We have heard that since so many Catholics already use contraception, the bishops should not be troubled about the Obama diktat. Even though the press has extrapolated a fallacious statistic to make the argument, most people honestly believe that those who claim to practice Catholicism also ignore the Church’s moral teaching and literally spit in the face of God by using contraception.
Wrong-headed, yes, but it serves the purposes of the mainstream media mob. In union with Obama and his allies, the press has arrogated unto itself the right to demean Catholic teaching and use whatever ploy is necessary to take the focus away from the fact that the Obama mandate is violating the Constitution and rights of religious bodies to be free of government intrusion.
The latest little tactic came in the form of 31-year-old Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke. Understand that Georgetown is a Catholic institution, thus making the skewing of facts even sweeter for those who perpetrate mayhem on the unsuspecting public. Fluke, known for her leadership in one of Georgetown’s most committed pro-abortion organizations—Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice—took center stage as the star in Nancy Pelosi’s special hearing on why the Obama mandate was really perfectly fantastic. Fluke bemoaned the high cost of birth control, while never admitting that every alleged fact she used was contrived, nor did she ever point out that practicing abstinence would cost nothing at all.
In other words, she played her role very well indeed, muddying the waters and inviting many Americans to feel her pain and thus support the Obama decree.
But in the midst of all of this, Cardinal Timothy Dolan was not to be ignored. Following the Fluke foray, the cardinal sent a letter to his brother bishops and stated in his blog that things were not any better today, after the Obama “adjustment” of February 10, than they had been. He wrote, “There was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry through the suffocating mandates.”
Further, he writes that efforts to “work out the wrinkles” with the White House have had exacerbating results, saying White House staff “advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the ‘enlightened’ voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America. The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.”
Clearly the battle has been engaged. Now, most critically, the fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church, based on moral and ethical principles that are God-given rather than man-driven, need to be emphasized repeatedly, taught from every pulpit, and disseminated—even to the media. If the media will not hear it, we have other ways to deliver the truth.
Now is not the time for silence and it surely is not the hour of compromise. What is right and just does not change. We will stand up, we will insist that the truth be told, and we will not accept any Obama mandate that contradicts our faith or the teachings of our Church.
Catholics, unite!
