterly amazed at how such a stark black and white issue as 1st Amendment rights are being confused by people using various arguments that somehow show the Roman Catholic Church and its bishops are forcing their faith on the rest of the population.

First, no one is the Church is trying to outlaw contraception, they are merely asking that Catholic institutions be exempt so that the church is not forced to violate their conscience.

Second, why should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's contreception? Every person who pays into a health insurance plan is now forced to provide someone else with their birth control. I don't want to pay for your birth control, pay it out of your own pocket if you want it.

@patricksarsfield

Your write: "Yet, in the governance of the Catholic Church in the US, the ultimate authority (subject, of course, to Rome) on matters of faith and morals is the USCCB and not some nuns running a hospital group or the like."

Actually, Patrick, the USCCB has no canonical authority, nor does any national ecclesiastical association. The individual bishop has absolute authority in his diocese, subject to the Pope. They may publish opinions and pronouncements but those, in themselves, are not binding on the Faithful. In fact, it was the infighting within the USCCB and the subsequent milquetoast document "Faithful Citizenship" that paved the way for the tacit approval of Obama by many confused Catholics, even in the face of evidence of his extreme anti-life positions. Vatican II turned the Church on it's head by placing the "people of God" at the apex of the pyramid of authority within the Church, and Peter at the base as the "servant of the servants of God". This was an inversion of 19 centuries of Catholic Tradition which amounted to a French Revolution in the Church. By abdicating authority and responsibility the Bishops are responsible for the current state of the Church and the current conflict with this "popular sovereign". Remember that of all the Bishops pressured by Henry VIII to apostasy, one remained faithful: St John Fischer. It is an object lesson for today.

I stand by the Bishops, and the author of this article has framed the problem well. The comments I read by liberal "catholics" here prove the point. If you don't want to embrace the faith and morals as defined by the Bishops, then leave--there are plenty of other spinoffs or "reformed" entities that share your views. The fullness of truth found only in the Catholic church is not always understood nor is it always popular, but the truth stands regardless. When reading John Chapter 6, Jesus had no qualms about letting the "disciples" leave--those that found His teachings hard to hear. In fact, he turned to the others and asked if they were going to leave as well. Although they did not fully understand, they said "to where shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life." Jesus passed on His teaching authority to the magisterium via Peter and the Apostles (Pope/Bishops). You can walk away from the magisterium if you will if what it says is difficult, but understand that the Magisterium will nevertheless remain, and the fullness of truth will remain with it. Last, the Bishops are not defining anything new here--it is not merely a new "opinion." Rather, they are defending the sanctity of life, and other matters of faith and morals that are already explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you don't have one, I'd suggest getting one and reading it cover to cover--its truly rich.... Thanks for reading..

Can Catholics see the other side of it? Can they honor the religious rights of anyone but themselves? Consider the following example

What if I, as a Protestant whose church allows abortion, go to a Catholic Hospital, with my wife - whose pregnancy is endangering her life. We need, from this partially-publicly funded hospital, an emergency abortion. To save my wife. Should you refuse it? Considering 1) if you refuse, you are denying MY religious beliefs. And 2) doing it on my tax dollars. While 3) killing my wife.

Can Catholics see that religious freedom, extends all around? And no just for you, yourself? So that therefore, adjustments need to be made. Otherwise? Look what YOU end up doing.

Can you see the beam in your own eye? Can you see that living in a civil society, means making adjustments all aroun. Or? Is it all about you? And nobody else? My way or the highway?

Man-made laws and government are not supreme over God's Commandments or the Catholic Church. To be forced to violate "Thou shall not kill" by paying for someone's abortifacients is a violation of the freedom of religion. The Bishops are in the exercise of their wisdom and power conferred on them by Jesus Christ. Whether they are wrong or not is not for the faithful to judge, it is for the faithful to obey. If the faithful trust their own judgment (borne by I don't know what since they weren't given authority to rule on matters of faith and morality) and believe in the government's opinion more than the Church, then they are totally free to become unfaithful and leave the Church.

"What if I, as a Protestant whose church allows abortion, go to a Catholic Hospital, with my wife - whose pregnancy is endangering her life. We need, from this partially-publicly funded hospital, an emergency abortion. To save my wife. Should you refuse it? Considering 1) if you refuse, you are denying MY religious beliefs. And 2) doing it on my tax dollars. While 3) killing my wife." --Corpus

Corpus, you display how little you know of Catholic theology and healthcare. In the instances you describe, if continuing the pregnancy were to result in the inevitable death of both mother and child, an abortion is permissible to save the life of at least one.

Of course, we would prefer neither die, and should a means of saving the baby become available, it would be required.

Rick: "Certainly there is strength in clearly recognized authority, but I couldn't help thinking of the example of Jesus, who is, in fact, the true Foundation and Nexus of the Church--not the bishops. He got himself into all kinds of trouble by defiantly excoriating the established leaders of his religion. He taught that the true faithful would see through the self-serving hypocrisies of the priests and pharisees. Is it possible that the established religious leaders of today might be just as false...or at least fallible in their judgements?"
Rick, your suggestion that the bishops are not the true foundation of the Church is not supported by either scripture or theology. Jesus ran into trouble with the religious leaders of His time because He came to fulfill Judaism and hence replace it with Catholicism. He commissioned the apostles and their successors - the bishops - to teach, govern and sanctify in His name and with His own authority. He went so far as to identify Himself with them so completely that He said, "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." (Luke 10:16). In this debate over the HHS Mandate, the voice of the Bishops are the only ones that matter as they speak in the name of Christ and with His authority. That is what authority in the Catholic Church means; that is how Jesus Christ set up hierarchical authority in His Church. To suggest anything other than that is to deviate from sound doctrine.

Artaban:

Thank you for your moderate position. Though your own moderation here, is not quite the position of all the Bishops.

Not too long ago in fact, a few months ago, one of the bishops in Arizona excommunicated a Catholic hospital nun. For allowing a medically necessary abortion, in her hospital. In excommunicating the hospital administrator, the bishop of Arizona reiterated what is commonly understood by many (rightly?), to be a longstanding Catholic principle: that abortion is not allowed, even if it seems necessary to save the life of the mother.

In such cases, the mother is supposed to give up her life, for the child. According to the more strict bishops.

Or? Should we accept the more liberal reading of that law?

I read through this piece with a gnawing irritation, and decided by the end I would try to articulate my sense of it in a comment. I was delighted to find that Rick had done a far better job than I could have in the very first comment: "I typically draw back and become more sceptical when I read a piece that has a tone of towering moral superiority and authority in which the writer gives no hint that there might be more than one side to an issue or that he might not have a hotline to Absolute Truth. This piece qualifies."

Before I even finished the post, I didn't care if Mr. Weigel was right or not. I'm happy to consider many viewpoints on an issue, especially one as thorny and complicated as this one. But why in the world bother with the viewpoint of someone who so arrogantly dismisses any alternative viewpoint to his own?

Corpus Christi:
The Catholic bishops are infallible when all the bishops of the Church are assembled in a general council or, scattered over the earth, they propose a teaching of faith or morals as one to be held by all the faithful. They are assured freedom from error provided they are in union with the Bishop of Rome and their teaching is subject to his authority. The scope of this infallibility, like that of the Pope, includes not only revealed truths but any teaching, even historical facts, principles of philosophy, or norms of the natural law that are in any way connected with divine revelation.

Corpus, the Arizona case is very complex. I know some sources are saying it was a medically necessary abortion. Others contend that it was not. The other issue at stake was a matter of language and nuance; whether it was an indirect abortion (in other words, a procedure was performed that's secondary side-effect was the abortion of the child), or a direct abortion (deliberately killing the baby, which isn't allowed).

As for the comment, "In such cases, the mother is supposed to give up her life, for the child. According to the more strict bishops," I would ask this...

If a parent fled a burning home when they could stay and save the life of their child, but there was a risk, however high, of their own death, society would condemn that parent as a selfish coward. It might even prosecute them for criminal negligence.

The whole point of being a parent is being willing to give your life for your children, whether with the slow sacrifice of time, energy, and money over 18-21 years, or to the point of laying down one's life to save them.

A parent that would consider killing their child to save themselves IS a coward, selfish, and fundamentally unfit to be a parent, so there is nothing inconsistent with the Church saying the best of humanity is the willingness of the parent to lay down their life, if necessary, for the child's. That's why we recognize Dr. Gianna Molla as a saint--she could have killed her child to save her life. Instead, she died during childbirth, and her child is an adult today.

As Jesus said, "There is no greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friend..."

(Sarcasm) I know, I know, how DARE the Church call on us to be heroic.

Areteban:

That is fine for you to make that decision, regarding your own wife and child; that your wife must risk death, in order for an embryo to live. But do you have the right to make that decision, regarding MY wife? And my own embryo that I do not regard as fully a human person?

How heroic is that, exactly? To impose your religious beliefs on me ... even to the point of killing my wife?

Here in fact, the more sensible elements of the Church follow Jesus; allowing some relaxation of the "letter of the law." So that both the Bible, and elements of the Church, allow some flexibility here. Keeping in mind especially, the complexity of the many elements.

Arteban? Do you really feel you have the right to kill my wife? If I was not there to defend her decision, would you make that decision as a hospital administrator or doctor? Do you REALLY feel that is heroic and just and good?

@Byzcat,
You (who I guess are a Byzantine Catholic??) write:
"Your write: "Yet, in the governance of the Catholic Church in the US, the ultimate authority (subject, of course, to Rome) on matters of faith and morals is the USCCB and not some nuns running a hospital group or the like."

Actually, Patrick, the USCCB has no canonical authority, nor does any national ecclesiastical association. The individual bishop has absolute authority in his diocese, subject to the Pope. "

You're right theoretically, but the individual absolutely authoritative bishops--subject, of course, to Rome--do speak and have spoken collectively through the USCCB. Could there be some bishop who is hiding a different thought in his heart? That is theoretically possible, I suppose, but then again it is not likely that the Pope would support any such position.

Corpus asks:

"What if I, as a Protestant whose church allows abortion, go to a Catholic Hospital, with my wife - whose pregnancy is endangering her life. We need, from this partially-publicly funded hospital, an emergency abortion. To save my wife. Should you refuse it? Considering 1) if you refuse, you are denying MY religious beliefs. And 2) doing it on my tax dollars. While 3) killing my wife. "

Under American law, Corpus and his wife have the absolute right to kill their baby, but the Catholic position is that killing the baby is absolutely wrong. Since Corpus knows or should know that Catholic hospitals won't get involved in the killing, Corpus would need to go to another hospital that will take the contract.

@Artaban7:
"In the instances you describe, if continuing the pregnancy were to result in the inevitable death of both mother and child, an abortion is permissible to save the life of at least one."

If that is so, then how can we explain the actions of Archbishop Jose Cardoso of Brazil? A nine-year-old girl had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather and finally became pregnant with twins in 2009. The little girl weighed in at 79 pounds, and the doctors who examined her determined that her tiny uterus was incapable of carrying even one, never mind two, babies to full-term. It would most likely kill her and the babies as well. So, her mother took her to Recife for an abortion that was legal under Brazilian law, considering the circumstances. Cardoso promptly excommunicated the mother and the entire medical team that performed the abortion. Upon review, the excommunications were upheld at the Vatican. Cardoso stated that he didn't excommunicate the little girl because children are exempt from excommunication. He also stated that while the stepfather (who had also repeatedly raped the girl's retarded sister) had sinned, raping children is not as great a sin as abortion, so the stepfather was not excommunicated. He was allowed to continue in communion with the Catholic Church.

This case seems to contradict your argument. And please try not to respond to it with any more blind legalisms. Simply look in your heart for an answer.

"Do you really feel you have the right to kill my wife?" --Corpus

Where did I say I was going to kill your wife?! I never said that. But what you, in your most recent case seem to be saying, is that if I am a doctor who has sworn a professional oath to "do no harm", and a Catholic who would defend your child's right to life, you seem to think you have a right to demand that I kill your child.

Where do you have the right to force me to kill, sir?!

@Rick: Your facts are a little off. Firstly, Cardoso did not excommunicate the individuals involved. There are certain rare actions that result in automatic excommunication under canon law. Even in Civil Law there is an understanding that some actions are so grave, or some sins have become so culturally "acceptable" that more serious penalties are required to deter people from engaging in them. I'd say abortion qualifies, along with anything that'd lead to a 9 year old girl getting pregnant.

Did you know the girl was in her fourth month of pregnancy when the abortion was performed? Do you know people have died or been permanently maimed by such late abortions? And with the youngest surviving premature baby having been 21 weeks old, can you tell me it was certain the mother couldn't have carried them but 5 more weeks, until they could be saved?

Sure, from what I know carrying the babies all 9 months likely would have killed her, but if she'd gotten 4 months until "stomach pains" showed up, is there a decent chance she could've made it one more month and a week until two lives could be saved? That's probably what prompted the Archbishop's position.

Secondly, excommunication is not, as many non-Catholics think, the Church condemning someone to Hell. It is designed with the sole purpose of bringing someone to repentance away from serious sin that could endanger their hope of heaven. It is meant to bring someone back to God by giving them a serious "wake up call".

I find it interesting you're more concerned with condemning the Archbishop than the rapist, child-molesting stepfather, or the mother who didn't get her two daughters away from him, and let the rapes continue for 3 years! Interesting where your priorities lie...

Here is a link to an explanation of the matter: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archbishop_explains_excommunications_in_abortion_case_involving_9_yearold/

The point in presenting my examples of problems with a too-firm anti-abortion law, is to suggest to Catholics, that it is not just everybody ELSE, that is asking to make compromises on grave religious matters. Catholics themselves often already violate/negate the religious values of others. Sometimes, with literally fatal results.

So what is the solution? The point is that when we live in complex society, one with dozens, hundreds of different religions trying to live and work together? Often, there are often uncomfortable moments, when religious beliefs simply, flatly conflict. Moments when even excruciating compromises must be - and often are - made. By way of illustration, here we have noted a few cases, where Catholic beliefs - on abortion - can ruin other people's lives. And even kill persons of other religions. As in the case when say, a Catholic hospital refuses to perform an emergency abortion, even when it is necessary to save the life of the mother, and yet in rural areas no other hospital is available. In such a case, the firm, "towering" Catholic moralist, appears makes a decision that is 1) against the religion of the victim; 2) resulting in the death of the mother.

What should Catholics do? After ruining the lives and killing many such victims, could/should unyielding Catholic moralists learn to "look in their own eye," before criticising others on moral questions?

Jesus addressed the problem of too-rigid systems of morality in his own time. When Jesus noted problems with the Pharisees, the traditionalist Jews of his own era. The problem, Jesus noted, was that religious leaders - like Peter - often sounded good on paper; but in actual practice, they were often "hypocrites," as the Bible said. Paul specifically noted moral inconsistency, "hypocrisy" specifically in Peter in fact; in the first Pope. Then Paul confirmed this observation.

So how can Catholics learn to live with other religions, like Protetants? And their beliefs, which for example allow contraception and even abortion? Excommunication might be designed to guide people; but how useful and good is actually, physically killing them? Through hypocrisy, misunderstanding, and moral ridigity?

So what finally is the solution? Actually in a complex society like our own, often there really IS no totally acceptable solution. After having wrestled with these moral dilemmas myself for many years, I and many others, ethicists, have found that often, there simply is no single system of morality that absolutely satisfies the different moral systems, different religions, that we see in a Democracy.

Or finally, if there is any solution at all ... it is the solution of Liberalism. As derived from the Bible itself. Jesus himself, note,began to recommend "Grace" and "forgiveness"; the ability to forgive what appear to be moral transgressions to us. While Catholicism began to speak now and then of a certain "Charity": in this case meaning generosity and flexibility, even in moral matters.

As we examine these various problematic cases, to be sure, we find that often there is no good answer; there is no single answer that will completely satisfy the religious or moral beliefs of everyone. So what in fact, should we do? In lieu of a perfect answer, over the years, liberal theologians, following Jesus, have urged relaxing our towering moral rectitude and inflexibility, now and then. To make the occasional adjustment, even in our moral absolutes. And to forgive - show charity and grace - toward the apparent sins of others.

Is forgiveness of others allowed, even in Christianity? Even in Catholicism? Catholic conservatives always imagine that their morality is absolutely firm, and written in stone; allowing no "compromises" whatsoever. And yet however, many liberal Catholic theologians, noting some of the apparently irresolable religious conflicts - even wars - that result from such moral inflexibility, have over the years found various elements, even in the Bible itself, even in Catholic Tradition, that can at least, roughly fix this. Liberal thologians noting elements in the Bible, in Christ, in the Church. That allow an occasional moment of flexibility; a moment of Grace, and Charity, regarding, respecting, the religious beliefs of others.

The great triumph of Liberal Christianity, Liberal Catholicism, was its discovery and acceptance of this particular Grace; the great failure of conservative Catholicism, has always been its inability to find that forgiveness, and Grace.

What I find so interesting is that Evangelical Christians who do not even necessarily preach against contraception are nevertheless coming to our assistance in political and legal actions. Just as in the prolife movement, there is real unity between Evangelical Christians and Conservative Catholics that is so refreshing. It is something real because it is something that one would not expect to have happened.

It seems like all the solutions to our problems create greater problems. We as a nation voted Obama in as president. All of this was foreseeable.

I remember the Special Olympics use to be a major event. A lot of special participants. Now it has tremendously downsized because a lot of women choose not to have that special person born.

Something gotta give sooner or later. Scholarly advice or human reasoning.

@artaban7:

Yes, I knew the girl was in her 4th month of pregnancy...15 weeks, to be exact. Could she have carried the two babies long enough for them to be viable outside the womb? I cannot offer expert opinion on that, so I would defer to the doctors in the case to make the judgement. And I would expect they had a more precise medical understanding of the matter than Cordoso had.

Was the earliest surviving preemie born at 21 weeks? No. Amillia Taylor was born at 22 weeks (minus one day) by an unorthodox method of counting her age, but at 24 weeks by the more common method of counting from the date of her mother's last mentrual period. The rape victim would have needed nine more weeks to reach that threshold, and that would have been to equal a world record!

I read the CNA article you referred to. This very brief treatment of the issue centered on rebutting the claim that Cardoso had excommunicated the girl. Of course, I already knew he hadn't done that, as I clearly explained in my comment above. Does it matter if the excommunications were "latae sententiae"? Not really. Why should it? Cardoso ethusiastically defended them. Does it matter if a Catholic who is excommunicated could later repent and be accepted back into the fold and therefore avoid hellfire? No, I don't think that really bears on the essence of this case at all. It's a classic red herring.

You seem to be grasping at any straw to discredit my argument, but in your last paragraph you simply hurl yourself over a cliff. You state that I seem to be, in effect, condemning the archbishop and whitewashing the rapist. You say that I show little interest in condemning his crimes in the case. It originally occurred to me to recommend that you sign up for a remedial reading program, but of course that isn't the problem. The problem is a willful attempt to misinterpret, drag in irrelevant or peripheral issues, and smear me as a defender of child rapists. I clearly highlighted, in lurid detail, the magnitude of his crimes. I then contrasted that with Cardoso's EXPLICIT statement that the rapist was not as guilty as those who were excommunicated. If anyone is whitewashing the rapist, it is Cardoso. I would personally recommend excommunication for the rapist from the Church and a firing squad from the civil government!

Finally, a friendly suggestion. If you can't rebut people's sincere arguments in better faith than your last comment shows, you may find that people will no longer take you seriously.

Clarification/correction: "The point in presenting these examples of problems with a too-firm anti-abortion law, is to suggest to Catholics that it is not just they, Catholics, who have been asked to make compromises on grave religious matters. Catholics have long asked Protestants to make very serious, even literally fatal compromises in their religious beliefs."

Indeed, Catholics themselves often already violate/negate the religious values of others. Sometimes, with literally fatal results. As in the case where even publicly-funded Catholic hospitals might not, if they follow conservative bishops, perform an emergency abortion for a Protestant woman - even when her life is being threatened by the pregnancy. Even when, in an emergency, no other hospital is available in time.

To date, all too many Catholics speak as if only THEY are asked to compromise on religious matters. While they have been unaware of the many, many countless compromises a predominently Protestant nation has already made, on their behalf. Indeed, the fact that our Protestant founders, our first 34 Protestant presidents, allowed Catholicism at all, was already, a Protestant compromise. At the time England for example, had only one allowable church: Protestant Anglicanism; the Church of England. While Catholicism was effectively, disenfranchised. The Pope being at the time regarded as "The AntiChrist," etc..

So that it was first of all, a very generous move, a compromise, for our Protestant founders to even allow Catholicism to exist, in the United States of America. While here I am noting more serious religious compromises made, with a obdurately Catholic health system.

Corpus,

You seem bent on distorting the Catholic position in order to promote your own brand of "firm, towering moralism". Your "tolerance" is very intolerant of Catholics, for you still insist on demanding that the Catholic rural doctor kill when you tell him to. And you also ignore facts in your analysis:

1) Even in Catholic countries where abortion is illegal, like Brazil, there are still exceptions in the law for instances when both mother and child would die, allowing an indirect abortion and one to be saved. This is not inflexible, but eminently sensible and proportionate to the frequency of such things. Ectopic pregnancy (the scenario you're intent on beating to death) accounts, by some estimates, for only 1-2% of pregnancies. Once source even says that the current rate is 6 times what it used to be, and we don't quite know why it has increased to 2%.

You seem to want to allow the 1.3-2.1 million abortions that take place annually in the U.S. because of something that is incredibly rare.

The "Catholic conservative moralism" you decry would save millions of lives, while the "understanding" of "Liberalism" would end them. You take leave of common sense and incontrovertible facts by trying to paint Catholic pro-life arguments as the greater killer here.

2) Catholicism does promote forgiveness. That's what Project Rachel is about. That's what the sacrament of Confession is about, and the Sign of Peace administered at every Mass.

You are not advocating for forgiveness, you are advocating for permissiveness (allowing the sin and saying there is nothing wrong with it).

That, Corpus, is something that was condemned time and again in the letters of Paul and by Jesus himself. Remember, Christ did not condemn the Pharisees for teaching the Law, merely for not wholeheartedly following it ("So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." Matt 23:3).

A lot of people today defy Jesus, as you do, when they argue that because the bishops/Catholics are not perfect, therefore the teachings of the Church can be ignored. Not so.

Jesus also said, "I have not come to abolish the Law. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished" Matt 5:17-18, and "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" Matt 5:48.

Suddenly Jesus is sounding like one of those "conservative moralists" you condemn, Corpus.

Jesus did not make the mistake of confusing forgiveness with permissiveness. Remember that he condemned the sin of the adulteress, and after forgiving her, commanded her to "go and commit this sin no more".

You chafe under the Catholic position on abortion and contraception because you recognize, even if only subconsciously, that the Church is pointing out sinfulness and selfishness. And like all sin, the uncomfortable consequence of shame and guilt follows.

The only way sin, shame, and guilt are healed is when we they are acknowledged for what they are, not accepted as the cost of doing business in a pluralistic society. Only when sin is brought out into the light can it be conquered. As Paul said, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2.

"Finally, a friendly suggestion. If you can't rebut people's sincere arguments in better faith than your last comment shows, you may find that people will no longer take you seriously." --Rick

LOL! Funny, I was thinking the same about you. Rick, facts matter. You didn't address any substantive ones in your first post.

BTW, check your facts again, multiple sources, from ABC to UK sources and FOX all report that the youngest surviving preemie was under 22 weeks. You may be content to choose the more inaccurate method of determining age (itself fostered by an abortion movement that seeks to muddy the question of conception and viability). I am not.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=2888874&page=1#.T1Dm5vWyXkc

Because viability matters. Because if a child can survive at under 22 weeks, it is possible an even younger child can survive. Furthermore, twins mature more quickly in the womb, Rick, bringing their viability down. I would err on the side of life and hope, with the understanding that miracles do happen, and medical science has been bringing down the age of viability continually for the last 100 years.

You distort what Cardoso is saying. He's stating that murder of an innocent is slightly worse than rape. That's clear. Rape is a grave evil, a mortal sin, but we don't see people saying, "I'd rather die now that I've been raped".

And Cardoso also has to stress that it is evil to punish innocent children for the sins of their parents. That's just common sense, but many seem to have forgotten it.

@artaban:

OK, I thought this was a relatively extreme case of choosing abortion to save the life of the mother. If not, then what situation would justify abortion? You seem to indicate that you have better medical judgement in these matters than the doctors who concluded that continuing the pregnancy would kill the little girl. As an expert then, when do you think the Catholic principle of justifying abortion to save the mother's life should be activated?

When it is inevitable that both will die unless an abortion is performed. You asked me once to look into my heart to answer your question.

Doesn't your heart tell you that if you have a chance to save a life, even if there may be some risk, such a chance should be taken? Is that not what we honor in our soldiers, saints, police and EMTs?

Patricksarsfield badly mangles church history and ecclesiology in his zeal. This may be only tangentially related to Mr. Weigel’s post but Patrick has opened the door.

To wit, Patrick writes, “Right from the start, the Church ruled on issues of Faith and morals through the conciliar authority of its apostles (the predecessors of the bishops), and under the leadership of Peter as Acts 15 demonstrates.”
Unfortunately for Patricksarsfield, Peter was a missionary who had returned to take part on the council – not to lead it. The council was led by Christ’s brother, James. Acts 15:19 is decisive when James states, ““It is my judgment, therefore,…” And the writer of Acts, the Apostle Luke is noted for his historical accuracy.

Of course, Patrick is also torturing Scripture by making it do something it surely doesn’t in the area of Apostolic Succession. While he points out Paul’s relationship with Timothy, he glosses over where it is ever written that Timothy was an Apostle. The very same book of Acts prescribes the attributes of an apostle – that He must have been personally called by Christ and been a witness to the risen Christ – neither of which Timothy fulfills. To assert – as Roman Catholics do – that Timothy could inherit apostolic traits without being an apostle is merely speculation. More interestingly, even if Patrick’s assertion were true, the logical conclusion is that the truth resulting from AS resides in the Greek Orthodox – and not Roman – communion. Timothy, after all, was the bishop of Ephesus.


Patrick further errs, “The Christians of the Ancient Period recognized that need for apostolic succession to ensure faithfulness to the Magisterium (which of course anteceded the writing of the New Testament).”

Unfortunately, Patrick is either unaware of true Roman Catholic scholarship on this issue or is choosing to ignore it. Please note what one Jesuit scholar says of the same matter, this man having earned his doctorate in Rome:


“A judicial superiority of one church over another, or certainly anything like papal primacy of jurisdiction, was completely foreign to Ignatius or Irenaeus [in the second century], or even Augustine [in the fourth]…In particular, all kinds of thinking in categories of hierarchical subordination or superiority will lead us astray”.
Fr. Klaus Schatz, S.J. Papal Primacy. Tr. James Sievert. Liturgical Press, 1996).

The real “catholic faith” follows the true Apostolic leading. Hence, rather than rail against the authorities we are to be subject to them so that the Holy Spirit may do His work.

“Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good” Titus 3:1

Peace.

Patricksarsfield writes, scolding Corpuschristi

“And as for your highly selective reading of Scripture on the authority of Petyer, you omit the fact that after Peter had thrice denied Christ on the Night of the Passion, Jesus thrice told him to be the pastor of His flock. John 20:15 et seq.”

Well, that certainly is the pot calling the kettle black!


If Jesus Christ indeed told Peter “to be the pastor of His flock” several questions arise:

First, why didn’t Peter have any idea he had the job? If you read Peter’s response to Cornelius in Acts 10 you see exactly what Peter thought of his role: “I am only a man myself.” (Acts 10:26)

Secondly, why didn’t the other Apostles know about this “shepherd”?: “When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria.” (Acts 8:14). Can anyone imagine the inferiors “sending” a superior out? Of course not. Peter was not the “pope”.


Lastly, why didn’t Jesus know about this? Mark 9:33ff clearly shows that our Savior Jesus had no idea that Peter was the ‘shepherd’. Now don’t you find it odd, that the God who created the universe and in Patricksarsfield’s world appointed Peter the first “pope” didn’t have any idea that He did it? It is simply preposterous to hold to the propaganda he offers.

As for who is “highly selective” in their reading of Scripture, I will let the reader decide.

Peace.

Patricksarsfield continues to amaze:

“Under American law, Corpus and his wife have the absolute right to kill their baby, but the Catholic position is that killing the baby is absolutely wrong.”

Part of the obfuscation is in the definition of the term “baby”. If Patrick means, as I’m sure he does, that “baby” applies “from the moment of conception” (whatever that “moment” is) then he is absolutely wrong about the Catholic position.
For him to so state, puts him in direct opposition to Pope Innocent III, St. Jerome, St. Antoninus, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Maybe Patrick would be so good as to explain how the modern Catholic church can so diametrically oppose so many of its saints.

Peace.

Corpus writes:
"To date, all too many Catholics speak as if only THEY are asked to compromise on religious matters. While they have been unaware of the many, many countless compromises a predominently Protestant nation has already made, on their behalf. Indeed, the fact that our Protestant founders, our first 34 Protestant presidents, allowed Catholicism at all, was already, a Protestant compromise. At the time England for example, had only one allowable church: Protestant Anglicanism; the Church of England. While Catholicism was effectively, disenfranchised. The Pope being at the time regarded as "The AntiChrist," etc."

Darned nice of you protestants!! But actually you're wrong about England having only one allowable church at the time either of the American Revolution or surely during the first 34 presidents' reigns (i.e., through 1960).

To the contrary, at the time of the Revolution, dissenting English Protestants were allowed to belong to churches other than the Anglican Church. English Catholics, of course, weren't allowed to belong to their church but that was because of the silly rule the English Protestants had to devise when they colluded together to overthrow the last Supreme Governor of the Church of England (James II) who had had the sense to admit that the Catholic Church was Christ's true Church. Despite the fact that James recognized the Catholic Church as the church to which he should belong, he did not seek to compel his fellow Britishers to belong to his Church. Instead, James issued a Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 that acknowledged the C of E as the Church by law Established but permitted people to belong to whatever church they wanted to belong, be it Anglican, Catholic or Dissenter. That drove the Protestants crazy because they didn't want the competition from Catholicism. The Anglican Church thereupon led the revolution against James (hell hath no fury like a King's Church scorned??); overthrew him and then forbade the practice of Catholicism once more. However, to get the Protestant Dissenters on their side against the king--who was willing to permit their freedom of worship--the Anglicans had to promise to go along with the practice of Dissenter religion, too. So, beginning in 1689, Dissenters were allowed to worship in their own churches, more or less. Only the Catholic Church was still forbidden.

This is the real beginning of "tolerance" in the English Speaking World. In the 13 colonies, it had again been Catholics who had done the most in the way of ensuring some measure of religious freedom. Not just Maryland (which had toleration for churches, including Catholicism from the 1640s until a Protestant Invasion by Virginia) but Pennsylvania which was allowed to have a tolerant government when William Penn's colony was sponsored by the two Stuart Brothers, Charles II and James II both of whom were Catholic (although Charles II kept his Catholicism secret until his deathbed).

Arteban:

1) The point of mentioning ectopic preganacies - or pregancies that threaten the life of the mother - is to demonstrate that in fact, abortion seems reasonable in at least some situations. Thus? To establish my main point: any absolutistic conservative Catholic position against abortion, in every situation, is unreasonable. As you seem to allow yourself; thus distancing yourself from the still, moral absolutism of ... much of Catholicism. (BY the way? I would by the way not call 1 to 2% of all pregnancies, something that is "incredibly rare." If there are say 10 million preganacies a year worldwide ... that small percentage still adds up to a rather large number)

2) Was Jesus himself a moral absolutist, who would say, absolutely forbid abortion? Your reading of Jesus confronting/forgiving the adultress, is curious. FIrst of all, note, a) different Bibles actually include or omit this very passage. Suggesting that there is much difference of opinion on it; and that first of all? Many different opinions might therefore be legitimately allowed. We are not even required to look at it, it seems. But b) even if we include it? Note that Jesus says nothing very condemning of the adultress; but asks that those who have no sin, throw the first stone. In effect, moreover note that the line you attempt to draw between permissiveness and forgiveness, is practically erased; Jesus here declines to prosecute adultery. Effectively decriminalizing it. Or? Saying it is no very GREAT sin that demands prosecution.

3) Which would be my position on abortion in fact.

4) Why aren't most people that concerned about abortion? Here is the main reason, that your have not yet addressed here: to most Protestants, to many people who know modern medicine, the young fetus is simply, clearly, not yet a human person. It is a glob of cells, that has not developed a brain large enough yet, to think, and to become a human person.

Therefore? Abortion kills no human beings whatsoever. And for most therefore, killing an embryo is something on the order of say, running over a cat in your driveway. Regarding the many lives allegedly lost in abortion therefore? Is a very dubious claim. Most people clearly see that the fetus is just not formed enough, to be a fully human person. Especially not "from conception."

5) Or indeed? Therefore, the life of my wife - an indisputably grown and full human person - is infinitely more real and valuable to me, than a clump of embryonic cells. And therefore? To demand that we trade or risk a real person, for that clump of cells ... is a grossly insensitive and deadly idea. Do Catholics really think, that the life of a clump of 12 cells, is exactly as valuable as, the same as, my wife? THAT IDEA IS AN INSULT TO HUMANITY.

6) If you feel we must obey the Law? Fine. Then where in the Bible is ... the law forbidding abortion? In fact, in Numbers 5, God commands a priest to perform one. There are laws to protect "life"; but presumably that means human life. Yet the embryo is not considered fully a human person in Ps. 139.

7) If Jesus told us we are to obey the successors of the Pharisees, and their laws? Then who are those successors? That they are almost certainly not the bishops, the heirs of St. Peter, I argued above. Since they not only erred in tryng to live up to their laws; even their forulations of doctrines, laws, were wrong too.

8) By the way? It really does appear, from our examples here etc., that the bishops, the Church, are rather against even abortion in ectopic situations. So that? Your own allowances there, already themselves deviate from Conservative Cartholic dogma.

And? Your invocations of the bishops as absolute authority? Are therefore ... "hypocritical." Something Jesus warned about in Pharisees and their followers. And in St. Peter. And it now seems clear, his followers as well.

9) To be sure, it does seem a bit unfair, a tough compromise to ask for, to require some hospitals or doctors who are against them, to perform abortions. Yet consider the scale of compromises already made by other religions, toward your own.

10) While I might close with this practial fact: I personally know many medical workers, who work in Catholic Hospitals. Those hospitals,note current offer contraceptive and reproductive services. So that? Those bishops who condem contraception ... condemn themselves as hypocrites, precisely. Their own hospitals have long allowed such things. Which is exactly the situation Jesus was warning about: our towering moralists are mostly hypocrites. And we might (or elsewhere, might not) obey their laws ... but not prosecute all of them rigorously.

While in any case? There is no biblical law against abortion; indeed, it is mandated as a procedure, in Numb. 5.

11) Finally, as for the rural Catholic doctor, who is asked to perform an operation he would rather not perform? Personally, I know many doctors and members of the medical community. And I do not personally know any, that are all that inflexibly against abortion. The more education people have, the less they oppose it. I would guess that the number of docs therefore, that oppose abortion strongly? Particularly in the case of ectopic pregnancy? Is very, very tiny indeed; perhaps a few hundred in the entire United States, at worst.

But in fact, out of deference to Catholic sentiments? As a practical matter in any case, if some Catholics do not want to offer such services? The way this is often handled, is by ... non-Catholic employees in the hospital administering those services.

That is? Contraception and abortion, are currently offered in Catholic hospitals; in part often, by simply, non-Catholic employees and doctors.

In this way? Individual sensitivities are to a large extent, indeed honored. Though reasonableness and some compromise/forgiveness, is asked for. Even as it was asked for, by Jesus himself.

@Artaban7:
"When it is inevitable that both will die unless an abortion is performed. You asked me once to look into my heart to answer your question. Doesn't your heart tell you that if you have a chance to save a life, even if there may be some risk, such a chance should be taken? Is that not what we honor in our soldiers, saints, police and EMTs?"

Eloquently put. I would never argue with this principle, although I'm still deeply disturbed that the rapist was allowed to continue in communion with the Church. Was that decision also an example of true justice?

Finally, do you know of ANY time that the Church has declared an abortion to be acceptable because it met the above criteria? If not, why not? I would think there should be numerous examples.

Constantine tries to reduce Peter to the level of any other apostle in three posts critiquing my prior exegeses. To say that James was in charge of the Council of Jerusalem is to read Acts 15 falsely. Peter was a mere missionary? Come on.
In addition to the antecedent conferral of authority on Peter in Matt. 16:18 et seq., Peter alone amongst all the apostles is recorded as having been told by Christ to feed his lambs and tend his sheep (after Peter's three denials and the Resurrection, btw). John 20:15 et seq.

Peter's first recorded act of tending Christ's flock was to supervise the other apostles in the selection of a replacement for Judas (Acts 1). While Christ had been corporeally present during His Life on Earth, it was Christ who picked the apostles. Peter thus served as Christ's Vicar in that function after the Ascension in that regard. Then Peter gave the first sermon (one might even call it the protoevangelion) of the Catholic Church on Pentecost Sunday (Acts 2).

Thereafter, Peter clearly led the Church at Jerusalem until his second imprisonment and his escape from Herod's Jail (Acts 3-Acts 12:18). Indeed, when God chose to inform the Church that he wanted gentiles like Cornelius in His Church, He gave the revelation not to any or all the other apostles, not even to the supposedly (in Constantine's view, anyway) superior James, but to ....guess whom?....that's right, PETER!!

Peter clearly led the Church visibly and from his seat at Jerusalem until he could no longer remain there because he had to go on the lam. Yet, when the Church faced the deep crisis caused by the judaizing James in his fight with Paul over circumcision and other ritual stuff, Peter disregarded the danger to him of returning to the jurisdiction from which he had escaped so that he could rule definitively and in the presence of James and the other apostles against James (Acts 15:7 et seq). James, in the wake of Peter's clarion ruling and despite all his prior judaizing, backed down and acknowledged that Peter was right. This is what really happened at the Council of Jerusalem. Despite Constantine's claims to the contrary, nowhere does it say that James presided over the Council. The record shows that Peter ruled and James followed.

From that point on, the Book of Acts is silent on Peter's whereabouts. Does that mean Peter somehow lost the preeminence he had up until that point in the Church? If that is your supposition, just realize that that is all it is: supposition, and there is no record evidence one way or the other as to where Peter went after the Council or what he did.

Clearly Peter had led the Church until the Council of Jerusalem. Thereafter, we must presume he went back on the lam because nowhere is it recorded that he surrendered to the Jerusalem authorities and did the rest of his bit in jail; nor is it recorded that Peter surrendered any of the authority he clearly exercised in the first 12 chapters of the Book of Acts. Where did he end up? All the best evidence suggests and the longstanding testimony of the Church is that he ended up at Rome. I am not going to go through the Tropaion on Vatican Hill or the lists which show him (and Paul) as the apostles from whom the later bishops of Rome took their authority; suffice it to say that the present agnosticism about where Peter went throughout his life post breakout was not shared by the Ancient Church in the period before Eusebius wrote his History of the Church which clearly shows Peter going to Rome.

Suffice it, moreover, to say that it makes perfect sense for Peter's whereabouts and activities to have been left contemporaneously unrecorded once he had gone on the lam from prison. Peter's imprisonment was so problematic for the Church that God sent His angels to break His vicar out of jail (Acts 12:4-18). Thus, while he was on the lam, there was no reason for the Church's folk to betray his whereabouts to the authorities.

Constantine writes:
"Patricksarsfield continues to amaze:

“Under American law, Corpus and his wife have the absolute right to kill their baby, but the Catholic position is that killing the baby is absolutely wrong.”

Part of the obfuscation is in the definition of the term “baby”. If Patrick means, as I’m sure he does, that “baby” applies “from the moment of conception” (whatever that “moment” is) then he is absolutely wrong about the Catholic position. "

Hmmm...I have conceded that Corpus has the abasolute right to kill his baby under the laws we have concocted in this country, but Constantine nevertheless accuses me of being an obfuscator because I dared call the entity inside Corpus's wife's womb a "baby."

I call it a baby because that is what most women call it when they are bearing such an entity in their wombs. That is what most fathers say to their pregnant wives when they wonder whether the "entity" is kicking. They don't say: "is that bit of ectoplasm kicking yet?" Nor do they say: "is the fetus kicking yet?" They say: "is the baby kicking yet?" Now, of course, it is probably true that someone who wants to kill off such a baby won't want to call it a baby, but that is on their conscience, not mine. I shall continue to speak the truth.

"Corpus":

You write: "Do Catholics really think, that the life of a clump of 12 cells, is exactly as valuable as, the same as, my wife? THAT IDEA IS AN INSULT TO HUMANITY."

Now, starting with a "real person", and going back in time, let's think like this: at what point does a "real person" become "somewhat of a person", "not likely a person", a "non-person", and "inanimate matter"? Or, if you like fractions, whole person, 1/2 person, 1/4 person, 1/8 person, 1/16 person, .... 0 person?

Twentieth century is littered with this type of discredited, barbarous thinking. Actually, "Corpus", the operative word in your question is "valuable". This kind of criterion is properly called utilitarianism.

Thus, to answer your question, "Corpus", Catholics with well formed consciences believe that life begins at the moment of conception. Whole person, not a fraction, from the very beginning.

Acquired accidents, such as the presence or absence of learning, erudition, wealth, looks, health, young or old age, born or not yet born, etc. have no bearing on the essence - a person exists with or without these accidents, from the moment of conception.

Mark:

Mark:

So you would give your own life to save say, a hundred frozen embryos?

Really? Sure you're not being hypocritical?

History is littered with the ruined remains of all varieties of absolutistic, either/or thinking. Indeed in fact,t he embryo is not a human person. Or indeed? It develops into one by stages.

Is that pile of lumber in your yard, that is going to become a house ... already a house?

Or in a now-just-famous example: is an acorn, really the same as an oak tree? Or a pile of oak lumber?

Time and development are important.

Catholics did not ALWAYS believe what you believe now by the way: St. Thomas Aquinas said the young embryo was not developed enough to have a soul; and that therefore it was not a human person.

But who cares about Thomas Aquinas? A saint, a doctor of the church, and the official philosopher of the Church?

I guess that saint wasn't Catholic?

"Catholics did not ALWAYS believe what you believe now by the way: St. Thomas Aquinas said the young embryo was not developed enough to have a soul; and that therefore it was not a human person.

But who cares about Thomas Aquinas? A saint, a doctor of the church, and the official philosopher of the Church?

I guess that saint wasn't Catholic? " --Corpus

Corpus, we've been over this ground many times before, though I seem to recall in other posts you using a different name (Ergo Sum). So I will respond to your factual inaccuracies by reposting what I did back then. Constantine, you are also incorrect in claiming what you do about Augustine, as you can see if you follow the link at the very bottom of this post:

"I find it curious--and telling--that Ergo Sum has failed to cite so much as a single saint other than Aquinas (whom others rightly point out that he brazenly distorts) to support his bold-faced lie that, "the embryo is just not a real human person, man philosophers, theologians, and saints agree".

Apparently he doesn't consider Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II, Paul, Luke the Evangelist (and doctor), Augustine, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and a host of other witnesses too great to fully detail here to actually be saints. Whether Fathers of the Church from the earliest days to our most recent witnesses, the Church HAS consistently and overwhelmingly condemned abortion. The dignity and personhood of the baby from the moment of conception is affirmed in the Bible itself; in the Psalms, in the Second book of Maccabees (the mother and her seven sons), and in the Gospels (where we are told John the Baptist "leapt for joy in his mother's womb" when the newly pregnant Mary, "Mother of my Lord"--NOT "Mother of the Embryo that Might Become My Lord", visited Elizabeth).

As for the controversies surrounding Aquinas, he was a man of reason speculating on a matter that was very scientifically unclear at his time. Aquinas never claimed the infallibility Ergo Sum seems to want to force on him.

In that day Aristotle's mistaken theory of procreation was widely accepted. The Greek believed the life resided in the seed of the man, and the woman was merely the "pot" in which the life was grown. This mistaken, non-Christian theory was also why Aquinas considered masturbation worse than seeing a prostitute--if a man masturbated, it was believed the baby died, but at least if he visited a prostitute it might have the chance of continued life.

Who knows what new lie Ergo Sum will cook up to explain away this recognition of the dignity of life by Aquinas prior to "quickening"...

A quote by St. Basil the Great in particular refutes Ergo's attempt at claiming murder and abortion to be different: "The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. The hair-splitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us.”

Another resource for you: http://earlychristiansonabortion.blogspot.com/

"Is that pile of lumber in your yard, that is going to become a house ... already a house?" --Corpus

What an absurd analogy. The pile of lumber will not develop into a house no matter how long it is allowed to sit there. The embryo/baby will INEVITABLY reveal it's full humanity, unless artificially destroyed/interrupted.

If it's not a baby, Corpus, then the woman isn't pregnant--she can wait 9 months and she won't give birth. If she does, it is a human baby.

"Corpus":

Those who maintain that a certain level of development is the ticket to full humanity, should reflect on some of the company they unwittingly keep:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch

If the unborn are not human because of their level of development, then why stop with the unborn? When, in the history of humanity, those who believed their superiority, ever put limits on their ego maniacal fantasies?

Why not invent more categories of development (take a look at phrenology, or the so called "racial hygiene", as examples) to help decide who qualifies, and who does not, as a human being?

By the way, have you ever noticed that those prone to think along these lines always place themselves, and possibly their group, at the very top of the Darwinian pile? It gets crowded up there on occasion, but the ridiculousness of this "summit" somehow escapes their intellects.

These discredited and vile patterns of thought should remain in the past. Today, we should all welcome the unborn to the family circle. Help us, "Corpus", build a more humane and inclusive future.

The fact is that the more sensible elements of the Church follow Jesus. And even kill persons of other religions. As in the case when say, a Catholic hospital refuses to perform an emergency abortion, even when it is necessary ...

Although I am no lover of bishops, on this they are correct.

But what appalls me is that the Federal government is mandating ANYONE to pay for special treatment for any favored group, in this case women. Leviathan indeed.