Immoral or Free? While I hold to the Catholic view of a consistent ethic of life from birth to natural death I ALSO agree that in a free society it has to be ok for people to buy guns, marry who they choose, speak their conscious, burn flags and choose abortion.
The fact that abortion is legal does not compel someone to choose or use it. Let your conscious be your guide still applies regardless of the laws of the land. One can live fully within the teachings of the Church in a society that permits behaviors that are outside the teachings of the church. Church and state must forever be separate for us to live free and exercise our beliefs without the imposition of laws or Government controls on our personal freedoms. When we demand that Government is in lockstep with any single belief system we invite conflict among others in the society that do not share a “Catholic” perspective.
The issue has a lot more to it than you realize. I can tell you don’t
get it. A lot of people don’t
get it. But here’s what’s really going on:
Most dioceses in the US have been self-insuring and have never covered abortion for their employees. Abortion is held officially to be an objective evil by the Catholic Church. You can look that up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you don’t believe me.
Anyway, dioceses cannot both teach that abortion is an objective evil and participate in any way in the procurement of abortion. This is what is behind all this. Assisting in the procurement of abortion is itself an objective evil. Dioceses can’t do it. Not only because they might not want to, but because they’d be contradicting their own teaching. I also think the rest of the Church would have something to say about it.
Anyway, most Catholics don’t really know what the specifics of the program really are. This is deadly serious. If Obamacare is not repealed before 2014, many Catholic institutions ARE going to shut down. Why? Because they will not be able to pay the fines levied against them.
There is an exemption to Obamacare that applies to “religious employers” but the requirements for the exemption are incredibly tight and attempt to re-define the nature of religious activity in the United States. See below for those requirements. There are four requirements and ALL FOUR must be met, in the opinion of the HHS, to get the exemption. The HHS is the one who decides if the requirements have been met.
The exemption is only for a “religious employer,” defined as “one that (1) Has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the [Internal Revenue] Code.” HHS notes that these provisions of the Code refer to “churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order.”
NOTE: “exclusively religious activities of any religious order” means staying in the house and tending to religion proper, not working in any food bank or soup kitchen or school with non-Catholic students, precisely because then the religious order violates rule #3 and loses its exemption to Obamacare.
Penalty?
For non-compliance, which is buying insurance that does not cover abortion: $100 per day per employee, for a grand total of $36,500 per year per employee.
For avoidance, which is dropping the insurance plan and giving the employee some money to obtain his own insurance: $2000 per employee per year PLUS other penalties to punish the employee.
RESULT: These are HUGE fines. IF Obamacare is not repealed or dismantled or defunded by 2014, this law will go into effect for Catholic institutions. I"m not debating you now. This is NOT theoretical or the stuff of internet fights. THIS IS REAL.
We need to either head this thing off, or make contingency plans for the destruction of most of our apostolates as Catholics. It’s just that simple.
