Gonzaga University will cover contraception but promises to clearly communicate Church teaching

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_Abyssinia said:
Some of these Catholuc universities in my opinion need reform from the ground up or they should be revoked of their Catholic status. They need a shake up, they can not be allowed to continue as they are
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It’s way past shake-up. They’re gone and gone for good. The sooner we admit it and move on, the better off we’ll be.
 
iloveangels said:
It’s way past shake-up. They’re gone and gone for good. The sooner we admit it and move on, the better off we’ll be.
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In his autobiography, Jim Whittaker recounts his experience at Seattle University in the 1940’s. He mentions that he converted to Catholicism while an undergraduate there and that this was logical given the Jesuit priests and Catholic culture/environment. Fast forward a few decades and sadly its hard to imagine that happening. The traditional Jesuits are gone - replaced by leftist, Liberation theology types. And the teaching of truth - of Catholicism, has been replaced with such lofty goals as " addressing issues of poverty, injustice, discrimination, violence, and the environment in knowledgeable, committed, and effective ways."

The religion of secular leftism and relativism has replaced the Catholic faith at SU.

Ishii
 
Setting aside the theology, arguments over contraception and abortion, the HHS mandate is enormously disturbing to me. . .

here we have a mere agency stealing critical, basic, formulative constitutional rights.

Do you like the smell of that?

In other words, “we can throw away the constitution when we want to do something, particularly something that makes us feel good.”

This is the McDonaldization of constitutional law.
 
Captain_America said:
Setting aside the theology, arguments over contraception and abortion, the HHS mandate is enormously disturbing to me. . .

here we have a mere agency stealing critical, basic, formulative constitutional rights.

Do you like the smell of that?

In other words, “we can throw away the constitution when we want to do something, particularly something that makes us feel good.”

This is the McDonaldization of constitutional law.
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Yes, but this thread is about practical consequences of the law. It’s NOT about American politics. There are plenty of threads on that in CAF already.
 
iloveangels said:
It’s way past shake-up. They’re gone and gone for good. The sooner we admit it and move on, the better off we’ll be.
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Officials in these institutions should be honest with themselves and realise they are not an authentic Catholic institution and revoke the status themselves
 
_Abyssinia said:
Officials in these institutions should be honest with themselves and realise they are not an authentic Catholic institution and revoke the status themselves
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“Should” plus $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee.

Some will and some won’t, but it won’t be scruples that do it. The calculation will be made on the basis of whether it will hurt their bottom line or not. And whether they think they still need this as a selling point for recruiting students, patients, clients, etc. These are big businesses.

BTW, there is ample evidence that affiliation with a diocese isn’t really useful anymore. Most Catholics are free-floating (about 80%). AKA they think of themselves as Catholic but they don’t even show up at church on a weekly basis, and what the bishop says or doesn’t say doesn’t mean diddle with them. For them “catholic” is an ethnic thing or an emotional association. It’s just a cuddly or evocative or defiant or —fill in the adjective-- word for them. Many of these institutions could take Catholic off the front sign, feature Sandra Fluk on their recruitment bulletins and put a giant condom on the clock tower and they’d probably still get these cultural catholics showing up at their doors for the aura of going to XXX University. Increasingly they know this.
 
iloveangels said:
Of course, they are. They are secular institutions who are using the Catholic Church for the purpose of new student recruitment. That’s what it amounts to.

These places are usually run by lay boards, members of which may or may not be Catholic. Although many of these places were originally founded by religious congregations, the spirit of the congregation usually exists only in a remote and somewhat symbolic way without genuine Church teaching attached to it. There is usually some kind of financial agreement with the nearly-defunct religious congregation, so that they receive money for the use of the name. This money serves as retirement income for the surviving members of the congregation. Most of these people are too old to work and the congregations are in dramatic decline. Most Catholics don’t realize all this.
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That’s why I said “Catholic prior to the Land o’Lakes Statement,” of 1967, which effectively secularized what were, up until then, Catholic Universities.

Here’s an article about the man who was the driving force behind this movement: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hesburgh
 
JaMc said:
That’s why I said “Catholic prior to the Land o’Lakes Statement,” of 1967, which effectively secularized what were, up until then, Catholic Universities.

Here’s an article about the man who was the driving force behind this movement: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Hesburgh
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True, but that’s only one part of the picture, which is much larger and more complex than that declaration.
 
Rence said:
Complying with a government mandate and choosing not to close, or be subjected to fines, is not the same thing as endorsing a product. In fact, by keeping their doors open, staying under the radar, and teaching their employees the Catholic teachings regarding ABCs, they are making more of a contribution than a business entity that stubbornly closes their doors, which results in their employees losing their jobs.

This is a good teaching opportunity for Gonzaga University to spread the teachings of the Church. Business that throw their employees under the bus over this will only make people hate the Church more.
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I totally agree with this entire post. Complying with the law seems a reasonable thing for Gonzaga to do. Compassionate to their employees too. While at the same time teaching. Hats off to them. .
 
Rence said:
It’s okay, you can disagree 🙂 that’s what discussion forums are for 🙂

But I have to say, I never did understand why complying with the government’s healthcare mandate is any different than paying taxes (which also pay for ABCs). I see no difference at all between the two. They’re both the same. So I suppose that people opposed to this healthcare mandate will also be subjected to fines and/or jail time for not paying their taxes under the same principles.
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That’s a good motto to have. Works for me a lot. 😃

I never understood it either. In fact I’ve had difficulty with the degree of uproar over the mandate among Catholics in the first place. Because there might be other Christians who believe there should be some uniformity among employer benefits. These same Christians might believe contraception should be included in healthcare benefit packages regardless of their low cost. And a quick “google search” will uncover health matters where contraceptives are prescribed. To such people of faith, this might not be evil. There are actually some more mainline to liberal Christian denominations that have not opposed the mandate. So to not have the mandate in healthcare coverage would be to affect someone else’s liberty. I guess I just find things are not always black and white though and can see where balancing rights in a society of plural beliefs can be difficult. And if the mandate was not part of employer based coverage but the government simply provided contraceptives, there would be people protesting that their taxes were going towards contraception. The bottom line you’re never going to please everyone. And indeed people of faith and goodwill are going to disagree sometimes. That’s the reality of life on earth.
 
CMatt25 said:
I totally agree with this entire post. Complying with the law seems a reasonable thing for Gonzaga to do. Compassionate to their employees too. While at the same time teaching. Hats off to them. .
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Liberalism 101, class is in session:

Colleges should simply comply with the almighty federal government, which, after all, provides free lunches for poor kids and does all sort of other good things. What happened to the liberal Democrat tradition of civil disobedience? If a state government in the south in the 50’s forced a college to violate its conscience by not allowing them to admit blacks, would you argue, " the college should comply with the racist law and educate their white students about racism." ???

Ishii
 
CMatt25 said:
That’s a good motto to have. Works for me a lot. 😃

I never understood it either. In fact I’ve had difficulty with the degree of uproar over the mandate among Catholics in the first place. Because there might be other Christians who believe there should be some uniformity among employer benefits. These same Christians might believe contraception should be included in healthcare benefit packages regardless of their low cost. And a quick “google search” will uncover health matters where contraceptives are prescribed. To such people of faith, this might not be evil. There are actually some more mainline to liberal Christian denominations that have not opposed the mandate. So to not have the mandate in healthcare coverage would be to affect someone else’s liberty. I guess I just find things are not always black and white though and can see where balancing rights in a society of plural beliefs can be difficult. And if the mandate was not part of employer based coverage but the government simply provided contraceptives, there would be people protesting that their taxes were going towards contraception. The bottom line you’re never going to please everyone. And indeed people of faith and goodwill are going to disagree sometimes. That’s the reality of life on earth.
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The mandate impinges on private religious freedom guaranteed for all religions by the Constitution.

If there is an established religion that has as its faith doctrine " some uniformity among employer benefits" (Source: post 50 above) it could claim that it had the private freedom of religion and so it would match its benefits with other employer’s benefits, provided it had the private freedom of religion to choose which employer benefit package was part of the “some uniformity” contained in its faith doctrines. 🙂
 
This whole issue is a disaster from start to finish. I’ve been saying for about 15 years now, that they, meaning the bishops aka USCCB, were going to clean the Church up from inside and pay a little, or they were going to put it off and pay through the teeth.

They decided to put it off and pay through the teeth, and here we are. Now, I don’t give the USCCB much credit in the brains department, but if they have any sense at all, they’ll fix this mess now. It’s only going to get worse from here.
 
There is a bright side to Obamacare, though, believe it or not. There always is.

The Church is much larger, and better and truer than most Catholics give it credit for. There are a lot of ways to live out the deposit of faith, and they are not confined to our ethnicity or preferences. Nor are they confined to government paperwork and the old structures we’ve always had as an immigrant community in the US. Catholics are no longer an immigrant community anyway.

Perhaps this will knock us out of old ethnic grooves, cultural preferences and paths of least resistance–that weren’t working anymore anyway, and in fact were having a negative (name removed by moderator)ut to our effectiveness as the Catholic church in this country. This could give us a different way of looking at things and a way of living out being a Catholic that is completely faithful and orthodox but new. 👍

If the bishops decide to clean up the mess, this all could be just fine. It’s going to happen this way anyway. The sooner they get to it, the easier it will be. And the cheaper it will be too, in just about every way.
 
_Abyssinia said:
Officials in these institutions should be honest with themselves and realise they are not an authentic Catholic institution and revoke the status themselves
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The thing is they still believe they are fully Catholic just like the numerous American individual Catholics who still believe they are fully Catholic even though they disagree with major tenets of the Faith. Just like the latter, they aren’t going anywhere…they wish to change the Church from within.
 
iloveangels said:
There is a bright side to Obamacare, though, believe it or not. There always is.

The Church is much larger, and better and truer than most Catholics give it credit for. There are a lot of ways to live out the deposit of faith, and they are not confined to our ethnicity or preferences. Nor are they confined to government paperwork and the old structures we’ve always had as an immigrant community in the US. Catholics are no longer an immigrant community anyway.

Perhaps this will knock us out of old ethnic grooves, cultural preferences and paths of least resistance–that weren’t working anymore anyway, and in fact were having a negative (name removed by moderator)ut to our effectiveness as the Catholic church in this country. This could give us a different way of looking at things and a way of living out being a Catholic that is completely faithful and orthodox but new. 👍

If the bishops decide to clean up the mess, this all could be just fine. It’s going to happen this way anyway. The sooner they get to it, the easier it will be. And the cheaper it will be too, in just about every way.
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The Lord is spearating the wheat from the chaff…the bishops just need to do God’s Will and help make it happen.
 
Rence said:
Complying with a government mandate and choosing not to close, or be subjected to fines, is not the same thing as endorsing a product. In fact, by keeping their doors open, staying under the radar, and teaching their employees the Catholic teachings regarding ABCs, they are making more of a contribution than a business entity that stubbornly closes their doors, which results in their employees losing their jobs.

This is a good teaching opportunity for Gonzaga University to spread the teachings of the Church. Business that throw their employees under the bus over this will only make people hate the Church more.
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(1) The ends doesn’t justify the means.

(2) Since when has Christ’s True Church cared whether the world hates it?
 
Lucky7 said:
(1) The ends doesn’t justify the means.

(2) Since when has Christ’s True Church cared whether the world hates it?
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Bingo, on both accounts.

*“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you".

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven".

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account".*

I’m not saying we have an easy road ahead, but it is a road which I believe must be traveled regardless.
 
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