Creighton Abrams, arguably America’s best general in recent history, was an uncommon man. A biographer said that “he touched those who came to know him in a way they valued and would never forget.” It’s easy to see why. He led by example. He embodied the virtues of courage, honesty, dedication to mission, personal humility and unfailing fidelity to his wife and six children over a marriage of 38 years.
Abrams never degraded his opponents. He never demeaned himself by demeaning others. He lived by the highest ethical standards, and he demanded the same from the people around him. One of his favorite sayings was “Never wrestle with pigs: You get dirty, and the pigs love it.”
Those words came back to me this past week. The trigger was the fierce public debate over the Obama administration’s misleading February 10 “compromise” on a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. The original HHS mandate, announced on January 20, would have forced nearly all Catholic institutions, organizations and private employers to provide contraception and abortifacients as part of their health coverage.
As many Catholic legal scholars have observed: The February 10 “compromise” does not solve the problem. It continues, in its practical effect, to force faithful Catholic employers to violate their religious beliefs. In short, the HHS mandate is coercive and deeply troubling in its implications for the rights of conscience. Nor is this accidental. The administration, despite the good will it has enjoyed from many Catholics, has taken a path that it knows to be unnecessary and knows to be hostile to Catholic belief.
The contempt dumped on Catholic teaching in our mass media over the past few days of debate tells us quite a lot about our critics. It also underlines the need for fighting respectfully but vigorously for what we believe. When a columnist in a major news daily claims, for example, that “The Catholic Church basically endorses one form of birth control, the rhythm method, which is contraception for stupid people,” we can learn two things: Neither accuracy nor civility matters when it comes to demeaning how faithful Catholics try to live their lives. In the task of pushing birth control, sneering is fully licensed.
Of course, people are free to join or leave the Catholic community. They’re free to criticize Catholic belief in any way they choose. But they’re not free to force Catholic institutions, organizations and individual employers into violating their religious convictions. They’re not free to mislead the public about a flawed and dangerous HHS mandate. And they’re not free to ignore the concerns of Catholic citizens who are rightly angry about the current administration’s indifference to religious freedom and the rights of conscience.
A friend of Creighton Abrams once said that, despite his humility and mastery of self, when it came to matters of principle, he “could inspire aggressiveness in a begonia.” It’s an interesting line. The Christian life does not need aggression. It doesn’t return hatred with more hatred. Living the Gospel depends on virtues like justice, charity and mercy. But it also depends on courage. It does require fortitude. And that means a great many Catholics need to wake up and take a hard look at what’s happening to our country. They may not like what they see. They shouldn’t like what they see. And if they don’t, they need to fight — without apologies — to turn things toward the good.
The current HHS mandate is not a real “compromise.” It’s bad law with very dangerous implications. It needs to be rescinded, and it doesn’t matter how ugly or deceptive our critics choose to be. I ask every Catholic who reads these words and takes his or her faith seriously, to please contact your U.S. senators and representative. Do it today. Press them to rescind this destructive HHS mandate.
I know: We all have so many issues that compete for our daily attention. We’re often tempted to ignore the whole lot.
But this one is urgent. This one really matters.
Please visit the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference website at http://www.pacatholic.org to learn how to contact your federal Representative and Senators.
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I will contact my senators and representatives concerning this problem but with all due respect, when you pick and choose your personal pet peeve to remove from the leviathan that spawned this problem, then you are ignoring the truth of the situation we are all facing. The platform this administration is basing its motivations and launching its assaults upon this society is the pig stye you choose to ignore and so you have failed to lead your flock and cleanse it of the slop infesting your religious and moral wellbeing. Show some backbone and as President Obama has so often said, “make this perfectly clear.” To vote for this administration is a sin.
Please start at the beginning. OB abortion care was illegally implemented by force, bribery and coercion. Remember Elvira Pelosi having the audacity to state, “you’ll have to pass the bill in order to see what is in it”. It is also being challenged in the court as unconstitutional. OB has trampled on the U.S. Constitution from day one and circumvented Congress with his czar appointments. His government spending on steroids will soon bankrupt us. Don’t dignify this abomination with compromise. “Hello calling all Catholics”, Nov. 2012 is your last chance to get it RIGHT. You have a puppy dictator in the making. All your chickens since Teddy Kennedy are all “coming home to roost”. Vote CATHOLIC NOW not CINO or start shopping for prayer rugs and front row seating in the re-education camps.
Michelle, I deeply resent your attitude towards contraception. The old birth control pill did prevent contraception. It also caused blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, etc., to such an unacceptable degree that it was eventually taken off the market, even though to this day its proponents do not like to admit that it was so dangerous.
The new “mini-pill” is just as bad. It not only does not prevent conception, but it prevents implantation of the fetus, and/or continuation of the pregnancy. So, it is a true abortion pill. It also causes all of the problems with the old pill, and has been specifically decried by the World Health Organization (no friend of the Roman Catholic Church) as a Class 1 carcinogen, implicated in breast cancer and all sorts of other cancers. The amount of birth control hormones in water (drinking water, ground water, lake and river water) is now so high that various health problems, birth defects, etc., have been specifically linked to it over and over again.
Yet, we are told that this human pesticide (and worse) is simply a matter of preference, and MUST be made available to all, whether one has principles against exterminating live human infants in the womb with no more compunction than if they were cockroaches walking across the kitchen floor. And, that those who do insist on not being forced to become parties to this evil are themselves evil!?
I don’t know where you are coming from, but after having had my life almost completely ruined by an early acceptance of the Culture of Death, i deeply resent your hypocritical assertions that this is not all that important, etc., etc. This is of paramount importance.
Here’s a great speech by Patrick Henry when he got tired of petitioning the king http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNKoKTyNGUI
Time for Catholics to start acting like Catholics maybe we have become lukewarm b/c nobody has persecuted us? Time to re-ignite that fire!
As an LCMS Lutheran (one who takes Martin Luther’s words on the evil of contraception seriously) I support you wholeheartedly and I pray that the Lord will give you and your fellow bishops wisdom, strength and courage to face the evil that is ahead. Know that the Lord is with you and that His Truth shall triumph over the Devil and his angels and agents!!!!
First, it is nonsense to make this an issue of birth control accessibility. Contraceptives are already at the point of total market saturation. You can ”access” them for *free* at the County Health Department, the University Student Wellness Center, and Gay Men’s Park ‘n’ Spark, and for about the cost of a Hershey bar at every Wal-Mart, every Food City, every truck-stop and every Bubba’s Beer and Bait. They couldn’t be more accessible if they bagged them up with the M&M’s.
I’s not all “about Birth Control”. For one thing, because the endocrine disruptors that are on offer— “Ella” and “Plan B” — are not contraceptives, they are abortion drugs.
And for another thing, it’s not about Birth Control because it’s about Total Control.
It’s about the government’s ability to force anybody to do anything at any time, regardless of religious and moral truths, regardless of conscience, regardless of life-or-death considerations, and in fact regardless of Constitutional law.
There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says the government can dictate to our churches, run our businesses, install itself as the master of our bodies and souls, and distribute abortion drugs from sea to shining sea.
The good news is that a lot of people aren’t buying it. For instance some of the Baptists and Lutherans who testified yesterday before Congress, have said that rather than cooperate with this trampling of religious liberty and the right to life, they’d go to jail.
Get ready.
Wendell
Your comment: “If someone claims to be a faithful Catholic yet dissents from Church teaching, then they are part of the problem facing American society.”
Do you actually believe that those Catholics who dissent from Church teaching are part of the “problem” facing American society? What problem are you referring to?
“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel, between Christ and Antichrist. The confrontation lies within the plans of Divine Providence. It is therefore, in God’s Plan, and it must be a trial which the Church must take up, and face courageously…”
Cardinal Karol Wotyla, 1976
Along the above lines…
“But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea…For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that one by whom the scandal comes.”
– Jesus Christ
If I believe contraception to be immoral, and you force me to pay for your contraception, you have wronged me by forcing me to violate my conscience. If you force me to drive you to the store to by contraceptives, you have forced me to violate my conscience. If you force me to facilitate in any way what I believe to be wrong, you force me to violate my conscience. You certainly have a right to your own opinion, and I will not force my opinion upon you, but you cannot force me to violate my conscience. I have not asked you to violate yours.
But no one is forcing anyone to pay for or facilitate getting anyone else contraception. It is just not happening. The point was made by the Bishops and they succeeded. No one should ever force you or anyone to violate their conscience.
I would like to add that I am learning a lot and am respectful of all your opinions, whether or not they are the same as mine.
I am happy to speak to those that are being kind, however, Darrell, that was below the belt and not very Christ like. I do not support abortion. I do not use contraception. I do not promote it’s use to Catholics. With that being said, there is NO scientific evidence that hormonal methods of birth control can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. Even the pro-life movement’s most respected physicians cautioned about making these claims. Those physicians–who define pregnancy as beginning at fertilization– released an open letter to community stating: “Recently, some special interest groups have claimed, without providing any scientific rationale, that some methods of contraception may have an abortifacient effect…The ‘hormonal contraception is abortifacient’ theory is not established fact. It is speculation, and the discussion presented here suggests it is error…if a family, weighing all the factors affecting their own circumstances, decides to use this modality, we are confident that they are not using an abortifacient.” Being Catholic, this is not a modality I would use, however to force others, who are not Catholic to adhere to our teachings is wrong. And to do so by falsely claiming that birth control is an abortifacient is wrong. Again, no one is forcing the Church to pay for birth control or abortions. I still submit that there are more important fights.
You’re wrong.
Michele, I think you are confusing contraception with the pill for rape victims. It sometimes works by blocking ovulation, most of the time (because the woman is not pregnant) does nothing except flooding her system with hormones, and there is some evidence, disputed as you say, that it can interfere with implantation.
You are misinformed. You need to do some research from reliable sources. But please focus your good energies toward this argument on what this actually is about — religious freedom — and how the mandate is trying to strip us Catholics of ours.
Thank you for your courage, clear voice and leadership in this matter. I’m sorry you have to endure those who 1) use this forum to try to change the subject instead of addressing their very real concerns in an appropriate place (Michael Skiendzielewski, Michelle) or those who continue to obtusely refuse to accept the teachings of the Church and its implications (Michelle). They have my prayers.
Michelle,
The point you are neglecting is the fact that “the pill” is also an abortifacient. So it does not always prevent conception. It often causes the death of the baby. Again this is a human being completely innocent, yet killed.
But I suppose as long as the homeless are being fed, you’re okay with it. Odd priorities.
Let’s make this clear. The issue is not just contraception. Many of these agents cause abortion as well. The work by destroying the already conceived human embryo, which is of course a human being. A new human being, ut a human being nonetheless. Imagien the situation of not the institutional Church, but a fellow Catholic who agrees with the Church that abortifacient drugs are seriously immoral. Let us imagine they own a business. Why is it fair to compel this individual to pay for something they see as sinful? The question that ask would we not force a Jehovah’s Witness to pay for blood transfusions is flawed on several levels. The most obvious is we should not! If you are so unhappy with the insurance that an empoyer offers, well then you ahe the option of not working for them. In any case contraceptives are cheap and readily available. This does not need to be covered by insurance at the expense of forcing those whose consciences would be violated to pay for it. Even if you do not believe the teaching have we become so self-centered that the only thing that matters is there be no co-pay for the birth control pills. IS this what we have become?
I have already done as the Archbishop has asked. I would urge others to as well. Every single United States Bishop has spoken out against this. Even non Catholics who disagree with the Church position on birth control have sided with the Bishops because of the attack on religious freedom this represents. Please there are some of us who are employers, who believe what the Church teaches, and this mandate infringes on us. We are not stopping anyone else from doing what the Church says is sinful, but must we be made to pay for it?
@ LG – “Currently, Catholics (sic) institutions cover this procedure (vasectomy) 100%.” And your proof is?
And, for those who are willingly or out of carelessness attempting to obfuscate the issue by straying off topic, you might take a step back and re-read the Archbishop’s piece.
If religious freedoms are manipulated by the state, then the state can determine or eliminate any inalienable right. And then, where would we be?
Thank goodness we have great bishops such as Chaput defending these truths which we hold to be self evident because, apparently, certain people in the White House don’t accept that religious freedom is a self evident right.
If someone claims to be a faithful Catholic yet dissents from Church teaching, then they are part of the problem facing American society.
Dear AB Chaput: A thousand thanks for your continuing leadership regarding not only this issue but the importance of all the faithful to be engaged w/the political sphere, e.g. your great book of 2008, “Render to Caesar” which is now in paperback after 12-14 hardback editions which have gone viral worldwide. You continue to inspire w/your great love of our Catholic Church & faith as well as of our nation. A nation which took roots from your own Native Indian heritage which is deeply spiritual and immensely cognizant of the Creator God. How I wish that you were among those receiving the “Red Hat” in Rome at this time. I pray that you are among the next to be so honored and called to advise the Holy Father.
Sam,
Many hope with you to witness the elevation of Abp. Chaput to the College of Cardinals. However, Philly has their one voting Cardinal. Hoping for long life and good health to C. Rigali past the age of 80, it is at that time Abp. Chaput could be elevated.
God bless!
Dear Archbishop,
Why isn’t the US Catholic Conference fighting against coverage of vasectomies? The sole purpose of vasectomies is for contraception, why is this procedure never discussed? Currently, Catholics institutions cover this procedure 100%.
Thank you.
Actually, vasectomies are included in the HHS mandate – they are a form of sterilization which is a procedure, whether for men or women, that is considered “contraceptive.”
Of course, vasectomy and tube-tying are actually a mutilation of an otherwise healthily functioning body system. Entirely elective, and certainly not preventative of any “disease.”
Greetings & Blessings Archbishop,
I cannot thank you enough for your continued outcry against this mandate in communion with your brother bishops & our faith. Please know that your example is inspiring, just as the Apostles inspired the Early Church, so do you inspire your flock. Be assured of my prayers, and my family’s prayers and God bless you!
DEAR ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT, THANK YOU FOR USING YOUR OWN EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY TO INSPIRE IN THIS CRISIS. WE ARE WITH YOU AND ALL OF OUR BISHOPS . . . THIS IS TRUTH, THIS IS PRINCIPLE, THIS IS TIME FOR THE GREATEST EVER CHRISTIAN UNITY. MAY ALL OF THE BEGONIAS AMONG US BECOME AGGRESSIVE IN OUR EFFORTS TO DEFEND OUR FAITH . . . TO DEFEND LIFE . . . TO DEFEND OUR LIBERTIES . . . ALL OF WHICH ARE IN JEOPARDY! MAY OUR PRAYERS BE HEARD BY GOD AND UNIFIED VOICES BE HEARD BY THOSE WHO MOST NEED TO HEAR THEM. BLESSED TO BE WITH YOU ON THE FRONT LINES . . .
Father, with all due respect and honors, I have many questions regarding your and the Bishops fight over this issue. As a woman and mother raised in the Catholic Church, I have been told that using contraception is forbidden. Why can’t Catholic institutions provide healthcare insurance that includes contraception? They are not forcing us to use it and those that choose not to follow the Churches teachings have that right. Just as a Jehovah’s Witness organization can not opt out of providing health insurance for blood transfusions and a Muslim organization can not opt out of providing health insurance to women who are needing treatment from a male doctor when they are menstruating, why must we waist time, effort and money to make our demands met? I know personally that I have many more concerns besides what happens in the bedrooms of others, who may or may not be using contraception. If it is forbidden to Catholics, than why must we make it forbidden to those who choose not to follow the Faith? I believe that President Obama has provided a solution, let’s take it and move on.
The misunderstanding here is that we are forcing the hand of someone else to follow the teachings of Holy Mother Church.
We are not.
We simply ask that we are not forced to provide the weapon to murder the innocent.
Whether they are Catholic or not is irrelevant to the Church, it is the forcing of the governments belief that it is okay to slaughter children by the bucketfuls that the church objects to. They want the church to provide a method for destroying Gods creation. They want us to interfere with Gods plan for humanity.
The church and its faithful will not stand still for that.
Neither will God.
Tzedek, This is not abortion, it is contraception. It is not murder if the life did not even begin. They are not asking for the Church to “provide a method for destroying God’s creation.” Since the compromise, they are not even asking the Church to provide funding for the part of the health insurance that would cover contraception. The point was taken by the Obama administration and they compromised. We have no fight here, it is over. There are so many other good fights the Church can focus on. Politics should not be in the forefront: Social services should, Schools should, Protecting children (not only the unborn, but the ones right here) should, Eradicating sexual abuse from our society should, Feeding the homeless should…. I could go on, but I believe the point is taken.
I believe artificial contraception is a rejection of God’s Will (though, I can’t remember which catechism # that is), and that is why the Church forbids it.
Greetings and prayers for Archbishop Chaput and the Church in the USA, from Toronto, Canada.
Michelle,
Some of the contraceptives are abortifacient–and all of them are considered intrinsically evil if used to block the genuine expression of human marital love. I understand that a ‘compromise’ was supposedly offered–but it did nothing to change the intrinsically offensive nature of contraceptives to Catholics, or to avoid the fact that these very violations of Catholic conscience, would be provided under a plan purchased and perpetuated by Catholics. The only compromise was one which was basically insulting Catholics–the idea that they were only concerned because of the money, or simply wanted to SEEM as if they were not responsible, while remaining just as responsible as everyone else. It refused utterly to take into account that contraceptives and sterilization coverage is being forced pan-America on all peoples via insurance plans, whatever their consciences say.
The reason Catholics should not have to pay for contraceptives (or rather for plans that necessarily include them) is the same reason that Americans of conscience should not have to use tax money from everyone to pay for abortions (or coverages that include them)–the point is not only the violation of human dignity that is involved in abortion, or in contraception as learned through Catholic teaching, but also the violation of human conscience.
I guess one could compare it to making a Hindu buy a national health-plan that provided beef for everybody else, but didn’t require them to actually butcher or eat the cow themselves. It would still go against everything they believed, and be an insult against them to ask or attempt to force them to countenance or sign up for it.
Michelle in some cases it is. Some of the contraceptive drugs are abortifacients. That means instead of preventing conception they prevent the embryo from implanting in the uterus.
Michelle, contraceptive pills and implants, and the IUD, can cause abortion by preventing the implantation of a child that is conceived, causing his/her death. One “morning after pill”, ella, is actually a close analogue of the abortion drug RU-486. So, these are actually means of abortion, regardless of what some people claim. That isn’t the sole reason why they’re so gravely immoral that we shouldn’t provide them, though. Use of birth control, having relations but refusing to be open to new life that would naturally result, perverts sexual love and not only tempts many to adultery or fornication, but trains us in selfishness even to the point of many being willing to kill a child by direct abortion if the birth control should fail; ultimately it is very bad for women, for men, for children and for society. We should never be willingly facilitating others to commit mortal sin.
Michelle,
“Why can’t Catholic institutions provide healthcare insurance that includes contraception?”
1. Because contraception (against life) is not healthcare, it is the opposite. 2. Since the time of the Didache, Christians were forbidden to engage in contraceptives because it goes against life, the dignity of the human person, the transmission of life within marriage, and it is a grave sin. Why should the Church that sees contraceptives as sinful provide for them in their health care insurances? How does that make sense to you?
Michelle, I must also remind you that until 1930 the entire Christian world held the same position as the Roman Catholic Church regarding the sinfulness of contraception. The Seventh Anglican Lambeth Conference “voted” to get rid of contraception as a sin and all the Christian denominations followed the bad example of Anglicanism, except the Roman Catholic Church under Pius XI who said, “the truth is not revealed to us by majority vote but by God!”
Michelle – the Catholic Church isn’t saying that they wish to deny someone from purchasing and using birth control, abortion inducing drugs and sterilization. Anyone – including Catholics – is truly ‘free’ to purchase these products and services (though it goes against Church teaching for Catholics to do so). The issue here is that organizations AND individuals will all be forced to PAY for these products (regardless of whether they use them or not). By the HHS logic of ‘cost savings’ by providing them for free (paid for based in the premiums provided by organizations and individuals who find them morally objectionable) , one would expect that next we will be mandated to purchase food at the grocery store that fits perfectly the nutritional pyramid model before being allowed to purchase ‘treats’. After all, obesity costs the US 147b per year in health care costs – so wouldn’t that be a ‘cost savings’? After all, you wouldn’t be required to eat the food you purchase from a private organization with your private money, you’d just have to pay for it. Do you see how this is exactly the same? No one is saying that anyone should be prohibited from purchasing these products, they are just saying that those who find them morally objectionable should not be forced to buy them. If the government said that the good of the country required you to pay for a Chevy Volt – but you didn’t want a Volt – should they be allowed to force you to purchase one? One more point – the Amish are entirely exempt from purchasing ANY health care because if their beliefs and it has been suggested that Muslims, too, may be eligible for exemption entirely. So isn’t this also then a form of religious discrimination? Food for thought.
Michelle,
Please try to view these videos. They are long and I hope they don’t end up being a waste of your time.
http://www.realcatholictv.com/contraception/
I would like to set a few points straight on our common Catholic faith and what we believe in.
The teachings of the Church aren’t something you pick and choose from. Contraception is a grave mortal sin. There isn’t a choice here. Catholicism is a whole. You either accept the whole or you don’t. We don’t get to be selective about what we choose to believe in.
The Church’s teaching on Contraception (see above videos for the long explanation) has been consistent and insistent since the beginning. Please also refer to Humanae Vitaie and Theology of the body for a better understanding.
There isn’t a choice here. The discussion on Abortifacients and such … we don’t even need to go there. Contraception in and of itself is (I repeat) a grave and mortal sin. Period.
As for the current issue with the HHS Mandate.
As many others have pointed out, several of our Catholic Institutions are self-insured. Someone else may do the paperwork, but ultimately, the payment for the coverage comes from the Institution. In those cases the so called “compromise” simply doesn’t work. See http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2846156/posts for a response from Cardinal Wuerl on this “compromise”.
Now finally for the simply Un-American and Unconstitutional nature of this mandate, please refer to Fr. Robert Barron’s comments on this at http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Fr-Barron-comments-on-the-HHS-Mandate.aspx
Finally note that you don’t provide for someone’s rights and freedom by depriving someone else’s freedom and rights. That doesn’t work.
Here’s the first amendment as a reminder …
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”
As Catholics and as Americans we have absolutely no choice in this matter. We cannot back down on this. Shame on us if we do.
In Christ
An Anonymous Fool
“…But this one is urgent. This one really matters…”
Archbishop, would this issue be as urgent as the protection of the children in PA? Where is the PA Catholic Conference’s support for HB 832 and 878 which would help identify sexual predators and assist in the protection of ALL children thoughout the Commonwealth.
All would agree that regarding our children……”this one really matters.”
Thank You Michael. Also, Senator Andy Dinniman’s Senate Bill 1392 (similar to House bill 878) is in the senate’s judiciary committee. It deserves the Bishop’s support. It is for victims to receive justice and to identify predators, so they can not harm again.
We all do agree regarding our children.
To the faithful abortion is the murder of children and the methods used in birth control cause the uterine wall to slough off even when the baby is resting in the womb.
That is abortion using abortifacients to kill a child.
So yes, it is urgent to us. We are trying to stop the government from forcing the Church to assist in the slaughter of the innocent.
I am glad we are in agreement about how we view the safety of our children because “this one really matters”.
Perhaps you missed Archbishop Chaput’s first letter, upon being assigned to Philly.
He is addressing the sexual allegations very aggressively.
The legislation you cite may be closer to “Guilty until proven innocent” than either the Constitution or Church legal process provides for.
The letter I reference is available if you’re really interested in understanding.