Don't sterilise my conscience

I, like a growing number of Americans, did not bother tuning in to the State of the Union this year. Why the decline in viewers, I cannot say for certain. My personal reason is that I do not need President Obama to tell me what the state of the Union is; I know it is not good.

One major reason is the blatant attack on religious liberties the Obama Administration has unleashed when it re-affirmed the contraception mandate last summer. The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 granted the Secretary of Health and Human Services (currently Kathleen Sebelius) the authority to define what "preventive services" must be free under the provisions of this bill. Secretary Sebelius announced half a year ago that contraception, including the abortifacient morning-after-pill, and sterilisation would be included. The qualifier is that "religious employers" would be exempt. Here is the problem: the definition of "religious employer" in this case only applies to entities that only employ and serve those of the same faith. In other words, when Jesus told his disciples to spread the word and minister to both Jews and Gentiles, he would have disqualified himself as a "religious employer."

Similarly, most if not all Catholic institutions in the United States would not qualify. Catholic adoption agencies, hospitals, charitable organisations, universities, all employ and serve a large population of non-Catholics. This mandate and narrow exemption would force all these organisations to do one of the following:

• close their doors,
• fire all non-Catholic employees and turn away all non-Catholic clients/students, or
• stop providing coverage to its employees and pay the fines that are associated with breaking the law.

Immediately, people around the nation including many Catholics voiced their opposition through the public comment period ending September 30, 2011. However, Secretary Sebelius announced on January 20, 2012 that the original definition of the religious employer exemption as well as the rest of the mandate will remain in place, but the compromise is that religious institutions like the Catholic Church will have an additional year before the law goes into affect for them.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, in an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal, dismisses this so-called compromise because the Obama Administration is acting "as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months" later. The American bishops are not alone in their opposition to this mandate. Lay Catholics, such as Sister Carol Keehan (President/CEO of the Catholic Hospital Association) and Michael Sean Winters (author and contributor to the National Catholic Reporter), have responded with everything from disappointment to vitriolic condemnation.

In this blog post, let us not deal with the erroneous underlying mentality behind this mandate, which treats pregnancy as a disease to be prevented, but rather grasp the complete disregard for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article XVIII clearly states that "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion...to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." Even looking at the United States Constitution, our First Amendment right to freedom of worship, should not be restricted to mean that we do not have the freedom to practise our religion outside of our respective houses of worship. That would quite literally be unconscionable.

We cannot put all our hopes on the Department of Health & Human Services to change its mind about this. We need to take our fight to Capitol Hill. Please take a moment to email your representative and senators and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 1179 and S.1467, respectively.

The president himself said at this year's National Prayer Breakfast that "we can’t leave our values at the door. If we leave our values at the door, we abandon much of the moral glue that has held our nation together for centuries." Ironically, leaving our values at the door is exactly what he is asking Catholic institutions to do starting August 2013.

What's going to get done has been done

For the past two years, I have tried to come up with an annual list of positive accomplishments of Congress. This year, facing a record level of dissatisfaction among voters (with a near 85% disapproval rating), I found it unsurprisingly difficult to even come up with even one positive accomplishment.

An accomplishment to me is when both chambers of Congress pass a piece of legislation that is beneficial to society, regardless of whether the president signs it. I would also count the passage of legislation in one chamber that has at least a moderate chance of passing the other chamber too. Therefore, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" and "Protect Life Act" do not fit this definition, because they do not have a moderate chance of passage in the Senate.

Also, averting both a government shutdown and a default on our debt are not considered successes, because these are two situations where Congress made non-issues into potentially cataclysmic disasters.

Maybe I missed a piece of legislation that would qualify as an accomplishment. Any suggestions?

Or maybe I can highlight some accomplishments coming from the Obama Administration. Finding Osama bin Laden, raising CAFE standards, limiting mercury emissions, denying the sale of aboritfacients to girls over-the-counter, and "ending" the War in Iraq (whatever that means). Any other ones I missed?

8th Annual Walk for Life

When he spent time in the Birmingham Jail nearly half a century ago, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We live in a time and society where people have lost sight of this. Last year alone, we have seen dangerous decisions coming from our national capital. The Department of Health & Human Services is about to decide whether or not to force all Catholic institutions to provide contraception or face closure. The same department also denied a grant request from the USCCB that would have allowed the organisation to continue providing services to refugees and migrants just because Catholics refuse to use that money to provide contraception and abortion services to these refugees. There was also the execution of Troy Davis and dozens of others in the United States. The case of Troy Davis drew the criticism of many prominent world leaders, past and present, including Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former President Jimmy Carter, and Pope Benedict XVI.

However, we can also look at the other side of the coin and see that 2011 has also been a good year. The same department mentioned above issued a decision to not allow certain contraception that are abortifacient in nature (i.e. drugs that cause abortions, such as the morning-after-pill) to be sold to girls over-the-counter. 2011 also saw the official end to the decade-long War in Iraq, which both Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have condemned on numerous occasions to both former President Bush and President Obama. Another sign of hope is that the number of executions carried out in one year in the United States for the first time has fallen to less than 100 people. Also, about a month ago, the governor of Oregon announced a halt on all future executions in the state and at the same time, there is a growing movement in California to completely outlaw executions in 2012.

Later this month, on Saturday, January 21, we have the opportunity once again to join other pro-lifers in San Francisco to peacefully pray for and reflect on a society that supports life from conception to natural death. It is our moral obligation as Catholic Christians as well as human beings to oppose all forms of violence that threaten to end God’s gift of life to humanity. This is a family-friendly event, so please feel free to invite your family and friends (they do not need to be Catholic) to join us this year at the Walk for Life!