Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!
Because I cannot square allowing for or promoting the perpetual acceptance of killing the unborn as a viable option, whether for grave or shallow reasons, (and with 50 million killed, some were grave, and some were shallow to be sure) I cannot vote for this president, ever. I must be at odds. His party may offer kind good words, but they also offer it on the backs of millions of innocent lives. Not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, millions.
This does not mean I go rah rah GOP, GOP is the place for me, because the Republicans have time after time given lip service to being pro life, rather than affirmatively address it, just as surely as they pay lip service to a balanced budget, to living under the rules that Congress passes, and lower taxes. The only conviction I believe is that every single one of them wants to get reelected. Now that, I do believe.
I don't know about you, but our government seems to every day find new things that it cannot live without and thus demand that we pay more and do without ourselves. I do not approve of torture or drone strikes or never ending aggression towards those we can decide upon a whim to put on a watch list or declare part of the war on terror. So I don't trust our government or the bureaucracies that weather every election. I don't trust that the policies advanced and financed so thoroughly shall evaporate over night if a different president takes office.
I worry that unless this mandate is dismantled utterly, the tentacles of Planned Parenthood will continue to exist to poison this land and whoever is leading it.
This will all try to continue to stand under the guise of women's health, because apparently, we can't solve any problems or help anyone if we don't provide free birth control and unlimited abortion first and foremost and always.
It's not true.
So every election is a bit of a problem for me, Whose's side are you on?
Side? I am on nobody's side, because Nobody is on my side.
Perhaps the President thought by signing into law a 2000 page monstrosity that included funding of abortion and by making it mandatory to provide contraception via insurance, making every Catholic culpable in the act of providing abortion and birth control and sterilization, it could erode our souls.
It very well could.
If we failed to respond, if we stayed asleep, everyone by their own actions unless they opted to go to jail by refusing to pay taxes, would become pro-choice. Even if we prayed by the clinics and offered to adopt, even if we did fasting and rosaries, by remaining loyal citizens and doing right by Caesar, we would be culpable of enabling evil. How could we be pro-life when we paid and voted into office those who promoted and funded the perpetuation of this evil forever. Eventually, we'd despair and quit and whimper away.
But there were some that resisted. And even the sleepy trees united when they saw what destruction would come from this policy. (It takes a lot to wake up an Ent...even more to move the President of a major Catholic University).
I may be shire folk, but I'm feeling rather Entish about all this. And seeing the 43 intuitions/organizations and Universities file a lawsuit to me is rather like the Ents going to War.
So today I'm proud of the University of Notre Dame again. I'm hoping Saint Mary's College finds her voice to speak too and Boston College and all the other places that came into being because they were Catholic, not because they were universities, but because they were Catholic.
As a hobbit in this battle, I'm stocking up on rocks.
Today I'm going to irritate everyone. I'm going to talk about politics AND religion.
The media would have us believe there are no women opposed to the HHS policy. It's a harder lie to sell than usual because most of us actually KNOW someone who is opposed to the HHS policy and some of those people we know are female. But they keep stumping it.
So I'm putting up today some links to good reads which 1) lay out what the HHS policy is and 2) lay out what the Church's position is not (a religious attempt to impose a theocracy). As far as I know, even the day before the HHS policy was imposed, artificial birth control was cheap, legal and available. To hear the screechings of those in favor of this gross overreach of the government, you'ld think a tsunami of babies was threatening to flood the streets and drown all the women if the Federal Health and Human Services hadn't stepped in to save the day.
Michael Novak lays it out nicely here.
Archbishop Chaput as usual is speaking strong truth with charity.
and Deacon Bickerstaff outlines a good course of action here.
The power to by executive/bureaucratic mandate determine the extent to which we MAY practice our beliefs (where they stop binding us), is a direct threat to our religious liberty and anyone who thinks this is the limit, is wilfully blind, deliberately obtuse, wants this curbing of religious expression to assuage their own unwillingness to live out their faith life or is just a partisan hack.
Yes. I'm angry today.
Why?
Because I do see the assaults on all sides. When Komen decided simply not to continue to award grants to Planned Parenthood because it was under Federal investigation for not reporting sex trafficking, statutory rapes and having unsafe conditions for medical procedures (which go unpoliced and unchecked as a benefit of being protected by one political party that sees abortion so necessary and so noble as to warrant no scrutiny whatsoever), Planned Parenthood squealed like a stuck pig.
I'd say a stuck fetus but they wouldn't acknowledge the reality of such pain.
They were going to loose a whopping .058 % of their budget --and they went postal. Komen jumped back into line. Message to other corporations received. Don't cut our funding or we will destroy you online. All the good you've done for 30 years doesn't count for squat.
The same was done to Catholic Charities. You've helped with adoptions for years. You've done loads of good, feeding the poor, helping the homeless, you've been a living breathing outreach of the beatitudes, faith in action in all the communities. Drop your opposition to gay adoptions or you're gone. Some of the Catholic Charities --Massachusetts and Illinois, were gone. Other places weighed what they do, and bowed their heads and said, "By your command." I know they still do good, but the state forcing an organization to surrender one tenet they hold dear, can force another. Catholic Health Association is only too happy to dispense birth control, sterilization and abortion drugs, now that it's mandatory.
At some point, when you keep surrendering values, you cease to have them.
And that I suspect is the point, to swap faith for politics and make our Government our God. All knowing, all encompassing, all reaching...infinite in appetite and control...but it does not love us.
To the "Oh, you're overreacting." crowd. I present the following link: Humanae Vitae Prophetic.
Also the Guttenmacher Institute's helpful memo: (Emphasis mine). "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, drawing on these recommendations, requires new private health plans written on or after August 1, 2012 to cover contraceptive counseling and services and all FDA-approved methods without out-of-pocket costs to patients. However, existing plans are exempt from the requirement so long as no significant negative changes, such as cutting benefits or raising cost-sharing, are made to them; DHHS has said that most of these plans will likely lose this protected status within a few years. "
And then, there is the little noted (we must not speak of it) process of Same Sex marriage becoming the default new unspeakable of other than as good. Like Planned Parenthood, thuggery of thought abounds. (If you do not hail it for the benefactor it is to all of humanity, you are a close minded dope who hates poor people). So also, if you oppose same sex marriages for any reason, you are a bigot. Pure and simple.
Yesterday, Maryland legislature passed by the narrowest of margins, the "Civil Marriage Protection Act." Barring a change of conscience by the Governor himself, (O'Malley proposed it) Maryland will become the 8th state to decide marriage is a contract between two people regardless of gender, but with restrictions on inbreeding. I read the bill.
(No aunt/uncle/cousin/brother/mother/father/sister/son/daughter stuff is specified so we have some standards).
Given that there are already lawsuits and established precedents for the suing of businesses that refused service for gay couples seeking marriage, how long before the Church is hit on this front or simply Christians or Catholics who don't want to promote a sinful act via providing a venue? So far, the answer is the photographer gets sued, the B&B gets sued, anyone who speaks or even simply says "No." gets sued. Saying anything other than "Great, here's the contract." will get you sued. Saying anything other than "Why didn't we create this law sooner?" will be tantamount to hate speech.
I understand how hard it is to address, because really, rallying around "status quo" of over 2000 years seems goofy. Also, the forces in support of this proposition are well organized and have the media and the existing government power structures on their side. Just as abortion was rewritten by Roe vs. Wade by Judicial fiat, when state regulations made up a patchwork quilt of contradictory policies, so also a patchwork currently exists for Same sex marriages and those contradictions will inevitably be presented to the nine judges in DC.
The Full Faith and Credit of contracts across state lines will demand resolution at the Supreme Court. We can't avoid discussing it forever just to avoid being called names. By not thinking about this or addressing it, we're sputtering to come up with arguments because we haven't wanted to think about this. That constitutes a poor defense. We lose.
Even voting against such things in a referendum has been insufficient. Look at California. The law as expressed by the people's will was irrelevant to the state supreme court. Also Federal Government has refused to support the "In Defense of Marriage Act" that is on the books.
Everywhere, secular tyranny is on the march. It goes unacknowledged as such by those who agree with its policies or at the very least, think it won't affect them. But our capacity to live out or even acknowledge the tenets of our faith is being slowly boiled to death.
So consider writing a letter or contacting the Governor. He's Catholic and as such, might be moved by good apologetics or reasoned defense. At the very least, he'll have to knowingly decide to ignore his own faith to sign it.
An example from a new blogger on the block: The Paladin's Best Friend. Yes he sent it to the Governor. Yes he signed his real name. Go over. Say Hi. He's just starting up.
The thing is, I note a touch of discouragement and despair in the tone and tenor of the world right now. Those that voted for our current administration are frustrated and I think feel slightly shocked and betrayed that the promise held out, isn't. Those that are voting differently, aren't so enthused either. We've created this Leviathan of a government. We've created this Leviathan of debt. We've got all these intractable seemingly impossible problems and there doesn't seem to be an answer, or at least not an easy answer. Like stepping on the scale and knowing you must diet or opening a bill and knowing you must cut back expenses, everything seems earth shatteringly beyond our will, beyond our capacity, just beyond. We are struggling to summon the will.
There is not one institution of government that still holds our trust. There is too much money, too much bloat, too many back room smoke filled deals, too much favoritism, too much politics, too little truth, too many partisan hacks, too many moments of hurt and broken promises, personal failures, corruption and cover up for us to easily allow ourselves to hope that someone, anyone can par back the weeds, the mess, the massive piles of regulations and laws. Too many free fall shouting voices to be able to sift through the facts. We have all of the earth at our finger tips and it overwhelms. We cannot take in everything and thus long for a touch of peace, a touch of genuine quiet of the soul and that is the one thing not available via MasterCard, the government, the Internet or the world.
So we aren't hoping for much, we certainly aren't expecting or demanding much, because we don't think much can be done.
Still Gandalf himself knows, we shouldn't despair. "For even the wise cannot see all ends."
So the object is to press on. To do right. To speak bravely. To speak true. To speak from the heart. To pray for everyone and....if I may close with a different but equally favorite movie,
First, the Administration wants to utterly dictate the extent to which we practice our religion, that it be limited to our thoughts, not spoken, not lived out in the minutia of our lives.
The HSS mandate has upset a lot of people, a lot of Catholics, a lot of individuals on both sides of the political aisle. This is a good thing. We should be uncomfortable. Catholics are not supposed to be comfortable in a singular political party, we're supposed to call the Democrats to be champions of the unborn, and the Republicans to recognize the dignity of the poor that survive the womb. There isn't a party in which a Catholic should feel wholly comfortable, indeed, if one feels wholly comfortable inside a party, one is probably ignoring some tenet of one's Catholic faith. God didn't say "I favor the GOP or Jesus would be a Democrat." Man makes that affiliation to flatter himself and demean his political opponents and their followers. He is wrong in either case.
The protest against the HHS policy isn't just from the USCCB. Douglas Kmiec, who was one of the most prominent proponents of this Administration thinks this is a violation of religious liberty, Over 135 bishops in the US, a number of Imams, Episcopal and Orthodox clergy have expressed concern that this policy overreaches. Even Chris Matthews, hardly a Fox News sycophant for the GOP, felt deep concern at this federal policy.
While the Friday announcement of "accommodations" was supposed to make everything better and certainly there were sycophantic pundits and even Catholics willing to carry the water for this administration, sober judgement of the new/old HHS policy indicates that the administration is (as is typical of this administration), doubling down.
Not only will I not alter the policy in your favor, I will tighten the restrictions and speed up the process by which you must comply (6 months and all will provide free birth control --it's just the insurance will pay). So we're all morally free of blame because we're not buying it, we're just purchasing the Insurance. The Insurance is providing it....Free...like tortilla chips and salsa at the table. Calories consumed by those free chips still count. Providing the service is immoral. Relgious institutions and organizations have refused to purchase such plans that provided those services in the past because they don't want to provide such services period. They don't want to provide them as an added bonus feature! It was never about the money, it was always about the morality stupid!
It is coercion via government fiat. Obey or be destroyed. Bow willingly or be forced to kneel via heavy fines. Give out policies that provide free birth control, abortion drugs and perform sterilizations because we say so, or watch as we take over. Pay to play or go home.
In places where the religious exemption is narrow, (up to now) universities and school districts that wanted to hold true to the faith in their practice as an entity, gave extra money to allow individuals to purchase a prescription plan which would provide if necessary. That is the change. That self insured approach that would relegate the decision to the individual, has been removed. There is no out. If the government declares you must purchase a product you deem immoral, then purchase it you must or face swift steep fines. You can comply or we can drum you out of business. Hardly the actions of a free people, or of a government that respects the rights and liberties of a free people.
I have good friends who have told me, "Hey, what's the big deal? We already fund Planned Parenthood to the tune of 33 million to pass out birth control (or so we've been told), we already do this if we work for a secular business and pay into insurance." And I know the arguments, that we already pay for everything. If I go to a discount store, I'm exploiting cheap labor. If I buy pink ribbon yogurts, I'm supporting Planned Parenthood. If I work in a business that is non denominational and for whom this is not a morally troubling issue, my premiums also pay for products like birth control pills and sterilizations and abortions and Plan B's and RU486ing baby medications.
But this is different.
This is the government demanding that people pay for what they deem immoral and in violation of their conscience even if they are in the business of trying to live out their faith. That should matter, even if the violation isn't considered a big deal by some. We should protect the Amish and the Quakers and the small time churches that hold things dear we disagree with, just as surely as we should the mega churches and the Jews and Mormons and the Muslims and the Atheists and the Catholics. It is not okay for the government to dictate to a church or to people who take their faith seriously that they must violate their faith. The government cannot give dispensation from one's faith. The government cannot give us forgiveness for our sins or tell us what is and is not a sin. This is Caesar trying to render what is God's and demanding that we swear allegiance to Caesar first.
To those who say it makes no difference, it is a drop in the bucket, it is a nothing to get upset over issue:
We take stands all the time, not because they are popular or guaranteed to come out in our favor, but because we believe them to be important. If on occasion, we should boycott Starbucks or Coca-cola because as corporations they engage in practices we deem objectionable, (divestment for South Africa in the 80's was trendy as I recall, and now free trade and fair trade) then we know that sometimes simply speaking up changes the landscape, changes the argument, changes opinions, informs the public. The USCCB and others who spoke out, did so because the Government suddenly and abruptly demanded a new level of civil obedience that required religious disobedience. It was wrong. It still is wrong. It should be fought, regardless of how it plays out, because it is right to fight this ruling. It is right to say the Government should not be in the business of defining religion or the practice of religion or the limits of how one may conduct one's self in accordance with one's religion.
In this case, why would we talk about such things ever? They are personal private decisions, none of the Church's business. Stick to God and serving the poor and stuff like that. Catholics are not supposed to compartmentalize their faith and take it out for special occasions like Christmas and Easter
Our religion says God loves us as a father does his child. My dad cares what I read, what I think, what I do, what I don't do. God cares for me more than my dad does. I believe that this is so for everyone. God cares about how we conduct ourselves in all things, not simply if we serve the poor. He cares how much we love, He cares that we do even the littlest things with great love, and He cares if we enable sin when we could stop it.
We're not supposed to limit our love to when it is convenient or popular or publicly approved. We're supposed to be seamlessly Catholic. Ergo, we cannot stay silent and we cannot pretend that it doesn't affect our souls. Silence on moral issues invites presumed allowance, leading to greater demands for more silence. Even if 90+% of Catholics do not follow the teaching, it is still the teaching. Truth does not evaporate because a false argument is more popular, it is merely ignored.
But, as Galadriel says, "Some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost."
What we practice, what we say and what we do, what we do not say and what we do not do, defines us. What we allow, what we ignore, what we pretend isn't, and what we hope is, reveals who we are in our limited capacity to affect and understand the world. Dorthy Day understood that her actions of serving the poor stemmed from her love of Christ, and that the acts were a manifestation of her internal faith.
Likewise, Catholic hospitals are created from that same core, as are Catholic schools and Universities. They were founded by orders, they are designed to teach children with the faith, all of the subjects infused with the faith, and as such should not be considered somehow compartmentalized from the rest of one's faith. . Organizations that at their core and beginning and inspiration and purpose, are Catholic --revealing Catholicism via acts educating --University of Notre Dame, serving and living out the beatitudes --Catholic Charities for example, should not have to violate the source of their corporeal actions in order to be allowed to exist by the state. To my mind, this is secular puritanism and it is as unforgiving of non-believers as the Puritans ever were. Catholic Charities closed up their adoption agencies in Massachusetts because they were told to violate their religious beliefs in order to stay in the business.
But to the HHS point itself; So Catholics should just go along? Should just shrug their shoulders? At any point should Catholicism or the faithful say we won't do this? If not, then Sir Thomas Moore and all the Martyrs of the Church were the greatest bunch of saps ever. Imagine, standing up to the popular and powerful all for one's faith! They didn't do it all in one sweep, most of them started by simply speaking out or refusing to go along to get along. Their lives and writings often reveal a deep struggle to hold true which (if it is unnecessary), seems a fool's decision at best, if not the actions and thinkings of madly insane people. Ultimately, they had before them Christ and the State; Jesus and Caesar; the Church and the King. The saints chose one way. The same choice is before us now, perhaps not to the extent of martyrdom, but that makes any cowardice on our part all the more shameful. We don't fear the prospect of death as they did and still, we won't speak.
The thing is, we've (Catholics/the Church) often failed to stand up in the past and even now. We are still indited for those failures. We will always be held accountable for those failures. The Catholic Church and its body is supposed to be courageous, is supposed to speak out, is supposed to know right from wrong and always side with Christ, and to be luminous in its acts of mercy, it's daily business, its everything and all things. Because we are sinners, because we are fallen, we often give a dim reflection of what should be blinding light.
We're supposed to serve lavishly, give lavishly, hope lavishly, pray lavishly and love lavishly. We are often misers on this point with all of our gifts, burying them in the yard for fear of reprimand, for all sorts of reasons. We're called to recognize that we must not let ourselves be afraid, we must not be misers of our gifts, we must speak, we must act, and we must follow Christ first in all things. We're supposed to Be Catholics first, not Americans. We're supposed to be Catholics first, not Liberals or Conservatives. We're supposed to be Catholics first, not Republicans or Democrats. We're supposed to be Catholics first, last and always. Alas, we are fallen and often put those other labels first, when what we should do is speak "Friend" and enter.
Thanks for reading. I have taken a few hits lately for speaking out in the writing community. But as I said to another friend who disagreed, if we can't ever have a discussion about hard issues about which we disagree, then why do we bother talking? If we can't say what we think without being called names or calling names, we don't have an argument of ideas, we have a fight of emotions (See Beck and Olberman) --and that proves/improves nothing.
One last thing, to those who think the Bishops have no business speaking out because the Church in recent years has failed to be a good steward of its people; The Church, like her people, is an imperfect vessel. I see components of her beauty and I agonize when she is less than what she is called to be.
That we fail sometimes does not negate that we are right now. The Church is speaking with authority and truth. We must stand with her stewards and princes.
As for the rest of it, I have few answers. I recommend prayer and fasting and petitioning for intersessions from Blessed Pope John Paul the Great and Blessed Mother Teresa. They embody the whole of the Church, the male and the female, the call to deep prayer and evangelization and profound knowledge of the history and the Church and her teaching and her great wisdom, and the need to feed the hungry, the poor, nurse the sick and sell everything and follow Christ. Neither compromised their faith or their actions. They understood the deep mystery of suffering, both physical and spiritual, they got the hard reality of service and the need to sit at the feet of Christ in Adoration. We need the strength of both, the clarity of both, the wisdom of both, and the intercession of both.
We should be doing this anyway, but I'm asking for deep prayer not for the outcome of healing, health, wholeness for all. Lastly, we need to act.
Kathleen Sebelius declares that her policy mandating that all institutions and organizations provide for coverage of birth control and sterilization and abortifacient medications respects religion. It respects her religion. Kathleen is a practicing faithful Democrat.
I've been reading the defense of this policy that drew a swift and sure response from a body of people that normally don't agree on anything, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This policy declares that the government shall decide which tenets of your faith you may follow and which you must abandon. This policy declares that the government shall tell you the limits of how you shall practice your faith --i.e. you may decide for yourself it is morally wrong, but you must purchase it for your neighbor. If it is morally wrong in my eyes, then it is morally wrong for me to aid and albeit you in an action. This policy declares that it shall deem what is tolerated by the state. Nothing else is permitted. Think I overstate?
Does anyone believe if this is allowed to pass that we shall not be made to provide additional services we deem morally wrong after the election? Like actual abortion? We'll get the same smarmy worthy of a 6th grader line, Don't like an abortion, don't have one. But pay for someone else. That's like saying, don't like drunk drivers? Don't drive drunk. But pay for that chronic alcoholic's next round and hand him the keys.
Having read Sebelius's article in USAToday and others on Real Clear Politics, I wanted to do a bit of fact checking.
From Sebelius: "The religious exemption in the administration's rule is the same as the exemption in Oregon, New York and California. Of the 28 states that currently require contraception to be covered by insurance, eight have no religious exemption at all."
Note: That means 22 states don't require contraception to be covered by insurance and of the 28 that do, 20 have religious exemptions. 42 States don't demand religious organizations violate their core beliefs by purchasing products they deem immoral. That's a fairly solid majority of State policies you're overriding Kathleen via bureaucratic fiat. This is an argument for a sweeping new policy?
I started by wondering, what do the Church institutions in those 8 states do. Do they already violate their stated purpose and the Church's teachings? In some cases, regrettably, yes. And that was the nose of the camel. I began with New York, one of the three states mentioned by Sebelius.
Guess what?
"Indeed, New York passed the Women’s Health and Wellness Act in 2002, requiring health plans to cover contraception and other services aimed at women, including mammography, cervical cancer screenings and bone density exams.
The New York law, which has its own religious exemption, was upheld after several court challenges. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. At the time, church-related institutions were considering whether to drop prescription drug benefits as a way to circumvent the law."
There IS a religious exemption in New York. How inconvenient a truth. But it's limited. The Diocese of Syracuse schools uses self insurance to get around the prescription benefit issue and is exempt from the law itself.
On to California: Back in 2004, Catholic Charities lost a court case that went to the Supreme Court of California, where they were told they had to provide birth control to their employees in the state. The words of Mark Chopko, counsel to the USCCB at the time proved prophetic.
"This case has very, very long arms," said Mark Chopko, counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which filed a court brief in support of Catholic Charities. It raises the question, he said, of "who gets to say what's a religious organization: the religious organization or the government?"
Here, is where the HHS draws its inspiration. California operates under the Don't Ask, Just Sell mandate of it's court, that Catholicism needn't worry itself about the taint of buying immoral things because the state has decided, they're necessary.
Sin corrodes.
California Catholic West Healthcare complied and thus eventually as a result allowed itself to erode its moral thinking to allow for abortions and award grants to abortion businesses and then because of the flack it got from Bishops and the faithful and the like, eliminated the name Catholic, changing their name to Dignity Health care. So they did not turn their hearts. And when they did not turn their hearts, they turned their name, so we'll know them by their limping.
I did a brief search of the Internet for the other six states and found this disturbingly accurate and well thought out Guttenmacher chart that lays the whole thing out on a state by state basis. I recommend reading it all. What bothers me is the timely execution of this clean chart that dovetails nicely with Sebelius's speech.
The states which have no religious exemptions simply have limited religious exemptions that are extremely narrow, and which in most cases require hospitals to provide prescriptions.
In most cases, the Catholic institutions affected opt to self insure to "get around" but that is now deemed wrong under the EEOC. We are going to be squeezed into compliance becoming like Dignity Health Care, or forced to fight outright.
That is the end goal.
The initial paragraph mentions how the DHHS indicates those existing exemptions that exist with respect to contraception probably will be faded out in the coming years. Why does the Guttenmacher Institute think this? How does it know?
I haven't discovered why, but I have a pretty good guess.
The alternative, to drop coverage entirely shall inflate the rolls of uninsured. The increases shall eventually require that Healthcare be a single provider coverage (for the good of all) from the government. Welcome to check and mate, coming in 2013 when the time to live by one's moral compass in this country officially expires.
So I'm mad. I'm mad at this administration. I'm mad at the way we've allowed ourselves to believe that we could have just a bit of the apple and it wouldn't corrupt us all the way. All it took was a bite. It was the intent itself, it was the willingness to entertain sin, the willingness to encourage it in others, the willingness to put something between ourselves and our Creator, to put limits on our love and declare limits on our willingness to live out our Faith.
And if the lions come, I'm going to roar back at them.
If you read the headlines, watch the news or just go on Facebook in the Catholic blogosphere (admittedly my favorite place to hang), you know that the administration's HHS policy has long tentacles, and that it is an assault on religious liberties for the government to tell religious institutions that they must violate their creed and consciences or face heavy fines. Catholics in particular have been put on notice, we have a year to discern how to engage in civil disobedience or get the rule changed.
So what does this mean? Does it mean the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College, Saint Mary's College and all Catholic universities, high schools, elementary schools and hospitals, charities and outreach programs that employ people must then cease to provide health insurance, inflating the rolls of the uninsured into the millions?
Does it mean the Catholic Church cannot provide coverage for retirees who have served in good faith for decades and who now need that help to manage existing health needs? Does it mean people will be paid more so they can then purchase insurance themselves? Will this simply mean people now have to individually purchase products which provide these products deemed illicit (contraception/sterilization/abortion pills)? How will individuals being forced to purchase things as part of a bundled package be less in violation of one's faith values?
There has to be another way to turn the other cheek, to simply not provide what the government demands, but remain true to being a source of light and hope to the world in word and deed. Perhaps it is time to create a Catholic insurance company to provide for those who wish to be fully faithful? Or are we in a deeper problem than we recognize? Will they even allow that? I suspect not.
I don't know, but I hear the faint cry of lions. Think it is Cassandra calls to the Trojans? Perhaps these concerns will go unheard, but then the Trojans didn't listen either.
What will Civil Disobedience look like? I don't know. But we'd best be prepared.
As such, if we have to go and fight our government to allow for our Faith to be lived out in our daily lives, in home and work, we need to be ready. What does every Catholic need to be prepared?
1) Get to mass. The weekly obligation always existed, but many of us dismissed this as an option. It's necessary. More necessary than the 3,000 mile oil change. We need to celebrate the mass because it is where our identity as Catholics comes from, and the word and the Eucharist provide spiritual strength, grace, Christ himself as strengthening for the trials of our lives, both outside and internal.
2) Get to a Doctor. I don't mean your local physician. I mean now is the time to go bone up on the giants that helped pound out in words, what it is we believe and why we believe. There are 35+ to choose from; they are a means of deepening what may have become simply habit. There is a list here.
3) Talk to your Mother. Yes. I mean Mary. Pray the rosary...daily. You've got a commute. It's a great way to relieve the stress of traffic. You've got troubles, Mary listens. You've got people to pray for, Mary intercedes. You've got things to be thankful for, Mary smiles. The rosary is one of the most potent weapons we have in this battle that is always ongoing.
4) Avail yourself of the sacrament of Reconciliation regularly. Being free from sin allows you to see more clearly, to understand more as God understands. It allows you to love better those you are called to love.
5) Open the bible. Discover your heritage. The Old Testament and the New are waiting, they are treasures that can develop and deepen your understanding of all that is. I recommend the Psalms.
6) Spend an hour in adoration. Once a week, can you give an hour? We are supposed to chose the better part, and that means sitting at the foot of Jesus. It's hard. It's contemplative prayer.
7) Fast. Give up a little something every day. It can be different every day, no computer, no diet coke, no chocolate, no fast food. Surrender one of your go to appetites each day as a gift, as a form of prayer, as a sublimation of one's self.
8) Live out your faith in your deeds. In what you do and don't do. It includes all of that feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, caring for the sick, and praying for the deceased and also praying for one's enemies and using charity in thought and deed and word. St. Francis's words, "Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." have to be lived. And no, it's not easy.
9) Seek the help of the experts, the all stars, the Saints. They aren't just patrons for specific petitions, they're guides to Christ. All of them have wisdom about how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to respond to trials, and what these trials have to teach us.
10) Be of great cheer about all of this, it's going to be a full life.
