Bishops make us think about liberty
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The Fourth of July is a day to think about liberty and, in that sense, we owe a debt of gratitude to Catholic bishops.
They’ve started the conversation. They say that freedom of religion is in jeopardy. One of the loudest of these bishops is in Illinois, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria. Listen to his words from a sermon in April:
“Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama, with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.“
The bishop then suggested that Obama’s onslaught could only be stopped if Catholics vote correctly this November.
Shortly thereafter, an organization called “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service. The complaint said the bishop had violated a law that prohibits churches from intervening in elections on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate.
Law or not, we don’t want the government monitoring homilies. Truth is, churches have always been involved in politics. The civil rights movement was born and nurtured in black churches.
For that matter, I remember when the Catholic church was practically a wing of the Democratic Party. In those days, the church was concerned with social justice issues.
Things have flipped, and the church is now generally aligned with Republicans.
But if it was OK for the church to push a liberal agenda, it ought to be OK for the church to push a conservative agenda.
So for the purpose of freedom of speech, I am with the bishops. [More]
SOURCE
Bill McClellan/Lee Newspapers/The Chippewa Herald
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12 Comments
Bill McClellan is a much loved columnist in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, far pre-dating its unfortunate acquisition by Lee Enterprises (see your source notation). And what and where is the Chippewa Herald?
This post, like most arguments that the health care law infringes religious liberty, is predicated on a big lie. Notwithstanding the bishops’ arm waving about religious liberty, the law does not force employers to act contrary to their consciences.
Many initially worked themselves into a lather with the false idea that the law forces employers to provide their employees with health care plans offering services the employers consider immoral. The fact is that employers have the option of not providing any such plans and instead simply paying assessments to the government (which, by the way, would generally amount to far less than the cost of health plans). Unless one supposes that the employers’ religion forbids payments of money to the government (all of us should enjoy such a religion), then the law’s requirement to pay assessments does not compel those employers to act contrary to their beliefs. Problem solved.
Some nonetheless have continued clamoring for such an exemption, complaining that by paying assessments to the government they would indirectly be paying for the very things they opposed. They seemingly missed that that is not a moral dilemma justifying an exemption to avoid being forced to act contrary to one’s beliefs, but rather is a gripe common to many taxpayers–who don’t much like paying taxes and who object to this or that action the government may take with the benefit of “their” tax dollars. Should each of us be exempted from paying our taxes so we aren’t thereby “forced” to pay for making war, providing health care, teaching evolution, or whatever else each of us may consider wrong or even immoral?
In any event, those complaining made enough of a stink that the government relented and announced that religious employers would be free to provide health plans with provisions to their liking (yay!) and not be required to pay the assessments otherwise required (yay!). Problem solved–again, even more.
Nonetheless, some continue to complain, fretting that somehow the services they dislike will get paid for and somehow they will be complicit in that. They argue that if insurers or employees pay for such services, those costs will somehow, someday be passed on to the employers in the form of demands for higher insurance premiums or higher wages. They evidently believe that when they spend a dollar and it thus becomes the property of others, they nonetheless should have some say in how others later spend that dollar. One can only wonder how it would work if all of us could tag “our” dollars this way and control their subsequent use.
The bishops are coming across more and more as just another special interest group with a big lobbying operation and a big budget—one, moreover, that is not above stretching the truth.
Dog-in-much-too-deep — I read your first paragraph, and I am not going to waste my time reading through your long post. YOU ARE WRONG — THE FACT IS THAT EVERY EMPLOYER OF A GIVEN SIZE WILL HAVE TO INDIRECTLY SUBSIDIZE CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTIFACIENTS. Even if the employer does not pay for these directly, obviously indirectly the employer will pay. And, I read your last sentence too — and I would say you continue to come across as a big liberal who is impressed with his own knowledge, but who cannot see straight because you have an a priori agenda of opposing the Church. Do me a favor — go post on the MSNBC website — they’ll like you there.
I did skim a little more, Dug-in-much-too-deep. If an employer (such as a hospital or university) decides to pay the penalty and not insure their employees, do you think that might put them at a cxmpxtxtive disadvantage? And you consider yourself informed and bright? Truly, a capable high school student could refute your illogic.
Wow, a read a little more, Dug-in-much-too-deep. You assert that paying the penalty to the government would be “problem solved.” Again, absolute inexcusable stupidity on your part — again, employers not providing health insurance are at a gross cxmpxtxtive disadvantage relative to other employers. You see that gun in your icon? Let me give you a little advice — DO NOT point it at your own face and pull the trigger. I thought you might need that advice, given the short-sightedness contained in your post. Also, another tip for you, Doug: don’t use a hair dryer while you are standing in a bathtub full of water; last, don’t jump off a cliff higher than 10 feet. I suspect this has been helpful advice to someone like you.
Dug-in-much-too-deep: you assert: “(T)hose complaining made enough of a stink that the government relented and announced that religious employers would be free to provide health plans with provisions to their liking (yay!) and not be required to pay the assessments otherwise required (yay!).” Really? What news are you watching? MSNBC? (I’m sure.) If what you state were the case, I am certain I would have heard about it. Now you are lying. Please leave this website and join your fellow liars on the MSNBC website. Other options for you: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and the ever-lying New Youk Times. You’ll fit right in in any of those venues. Cheers.
Come on, Dug-in-much-too-deep — respond to my primary point about the cxmpxtxtive disadvantage. I’m licking my chops dying to debate you.
I’m dying to debate you, Dug-in-much-too-deep. Come on, big guy.
You may have a point about some of the rhetoric that’s why it is so very important for the bishops to have a media savy spokesperson.
Religious freedom does not permit Catholic bishops to act or speak above the law of this land, including its tax laws or its civil rights laws.
“Hitler rhetoric” from the lips of any bishop, or Catholic, is fully as inappropriate as the lies from the lips of a Cardinal named Law, spealing of clerical sexual abuse. Such right-wing tactics will likely contribute to President Obama’s margin of victory come November.
Not true, Florian — the legal profession’s icon, the scales of justice, says what that profession is about: balancing one right against another. The very first amendment to the Cxnstxtxtion guarantees freedom to practice one’s religion. Therefore, religious freedom IS the law — and that law trumps (or should trump) many others.
And Florian, if I wasn’t in the same boat as you — that is, a citizen of the USA whose fortunes are tied to the fortunes of the country as a whole — I would wish that you get your wish, that Obama gets re-elected. Then, when you suffer because of him, I’d ask you if you can now see the error of your ways. OBAMA IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER.