Why Catholics Care About Religious Liberty

Home

Catholic News

Daily Features

St. Anthony Messenger

Books

Catholic e-Greetings

Parish Newsletters/Services

About | Subscribe | Order Print Copies | Archive

As Catholics and as Americans, we’re called to guard and defend religious liberty. If we’re to do the good works to which our faith calls us, we must have freedom to follow our consciences and practice our religion. Attorney Helen Alvaré, champion of conscience protection and the sanctity of life, is well-grounded both in U.S. law and Catholic Church belief. She spells out what’s at stake if the government continues to meddle in religious affairs—both in general and in the specifics of the fight against the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that virtually all insurance policies include coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.

Why Catholics Care About Religious Liberty
By: Helen M. Alvaré

Each issue carries an imprimatur from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reprinting prohibited

Nearly every week there’s media hype about something the government has done. Supporters and critics insist that the latest law, judicial decision, or executive action will change the world as we know it. Yet we wake the next morning to discover the world looks much the same.

A problem with this “Chicken Little cycle” is that, when something momentous does occur, it’s more easily dismissed, even when it shouldn’t be. This includes current threats to religious freedom by federal and state governments. In their 2012 statement on religious liberty, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty, the U.S. bishops write: “We address an urgent summons to our fellow Catholics and fellow Americans to be on guard, for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad.”

WHAT’S AT STAKE?
This is an alarming, but undoubtedly necessary, call to action. To the degree that government marginalizes or silences religious voices and institutions, we’ll find ourselves living in a very different society. Religious teachings and institutions will be less visible and influential. There will be more government intrusion into the internal affairs of religious institutions. The opinion that religion has nothing to offer that hasn’t already been said by science will prevail. In particular, Christian ideas about human sexuality, marriage, family, and sexual differences will increasingly be viewed as “discrimination” or “human-rights violations.”

SEX AND THE STATE
It’s hard to overlook a theme running through the majority of recent challenges to religious freedom: the state strongly disagrees with the Catholic Church’s positions on human sexuality—concerning contraception, nonmarital sexual intercourse, and abortion—and insists that these constitute violations of women’s freedom. Yet more than one non-Catholic writer has pointed out how prophetic the Church has been regarding the harms that women would suffer should government throw its weight behind separating sex, procreation, and commitment. Fueled in part by legal abortion and government-sponsored contraceptive programs, we have seen not only the objectification of women, but also a rise in rates of abortion, nonmarital births, and failed marriages.

The government position promotes sexual self-expression and sexual gratification, free of reference to, or the possibility of, children. This position has been developing for quite a while. Beginning with “sexual privacy” cases as far back as 1965 and continuing with the 1973 abortion decision Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113), it reached its zenith in the 1992 Supreme Court abortion decision holding that matters relating to sex and procreation are matters of constitutional “liberty,” with “liberty” defined as “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (505 U.S. 833, 851). This led to the 2003 Supreme Court announcement of a constitutional right to homosexual sodomy. The same reasoning is being used by those seeking the creation of a federal constitutional right to “same-sex marriage.”

Looking past the political and immediate to the long-term and maybe even the eternal, one might observe that the temptation to challenge the most fundamental truths about the human person is as old as Adam and Eve. People of every age suffer the hereditary inclination to tell our Maker that we are in charge of truth and error, life and death, and the meanings of basic goods like marriage, sex, and freedom itself. Perhaps our current struggles are just the latest version of this age-old struggle for power.

THE HHS MANDATE
A current dispute (2012) concerns a recent rule from the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requiring virtually all health insurance policies to include, without co-pay, coverage of contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.

The mandate contains a narrow religious exemption only for those religious institutions that primarily hire and serve people from their own faith communities. As noted by several Catholic leaders, neither Jesus Christ nor Mother Teresa would qualify for this exemption! As of this writing, the administration has promised further “accommodations” for Catholic religious institutions, but the mandate for religious institutions is scheduled to go into effect approximately one year after the fall 2012 presidential election.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified before Congress about this mandate: “This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs” (2/28/2012).

VIOLATING LAWS AND BELIEFS
Leading religious-freedom experts believe that recent actions violate both the free exercise clause of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”) and a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Catholic and non-Catholic entities have brought suit against the HHS mandate claiming these violations.

It shouldn’t be difficult for the Church to show that requiring all its educational, health care, and social-service institutions to purchase coverage violating long-held Catholic teachings is a substantial burden. The Church might also argue that the government is impermissibly interfering with the internal affairs of religion when it inserts itself into the relationship between an employer and its employees.

Consider how it changes the tone of a religious institution if, instead of it being permitted to set the terms of employment for its employees, the federal government inserts into that relationship a public or private entity that offers employees health coverage the employer refuses to provide on the grounds of Church teaching. Imagine the minor adolescent daughter of an employee being contacted by a government contractor who tells her that she has access, without her parents’ knowledge, to free, confidential birth control, or even a “morning after” pill that can act to destroy embryos. This is what HHS is currently proposing.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hosanna-Tabor gives us hope. There, the Court refused to permit a federal agency to contradict a religious institution’s choice of ministers on the grounds that the state has no authority to interfere in this crucial facet of religious exercise. This case could well assist the Church in its disputes over the HHS mandate, given the interference the mandate represents with religious institutions’ governance of their own internal affairs.

Paid Advertisement

Ads contrary to Catholic teachings should be reported to our webmaster. Include ad link.

FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS
The HHS mandate is not the only current threat to religious freedom. Additional controversies involving government meddling in religious affairs abound. These are affecting Catholic social-service agencies, adoption agencies, Catholic hospitals, universities, international humanitarian policies, and services to immigrants and refugees. Resolutions of these disputes will affect the conduct of the Catholic Church in the U.S. for many years to come.

A reduced respect for religious freedom in the United States has broad implications—at the individual, community, and international level. Every religious institution—as well as individuals and business owners—will be affected by the legal conclusions reached when the dust settles on these current controversies. Some institutions will challenge the government, perhaps to the point of contempt of the law. Some might close rather than pay the steep fines that would be imposed.

It should also be noted that women, particularly the poorest, will have lost a powerful ally if the Catholic Church is forced to choose between continuing its ministries and obeying the government. The Catholic Church is one of the last (and one of the most persistent and influential) voices supporting a vision of human sexuality which includes respect for the human body and for procreation, and decrying the objectification of women.

Finally, it’s not an overstatement to say that threats to religious freedom are worldwide. What will become of the U.S. voice on behalf of religious freedom if religious freedom is severely eroded here at home? What will become of concepts like equality, dignity, and natural rights in national and international (e.g., United Nations) documents and discussions without centuries of Judeo-Christian sources and witness to inform them?

Our bishops are clear on this matter: “Our faith requires us to defend the religious liberty granted us by God, and protected in our constitution. . . . We encourage you to hold firm, to stand fast, and to insist upon what belongs to you by right as Catholics and Americans. Our country deserves the best we have to offer, including our resistance to violations of our first freedom.”

++++++++++++++++
WHAT DOES THE CHURCH TEACH ABOUT RELIGIOUS LIBERTY?

“The entire Catholic community in the United States [must] come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. . . . Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.” –Pope Benedict XVI

“Religious liberty. . . . is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans. Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith? Without religious liberty, all Americans suffer, deprived of the essential contribution in education, health care, feeding the hungry, civil rights, and social services that religious Americans make every day. . . . If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free and a beacon of hope for the world.” –Our First, Most Cherished Liberty, USCCB

“Everyone should be immune from coercion by individuals, social groups, and every human power, so that, within due limits, no men or women are forced to act against their convictions. . . . The right to religious freedom is based on the very dignity of the human person.” –Declaration on Religious Liberty, Second Vatican Council

++++++++++++++++
SIX THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HHS MANDATE

1. The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities, or
     hospitals.
2. The mandate forces these institutions and others, against their conscience,
     to pay for things they consider immoral.
3. The mandate forces coverage of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and
    devices as well as contraception.
4.  Catholics of all political persuasions are unified in their opposition to the
     mandate.
5.  Many other religious and secular people and groups have spoken out strongly
     against the mandate.
6.  The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates.

—U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Learn more at usccb.org/conscience.

Helen Alvaré is an associate professor at George Mason University School of Law. She is a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute and chairs its Task Force on Conscience Protection. She is a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Laity and received the 2012 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal for her efforts to affirm and defend the sanctity of human life.

NEXT: Universal Call to Holiness (by Kathy Coffey)

Front:

I want to order print copies of this Catholic Update.
Bulk discounts available!

I want to order a 12-month bulk subscription to hand out in my parish or classroom.

Back:

Inside:

Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi: Mystical ecstasy is the elevation of the spirit to God in such a way that the person is aware of this union with God while both internal and external senses are detached from the sensible world. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi was so generously given this special gift of God that she is called the "ecstatic saint."
<p>She was born into a noble family in Florence in 1566. The normal course would have been for Catherine de' Pazzi to have married wealth and enjoyed comfort, but she chose to follow her own path. At nine she learned to meditate from the family confessor. She made her first Communion at the then-early age of 10 and made a vow of virginity one month later. When 16, she entered the Carmelite convent in Florence because she could receive Communion daily there. </p><p>Catherine had taken the name Mary Magdalene and had been a novice for a year when she became critically ill. Death seemed near so her superiors let her make her profession of vows from a cot in the chapel in a private ceremony. Immediately after, she fell into an ecstasy that lasted about two hours. This was repeated after Communion on the following 40 mornings. These ecstasies were rich experiences of union with God and contained marvelous insights into divine truths. </p><p>As a safeguard against deception and to preserve the revelations, her confessor asked Mary Magdalene to dictate her experiences to sister secretaries. Over the next six years, five large volumes were filled. The first three books record ecstasies from May of 1584 through Pentecost week the following year. This week was a preparation for a severe five-year trial. The fourth book records that trial and the fifth is a collection of letters concerning reform and renewal. Another book, <i>Admonitions</i>, is a collection of her sayings arising from her experiences in the formation of women religious. </p><p>The extraordinary was ordinary for this saint. She read the thoughts of others and predicted future events. During her lifetime, she appeared to several persons in distant places and cured a number of sick people. </p><p>It would be easy to dwell on the ecstasies and pretend that Mary Magdalene only had spiritual highs. This is far from true. It seems that God permitted her this special closeness to prepare her for the five years of desolation that followed when she experienced spiritual dryness. She was plunged into a state of darkness in which she saw nothing but what was horrible in herself and all around her. She had violent temptations and endured great physical suffering. She died in 1607 at 41, and was canonized in 1669.</p>

Sisters pray a lot. They work at working together. They try their hardest to live simply – sometimes without much choice, due to real poverty. All of them embrace simplicity as a radical commitment to Gospel values, and offer that faithful witness to the rest of us.

PICKS OF THE WEEK

	The Month of Mary
	Discover daily insight into truths about the Mother of God.

	Sober Intoxication of the Spirit
	Learn about how the first Pentecost affected Jesus's followers.

	When the Spirit Comes in Power
	Catholic evangelist Peter Herbeck describes the work of the Holy Spirit in the personal lives of Christians.

	In the Footprints of Francis and the Sultan
	In 1219 during the Fifth Crusade, Francis took it upon himself to cross battle lines and reach out to Muslims.

	For Mothers (and Fathers!)
	Author Curtis shares personal stories and advice for helping your children find God's voice amid the messages that target them.

CATHOLIC GREETINGS

	Friendship
	Catholic Greetings e-cards help you connect with long-distance friends.

	Sympathy
	Our faith reminds us that those who believe in the Lord will never die.

	Graduation
	If you’re not able to attend the graduation in person, send an e-card expressing your affection and pride.

	Ordination Anniversary
	Use Catholic Greetings to acknowledge your pastor’s ordination or pastoral anniversary.

	Happy Birthday
	Make the most of God’s graces and blessings throughout the coming year.

Come find us at:

American Catholic is for Catholics, all Christians and seekers. Find Roman Catholic Saints, Minute Meditations, Catholic Church Questions and Catholic News. Post Prayer Requests and send Catholic e-cards. Discover Catholic Books, Catholic Audio Books, Catholic Videos, and a leading Catholic Magazine.