As the very serious national threat to religious liberty on the part of the presidential administration still remains unresolved, I wanted to write a little more about this very pressing situation. Please also visit and bookmark the U.S. bishops’ website and our parish website, at usccb.org/conscience and olv.org [look for “religious liberty” logo on the parish site] to keep yourself informed.
Our bishops have been stressing that this unprecedented threat is about far more than just the issues of contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. Even non-Catholics, or Catholics who are not yet in line with this teaching, should be outraged and very concerned about an attempt by the federal government to force us to act against these inviolable teachings of the Church. For example, Catholics do not believe that alcohol in moderation is sinful or that it is wrong to eat pork. However, we would still rightly be outraged if the federal government, for example, tried to force Jews or Muslims to serve pork, or strict Baptists to serve alcohol at their institutions, because this goes against their fundamental religious beliefs and would force them to violate their consciences. If the federal government can do this for adherents of one faith, it can do this for adherents of any faith. It is always gravely unjust and a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution to try to take away religious liberty from any citizen.
Still, we can’t ignore the fact that, in addition to abortion-inducing drugs, this issue is also about the particular issues of contraception and sterilization. Perhaps it is not too cynical to suggest that the President’s administration attempted to start taking away religious liberties on this particular matter, because he is aware that the Church’s teaching on these matters is not widely accepted by most Americans (and unfortunately even by some Catholics).
In response to the controversy, many anti-Catholic letter writers and blog commentators have pointed out that a large percentage of Catholics don’t follow their own teaching. While that doesn’t change the fact that it is still gravely unjust, they do have a point that the witness value of the Catholic community would be much stronger if most Catholics did “practice what they preach.”
So I would like to devote my next column to a brief description of why the Church teaches what she does about contraception and sterilization. It is my hope that this will help you to explain this issue to friends who may be non-Catholic, lukewarm Catholics, or fallen away Catholics. Many people have never received any education about why these practices are so contrary to God’s plan and to our own human happiness in this life. This controversy provides a good opportunity to think and pray about this question, and maybe even bring about conversion.
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