The ire raised by the Obama administration in its attempt to force Catholic institutions to provide contraceptive-abortifacient coverage in the health care of its employees has not yet abated. The bishops, having been apostles of the new society being forged by the democrats for over forty years now find themselves in the surprising role of censors of this brainchild of the liberals, and have spoken out. It certainly merits some praise on the part of Catholics that the watchmen over the House of Israel have protested against this abuse of the liberty of the Church; indeed, perhaps only an attack on the principle of liberty could have roused the episcopal body to some defense of the Church. Liberty is, after all, the ultimate deity worshipped by the liberal, individualistic West, and in the heart of the American Catholic an attack on liberty is an attack on the dignity and rights of man.
This might appear a bit farfetched to the average reader. Have not the bishops raised their voices in protest at this flagrant attack on the liberty of the Church? Is this not something truly Catholic, such as the protest of St. Thomas Becket against the tyranny of Henry II? Well, not exactly; and it is herein that lies the problem.
One could pick many letters or statements from the bishops in order to examine the motives for their reaction. Certainly, they have been agitated to a degree not seen for many a year. However, such an extensive study would be beyond the scope of an article of this size. This writer will narrow his attention to three letters by three bishops: Archbishop Broglio, head of the Military Vicariate, Bishop Estevez of Saint Augustine, and Bishop Slattery of Oklahoma City. Each of these letters is of interests, but as we shall see, there is a golden thread that runs throughout them, binding the three together.
It is not the rights of the Church per se which lies at the root of the argumentation. That would be not only legitimate but meritorious as well; for the rights of the Church are given, not by governments, but by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who has established His Church as His Kingdom on earth and given it rights and authority by virtue of His own authority. In this sense, the Church prayed, and indeed prays for the "freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother the Church" in the prayers after the Traditional Mass. This right, not dependent on earthly nations, has not been appealed to by the bishops. The crime of the Obama regime lies in the fact that this new policy "strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith" as Bishop Estevez so succinctly puts it. This is the liberty so extolled by the Second Vatican Council but so reprobated by Blessed Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors in which he condemns the notion that "In this age of ours it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other cults whatsoever", and likewise condemns those who hold that the civil liberty given to every religion does not lead to "the corruption of the morals and minds of the people, and to the spread of the evil of indifferentism." Thus the central pillar of the bishop's argument is made of sand. There is no such inherent right to religious liberty possessed by mankind. Rather, there is the duty of the State to profess and defend the sole, true religion, namely the Catholic religion. It would the height of absurdity that there could be a right given by God to commit a mortal sin, since to worship in a way contrary to God's religion violates the First Commandment given by Him to Moses. Now, it is true that one can appeal to an argument "ad hominem", as it is called; that is, one appeals to the opponent by showing that he is not true to his own principles, even if those principles are not true. Thus one could appeal to a civil right to religious liberty granted by the State if that civil right was being violated by that very State. This argument, however, cannot be the primary argument if it rests on a false foundation. The true principles should likewise be stated so as to avoid error on the part of the faithful. Let us look at the other two bishops.
Archbishop Broglio, in his rather strong letter to the military chaplains, in which he orders them to read this letter to all those at Mass (though the army impiously forbad the letter to be read from the pulpit). It begins:
"It is imperative that I call to your attention an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. "
Need one comment on the similar pillar of the forthcoming condemnation? The Obamite policy is firstly condemned, not for the fact that it violates the Divine Law, a Law that invalidates the policy of Obama, but rather for the fact that it strikes at the sacrosanct modern doctrine of "religious liberty for all citizens of any faith." God is stripped of any rights over nations; man's so-called rights are central and take pride of place over all. This is the dogma of Freemasonry and that Liberalism condemned over and over by the Sovereign Pontiffs- condemned at least until the infiltration of the Revolution into the very Apse of Saint Peter's. Let us turn to the third letter, that of Bishop Slattery:
"I wish to join the Bishops of this country in expressing my fear that religious liberty in the United States is even now under attack from those elected officials whose duty it is to protect the inalienable right we have from God to worship Him and to defend the Constitution of the United States which guarantees that our right of conscience may neither be violated nor held in contempt..."
Again we have the sacred right of religious liberty as the principle being violated. However, Bishop Slattery leaves his argumentation in a rather vague situation, since he does not appeal to the right of all men to worship according to their consciences, a false and blasphemous right, but speaks of an inalienable right given to us by God to worship Him- a point that is capable of being interpreted in a true as well as a false manner. Man has the right to worship God in the manner commanded by Him. In other words, there is a right to worship according the Catholic religion, because there is a duty imposed by God on man to do so. In this sense, one can speak of a true right to that freedom necessary to worship God in a true and holy manner. However, the following clause seems to point the interpretation in another, less Catholic direction in its appeal to the Constitution of the United States which guarantees, not liberty of true worship, but a universal liberty to all religions, false or not. Al least the bishop is generally careful in his letter not to appeal directly to the rights of all false religions but restricts his comments to the rights of Catholics. This brings us to the second defect.
All three bishops pass from the right of religious liberty (though as mentioned, Bishop Slattery does so more cautiously) to an appeal to the Constitution. One might expect the principle argument to derive from the Divine Law, especially since the bishops were addressing the faithful rather than the infidel. Bishop Philip Estevez laments Obama having "cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution... denying to Catholics our Nation's first and fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty." Who would have thought that a Catholic would make of the liberty of perdition the first and most fundamental right of every American? God send us a real Spaniard of the metal of King Philip II!!
Archbishop Broglio, in the passage quoted above makes the same appeal to the sacrosanct Constitution of the United States, as does Bishop Slattery. So let us turn to the third error of the episcopal defiance, that of the liberty of conscience and its supremacy. Bishop Estevez points to the refusal of Catholics to obey this unjust law of the Obama administration. "We cannot- we will not- comply with this unjust law". This is certainly a good threat of the bishop. However, he goes on to show how our immigrant ancestors did not come to this county to have their rights stripped away and to be made second-class citizens. He laments:
"And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalty for doing so)."
Loss of religious freedom is intimately connected with the violation of conscience. Both of these are inviolable in the modern spirit of the liberal. However, both in their modern context are divorced from their end, given by God: to worship Him as He desires, and to follow the Divine Law, the source of all valid law. It is not a subjective right divorced from the truth or goodness. In this is the danger of the bishop's argumentation. The passage referring to our immigrant ancestors and their contribution to America has been taken virtually intact from Archbishop Broglio's letter- certainly no coincidence! While the Archbishop's letter ended with a threat in the original letter to something approaching civil disobedience, Bishop Estevez in quieter tones made certain his refusal to obey this policy so against religious liberty. Bishop Slattery also appeals to the rights of conscience:
"Until now, nonprofit religious institutions have always had the right to exempt themselves from having to offer coverage if it contradicts their basic religious beliefs or violates their conscience. This right was guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution..."
There is no distinction as to whether the conscience upholds what is true or not. This is certainly false in itself. There is absolutely no right flowing from a false conscience. States would fall if a citizen could determine that it was against his conscience to fight in a war, or pay taxes, or marry one spouse, or whatever else the human soul could contrive in order to have its way, independent of the objective Divine Law.
While God is certainly mentioned by all three bishops, only Bishop Slattery invokes the Divine Law directly and points out the evil of this new policy:
"This mandate is evil, because not only does it require that all Catholics cooperate in sin by providing for and paying for coverage for gravely immoral actions which have as their final end the destruction of human life, but also by requiring that Catholics who do not cooperate in this should be punished. Were we to comply with this law, we would offend God and imperil our souls. We will not comply..."
At last there is mention of Good and Evil, and the consequences of disobeying the Divine Law. Certainly Bishop Slattery is to be commended for this, and for his quotation from Pope Leo XIII:
"...'if the will of rulers is opposed to the will and the laws of God, then those rulers exceed the bounds of their own power and pervert justice. Nor can their authority be valid, since authority without justice is null.' "
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