Both Congress and the media are focusing a good deal of attention on the “fiscal cliff,” as if it were the only item on the public agenda.
Because news cycles are ever faster and our attention span is ever smaller, perhaps now would be an appropriate time to revisit the HHS mandate.
This is the requirement that health care include provisions for female surgical sterilizations, drugs and devices for preventing pregnancy including abortion — drugs, as well as “counseling and education” to promote these to all females of child-bearing years. This is an issue that simply won’t go away.
Similar to Roe v. Wade, a determined group of Americans keeps this issue before the American people, no doubt to the chagrin, annoyance and frustration of so-called “Progressives.”
Leading the charge in this effort and persistently reminding the American people of this issue is the American Catholic hierarchy. And this can trigger a certain amount of anti-Catholic bias.
Some anti-Catholic prejudices spring from the misdeeds of a small number of the clergy and their superiors in the area of sexual abuse of children and its cover up. To the extent that guilt exists, it’s appropriate that the guilty be removed and punished.
But some use these crimes as a very wide brush to paint the entire Catholic Church. It would be as if American history were evaluated solely on the basis of activities of southern slave owners, Benedict Arnold, the Ku Klux Klan and Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Other areas of misunderstanding include the perception that the Church is intruding on the private lives of citizens. “Keep out of my bedroom” seems to be the catch phrase.
But what’s forgotten — or largely ignored — is the government’s heavy-handed health care mandate that also intrudes on peoples’ lives.
By requiring adherence to policies that deeply offend the religious teachings of many of its citizens, the government is intruding in their conscience, which for many is as intimate and off-limits as their bedrooms.
Another area of misunderstanding involves the teachers of Church doctrine. Some object to celibate Catholic males speaking on sexual ethics.
But a person’s station or status in life should have no bearing on the message he or she conveys. If this were not true, parents could never learn from their children and a physician would have to personally contract a disease in order to know the proper treatment.
Misunderstanding of the church may be due to the difference in the roles of the clergy and the laity. One of the tasks of a Catholic bishop is to teach. Indeed, they are viewed as the authentic teachers in the Church in faith and morals.
The role of the laity is to bring these teachings into the public square, be it the farm, campus, office or factory floor.
In the past half-century, the role of the laity has been expanded and transformed. No longer are we expected to quietly sit in the church pew for one hour per week and then return home as if nothing had ever occurred.
Still, other misunderstandings of the Church may be due to a misinterpretation of its role. The Catholic Church is not primarily a social welfare organization.
Although the Church invented the university and the hospital as is conceived in Western society today, the primary job of the Church is to bring its message to the individual.
A change in the heart and mind of the person is the primary task.
There has and always will be a certain amount of ill will toward the Catholic Church. If that’s due to its teachings and positions taken in the areas of protecting the dignity of all people, then it should be welcomed.
It’s an indication that the Church is fulfilling its mission.
The Church should truly be counter-cultural.
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