How the worm turns.
Perhaps that isn’t the best way to start, perhaps it isn’t
fair, but I find it so very ironic that the U.S. Conference of Bishops is
having a fast/vigil for the sake of religious freedom. Wasn’t the Roman
Catholic Church the very institution that argued, fought, died, and killed so
that countries would be only Catholic (like Spain, France, Italy, and other
places). It was Catholicism (along with others) who argued that the crazy
American experiment of separation between church and state would be dangerous
because then people would be running around in loincloths kissing trees,
shaking hands with monkeys, and treating indigenous people with respect. The
representatives of this very institution is now crying out that it’s religious
liberty is under attack. Maybe that isn’t very fair. It has not been a long
time since those days of religious conquest, 200 years. In the scope of 2,000
years that is not a long time.
Catholicism did not embrace religious liberty quickly. It
was only in the 1960s when John Courtney Murry (a Jesuit) was the sittingexpert in Vatican II for matters of Religious Liberty and was very instrumental
in penning Dignitatis Humanae. Even then his ideas were not well liked by many
in the hierarchy.
John F. Kennedy had to convince the American people that if
elected president he would not be a puppet for the Pope (a Pope Puppet… buy it
now!).
Roman Catholicism does not have a long, rich, history of
being involved with religious liberty. Now the U.S. bishops are crying
oppression and I would argue that they are crying foul wrongly. Yet maybe
because they are still new with this religious liberty thing they can be
understood for their errors.
This issue is over a health care mandate requiring employers
to offer coverage for contraception and other sexual things – gasp! Note, the
issue is not coverage for Viagra or any other ED drug but those things that the
woman would use. They are hard and fast about this (pun intended).
Ok, the Bishops don’t like talking or thinking about lady
parts and don’t want to cover those things with insurance (and they are
following the bizarre encyclical Humanae vitae). Even though Catholic
institutions stand in the pernicious place of being both a secular and
religious institution, muddying up the issue, the Obama administration
compromised. They offered to change the mandate for religious institutions and
instead require that the insurance companies offer the coverage. Still the
Bishops cry out that they are oppressed.
No, they aren’t. They do not have to cover the icky stuff
any more so there is not any infringement of religious freedom. On the other
hand, if Catholic institutions were to restrict women’s access to birth control
and such then we do have an issue of oppression. Yet in this case it is the
Church oppressing the individual. We would have a lack of freedom from
religion.
Again, they are new at this so I can understand the Bishop’s
confusion and misunderstanding of religious freedom under the disestablishment
clause. However, if they are the ones who are supposed to be telling everyone
else what to do, what to think, and how to pray, then perhaps they should take
a moment, step off the politically shaped conservative platform, and try to
reclaim what it means to be a religious institution.
It is a good thing not all American Catholics are as
misguided as the USCB and that the Bishops do not speak for all Catholics in
America. Right?
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