HHS Mandate Attempts to Kick the Church While She Is Down
The HHS mandate is about curtailing religious freedom. More specifically, this current administration seems most interested in curtailing the Church's evangelization efforts and acquiring for itself a nation-wide health care network.
With the HHS mandate, the current administration and its adherents are revealing that they know as well as we do that the separation of Church and State is a fallacy. As long as the Church exists, it will always be involved in evangelizing the State and its citizenry. The Church, or more broadly, religion cannot be separated from the State and in the history of the world, there are very few, if any, examples of such a separation. To effect a separation requires the elimination of the Church.
Over these two and a third centuries the Church has worked hard to appease the State in the hopes that the State will allow her to maintain her tax exempt status. Appeasement has taken many forms from carefully wording homilies and statements to acquiescing by silence to laws and policies proposed by the State that are contrary to Christian doctrine. Regardless of the form it has taken, the Church has built its own walls and gates and has even agreed to police the gates herself. The foolishness and vanity of such attempts at appeasement have now become apparent.
The State is now saying to the Church, "Even behind your walls, others hear and are attracted." Wanting complete control of the individual, the State must either appropriate or eliminate all other voices. Despite her failings, the Church's voice is the only voice in our society today that does proclaim the truth with courage, conviction and constancy. The State wants the Church's voice silenced and the first step is to remove the Church from the public square as much as possible. With the recent sex scandals and the financial hardships resulting from these scandals, this administration is betting that the public's mistrust of and disdain for the Church will allow it to make these bold moves against the Church and that the Church is too weakened to defend herself. Many people in America have been trained to laugh at other's hardships, while ignoring the fact that those hardships will soon be visited upon them, and the administration is counting on this.
While others laugh at or ignore what is happening to the Church, this administration is working quickly to appropriate a national health care network through which it can control individuals' access to health care. Since the Catholic Church already has one, and one that is the largest and best in the country, it is easiest for this administration to force the Catholic Church out of the health care industry, then take it over and run it as a national government-sponsored health care system. Then our taxpayer money and billions in debt will go to staffing the network with those willing to enforce the State's understanding of health care and who is worthy of receiving it.
This is why it may be most dangerous for the leadership of the Church and the Catholic healthcare network to state that the Church will get out of health care, if the HHS mandate stands. By so doing, the Church is facilitating the administration's plans. In addition to the steps outlined by Cardinal Dolan to his brother bishops about what they individually and through the USCCB will be doing to reverse the HHS mandate should be added the development of a plan for the continuation and support of the national health care network and those employed by it in the face of the HHS mandate. While it may be easier and more cost effective to cut and run, such a move would effectively subject every citizen to the caprice of the State.
From Pentecost to this day the Church has been viewed as criminal. The body of Our Blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, was nailed to the cross as a criminal preaching the subversion of the State. "The Jews answered [Pilate], 'We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God....every one who makes himself a king sets himself against Caeser.'" As members of the Body of Christ in the world today, we Catholics should expect to be crucified by the State, too, and white martyrdom is as real as red. Through prayer, fasting, political activism, voting and cards and letters, let us spend this time supporting and encouraging our bishops and those in the Catholic health care network as they work through this very difficult situation facing everyone in this country.
Timothy Cardinal Dolan's Letter to U. S. Bishops
Timothy Cardinal Dolan Asks For the Support of Catholics
USCCB Issues and Actions: Religious Liberty
USCCB Religious Liberty Prayer Campaign
With the HHS mandate, the current administration and its adherents are revealing that they know as well as we do that the separation of Church and State is a fallacy. As long as the Church exists, it will always be involved in evangelizing the State and its citizenry. The Church, or more broadly, religion cannot be separated from the State and in the history of the world, there are very few, if any, examples of such a separation. To effect a separation requires the elimination of the Church.
Over these two and a third centuries the Church has worked hard to appease the State in the hopes that the State will allow her to maintain her tax exempt status. Appeasement has taken many forms from carefully wording homilies and statements to acquiescing by silence to laws and policies proposed by the State that are contrary to Christian doctrine. Regardless of the form it has taken, the Church has built its own walls and gates and has even agreed to police the gates herself. The foolishness and vanity of such attempts at appeasement have now become apparent.
The State is now saying to the Church, "Even behind your walls, others hear and are attracted." Wanting complete control of the individual, the State must either appropriate or eliminate all other voices. Despite her failings, the Church's voice is the only voice in our society today that does proclaim the truth with courage, conviction and constancy. The State wants the Church's voice silenced and the first step is to remove the Church from the public square as much as possible. With the recent sex scandals and the financial hardships resulting from these scandals, this administration is betting that the public's mistrust of and disdain for the Church will allow it to make these bold moves against the Church and that the Church is too weakened to defend herself. Many people in America have been trained to laugh at other's hardships, while ignoring the fact that those hardships will soon be visited upon them, and the administration is counting on this.
While others laugh at or ignore what is happening to the Church, this administration is working quickly to appropriate a national health care network through which it can control individuals' access to health care. Since the Catholic Church already has one, and one that is the largest and best in the country, it is easiest for this administration to force the Catholic Church out of the health care industry, then take it over and run it as a national government-sponsored health care system. Then our taxpayer money and billions in debt will go to staffing the network with those willing to enforce the State's understanding of health care and who is worthy of receiving it.
This is why it may be most dangerous for the leadership of the Church and the Catholic healthcare network to state that the Church will get out of health care, if the HHS mandate stands. By so doing, the Church is facilitating the administration's plans. In addition to the steps outlined by Cardinal Dolan to his brother bishops about what they individually and through the USCCB will be doing to reverse the HHS mandate should be added the development of a plan for the continuation and support of the national health care network and those employed by it in the face of the HHS mandate. While it may be easier and more cost effective to cut and run, such a move would effectively subject every citizen to the caprice of the State.
From Pentecost to this day the Church has been viewed as criminal. The body of Our Blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, was nailed to the cross as a criminal preaching the subversion of the State. "The Jews answered [Pilate], 'We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God....every one who makes himself a king sets himself against Caeser.'" As members of the Body of Christ in the world today, we Catholics should expect to be crucified by the State, too, and white martyrdom is as real as red. Through prayer, fasting, political activism, voting and cards and letters, let us spend this time supporting and encouraging our bishops and those in the Catholic health care network as they work through this very difficult situation facing everyone in this country.
Timothy Cardinal Dolan's Letter to U. S. Bishops
Timothy Cardinal Dolan Asks For the Support of Catholics
USCCB Issues and Actions: Religious Liberty
USCCB Religious Liberty Prayer Campaign
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