Polling on the Mandate
The USCCB may be unified on the contraception mandate, but Catholics aren’t. Here’s a Public Religion Research Institute poll on the mandate. Overall, 58% of Catholics think insurance should cover contraception. Catholic voters believe so at 52%.
The data shows that this is question that cuts differently for different groups: 62% of women and a majority of non-whites support the mandate more strongly than white males. 65% of Millennials approve the mandate, while only 40% of seniors do. As to including schools and hospitals under the mandate, still a majority of Catholics agree with the HHS decision. Among Catholic voters, 45% approve, 52% disapprove, but again, more whites than people of color agree–only 40% of white Catholics approve the mandate, so a large (but unspecified % here) of non-white Catholic voters must approve.
Most do not want the mandate applied to parishes, which, of course, is already an exemption under the law as written.
A few thoughts:
1. If bishops think this is the “to the ramparts” moment that will rally Catholics together against contraception and (the question at hand) lead them all to consider mandated contraceptive coverage an affront to religious liberty, they seem to be mistaken. It looks like another moment in which the bishops are just out of touch with most Catholics, as they seem to be on the matter of contraception generally. Or, at least so far, they have not made a convincing case to people of good will in either case.
2. And, another non-surprise, they seem especially out of touch with women and people of color.
3. If bishops hope that this will sway the Catholic electorate against Obama, it will (at best/worst) split the Catholic vote. And that’s IF Catholics are tempted to become one-issue voters on this issue, a tack expressly taught against by the bishops in their own voting guide.
4. One main reason that Millennials are staying away from the Church in droves is their indifference to an institution that does not, in fact, address issues that are important to them. In a PR sense, this will simply re-inscribe for Millennials that Catholicism is about opposition to things of which they approve–contraception, same-sex relationships, etc.
5. Myself, I wish the bishops had started with a strong, unequivocal YES!! to vastly expanded medical coverage, that they’d spoken powerfully for it, perhaps sent letters around to be read in parishes, the whole deal. Back in ’09, Reuters estimated that 45,000 Americans die each year for lack of health insurance: isn’t this a prime pro-life cause? Not to mention social justice. But they really only get themselves het up when the question is contraception. What do they expect people to think the Church thinks is most important in this matter? THERE’S a scandal.
Moral matters are not settled by consensus, to be sure. But this is rapidly becoming merely a political football, and in politics, public opinion counts.
Tags: contraception, HHS, USCCB
Thank you for this update. The import of David Axelrod’s remarks will reinforce the bishops position, I assume. Our local paper in a largely Catholic city published 1 letter against from a priest and four in favor from persons who claim being active Catholics.
I think the continued questions of religious freedom and how these related institutions are seen as”religious” and governed will be very interesting. Already I have heard unofficially that it would not be wise for members of the board of some local Cathollic institutions to comment in any way that could be seen as supportive of mandate.
While the bishops are “to the ramparts” and some of us theo-liturgical nerds are still burned by the new missal, we had awonderful “reflection” last Sunday by a teachher in an inner city school ur parish Justice and Peace committee is addressing the drone issue, our book club of the same is reviewing “Quest for the Living God,” our Bible stiudy has a wondeful retired Lutheran pastor and scholar (who attends Mass fairly egularly) leading a revivified Bible-study, our Lenten series is dealing with aspects of theo-ecology, and we serve over 250 inner city poor a great soup and sandwich every Wednesday prepared by a core of about 15 from all over , but mostly the parish and “soup teams” of about 20.. our day is tomorroww — split pea and ham, well be cooking tonight…
I’ve written to the paper my thoughts on the mandate, but the “rest of the story” is what keeps me coming back…
This is a Catholic blog, no? How about saying that people are out of touch with what their Bishops teach, rather than the other way around (which seems a very Protestant notion)?
Studebaker –
What many conservative Catholics don’t seem to realize is that in the last 400 years or so the popes during those years have not carried on the great Catholic theological tradition of listening carefully to dissenting views and then showing by counter-evidence and reason that the dissenting views are wrong. In the medieval period the Church even developed the Scholastic method of argument which *required* that all arguments be heard publicly and answered with reasons. Why the Church has abandoned that method is debateable, but it is gone.
The great irony is that in the middle ages the Church actually *required* that dissenting arguments be heard. The specialized method to present both sides of an issue began explicitly with Abelard’s logic book called “Sic et Non” — “Yes and No”. He insisted on arguing both sides of an issue carefully. The Church condemned a lot of his theology, but it retained and even developed his method of argument. Now it seems that all that is left of that debate tradition is the Vatican saying “Yes, We’re Right, and No, You Don’t Get to Argue At All”.
You can say, Oh, not so, these dissenting theologians don’t stop talking. But the fact is they do not get to argue their side unless the Vatican grants permission, and then the argument is done behind closed doors. In some cases the theologian is accused without even knowing they are under suspicion. See Sr. Johnson!! Dirty pool if there ever was dirty pool.
In the olden days if a theologian lost — if his teachings were condemned, then he had the right to appeal to the pope in person. That’s what happened with Abelard. He was on his way to Rome to argue with the Pope himself when he was persuaded to forgo that right.
Why anybody trusts the theological judgments that come out of our present yo-yo of a sytem is beyond me. (Maybe I shouldn’t call it a yo-yo of a system — at least a yo-yo allows the opposition of up and down. Rome brooks no opposition Sigh.)
Or it may be that folks are more in touch with the gospel imperatives and the truths of faith than politically motivated bishops. Bishops are “teachers” only if you understand “teacher” in the way VII outlined and taught this role or charism. It begins with “listening”.
Agreed, Lisa, another FOCA with more money wasted by the USCCB and setting the church up for more difficult negotiations if, in future times, others use this to justify more “religious liberty” limitations and on issues that may directly threaten the church’s understanding of itself and its religious beliefs.
Lawyer friend said that the USCCB hired a NY law firm to write and file an AMICUS brief in the Jewish Tabor case to the tune of >$100,000 dollars. All this for someone writing a brief. One can only imagine the money spent to date by USCCB and specific dioceses on FOCA, amicus briefs, and now the HHS decision.
This is better posted here than where I initially linked it:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2012/02/contraception-catholic-bishops-obama-hhs/1
I think the poll offers as much encouragement for a hardline as it does for accommodation, by either side. White Catholic voters, who form the core of the Catholic vote, tend to be against the mandate, and the election is about rallying the respective bases. Splitting the Catholic vote would be a win for conservatives and a loss for Obama, I think, who can’t afford to lose much from that bloc, concentrated as it is in those states.
Yet the WH can also read data showing where its electoral needs are:
http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/07/obama-administrations-contraception-ruling-fits-with-re-election-needs/
The bishops can certainly see this all as a winning hand, if they are thinking of rallying their base of conservative white Catholic voters.
Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley, himself Catholic, has spoken in favor of the mandate, noting the states that already have a contraception coverage mandate in place. He thinks the mandate does not necessarily apply to schools and hospitals that are religiously affiliated. He said:
But here’s what caught my eye:
Anybody know what the deal is in Italy? And how it all unfolded? Did the Pope weigh in, or did he just mutter to himself “remote, material cooperation, not worth the PR cost”?
” There can be some truth there, but I would like to suggest that we may be dealing with something else — something you are not likely to hear mentioned by your bishop or your parish priest. It is the “non-reception” of certain church teachings. And that is not just a less blunt term for dissent. Non-reception holds a respectable place in Catholic teaching among theologians (and very likely among many bishops if they were not so fearful of saying what they think).
According to Jesuit Fr. Ladislas Orsy, writing in the Encyclopedia of Catholicism, church law, like ordinary human law, has two stages. First, it is formulated by the lawgiver and promulgated or brought to the attention of the subjects. In the second stage, those who become aware of the law must try to understand it as they “encounter it in their concrete, particular and personal situations.” They must then “form a critical judgment about the law either by affirming it through steady obedience or by bringing to the legislator’s notice the difficulties the law may generate.
Yet according to the survey results this year, almost half of these loyal believers say you can be a good Catholic without adhering to church law on divorce and remarriage, on living together without a valid marriage, on attending Mass weekly. And 60 percent of this highly committed flock says you can be a good Catholic without following church teaching on contraception. It would seem then that many dedicated Catholics are trying to develop an informed conscience and have concluded they may disagree with official teaching in good faith in some cases. At least implicitly, they recognize that the two-stage characteristic of authentic teaching means a law not received by the greater church lacks the force of obligation. Call it dissent, if you will, or call it non-reception. It is what’s quietly happening in today’s American church.”
Robert McClory, November 17, 2011, http://ncronline.org/print/27638
But Lisa, the Obama administration itself has said the exemption won’t apply to most colleges and hospitals.
This is a Catholic blog, no?
You’ve misplaced your question mark, Studebaker. It should go where the comma is.
@ Grant–I know–that’s why I put O’Malley’s comment here–by the admin’s description, the exemption wouldn’t apply to colleges and hospitals. I think O’Malley’s incorrect, and that misunderstanding might affect his understanding of the issue. But I doubt it: O’Malley has already gone the whole nine yards for legal same-sex marriage in MD, despite a letter from the Archbishop asking him not to, and inviting him in for a conversation.
Not all of the loyal boyos are being allowed to preach the company line:
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=d5f70a7e-c778-4213-a1c6-4f3309997e3a
Asking someone if they’d rather have something for free or pay for it seems to have yielded the predictable answer. But none of the polling questions reported here touch on the constitution or religious freedom.
I agree that the bishops can find encouragement in this poll. We’ve been led to believe here at dotCom by numerous comments that “98%” of Catholics dissent on contraception. If that is really so, then it appears that the bishops’ campaign has already moved the numbers significantly.
I suspect it is not news to the bishops that half or more of Catholics don’t agree, or don’t understand, or don’t know, what the church teaches about contraception. If this controversy spurs a concerted teaching effort, then it’s likely that the numbers will continue to move in the bishops’ direction.
I think that the 98% refers to sexually active Catholic women, not Catholics in general.
@Jim Pauwels (2/7, 4:19 pm) Yeah, it was always unclear to me where the “98%” figure came from. (Does anyone have a source for it?)
And maybe if the US bishops undertake a concerted teaching effort on the Church’s ban on contraception, it will persuade some, or even many, Catholics of the correctness of that teaching.
Having said that, given the birth rate these days, either Natural Family Planning is practiced a lot more effectively now than it was in the past, or the vast majority of Catholics of child-bearing age aren’t following the Church’s teaching—regardless what they think of that teaching.
“4. One main reason that Millennials are staying away from the Church in droves is their indifference to an institution that does not, in fact, address issues that are important to them. In a PR sense, this will simply re-inscribe for Millennials that Catholicism is about opposition to things of which they approve–contraception, same-sex relationships, etc.”
The church has addressed these questions. The main issue seems to be that Millenials don’t care for the answers.
It is not surprising to find majority support for a majoritarian statutory mandate. The only surprise here is the one Jim points out: even that bare survey question, which necessarily leaves out the constitutional question, shows a substantial gap between the number of people who approve of contraception and the number who believe employers ought to be required to offer health insurance that covers it.
Bender, you’ve had your fun. Now please go away. If you do not believe this is a Catholic blog, then there’s no point in dignifying our fraudulence with your wit and wisdom. There are plenty of websites for people who believe that only conservatives are good Catholics. They will welcome your echo.
The church has addressed these questions. The main issue seems to be that Millenials don’t care for the answers.
Jim,
Should the attitude of the Church be take it or leave it?
For what it’s worth, Mitt Romney has come under criticism by some conservative Catholics in Massachusetts for similar decisions he made when governor: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/03/mitt_romney_caught_in_inconsistency_in_blast_at_barack_obama_for_forcing_catholic_institutions_to_provide_insured_birth_control/
(Just to complicate matters a bit more….)
@ Jim P. ” If this controversy spurs a concerted teaching effort, then it’s likely that the numbers will continue to move in the bishops’ direction.’
If almost 50 years of moral argument haven’t moved the Humanae Vitae ball along, you’re hope that this momentary and mis contused flap is a winner, is wildly optimistic. Maybe now is the time for the courage to run up the flag pole the best argument in a diocesan paper for the ‘intrinsic evil’ of BC and see who salutes. I tried to in marriage prep for 35 years but I’m not eloquent. I think I’ll wait in vain for such a posting and the flood of letters to the editor.
David N – no, that shouldn’t be its attitude. The church should continue to look for imaginative, persuasive ways of presenting its teaching to all its target audiences.
Needless to say, the core content itself – the actual teaching – can’t/won’t change.
The Catholic Church is not a democracy; is not driven by polls or public opinion. It is the Herald of Truth.
When people fail to live up to an ideal; that does not mean the ideal is wrong. It means the people, at that moment, are wrong.
For almost 100 years after this nation’s founding, because American Southerners held slaves and American Northerners tolerated them doing so, as a nation we failed to live up to one of the important ideals we expressed in our founding documents.
That did not mean that we should have abandoned the notion that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”. Rather, it meant that we had to keep striving to rise up to, to live up to our ideals, not bring the ideal down to the level where we were.
Ed – bless you for 35 years of doing the right thing.
Martin O’Malley, himself a Catholic….
Which reminds me that Josef Stalin of blessed memory, former seminarian and named after St. Joseph, also allowed for a minimal religious exemption. I believe Uncle Joe could live with the restrictive HHS approach without much of a problem, just so long as believers would embrace quietism.
Thanks for this post. Everywhere I’ve seen assertions that all Catholics, even the “left”, are rising up against the Obama administration because of this mandate, and I didn’t believe it true, but had no why of knowing for sure.
Here in California, proposition 8, which the bishops worked so hard to sustain, has been ruled unconstitutional, and Amy Davidson, in her New Yorker blog has a post about it, mentioning how most people feel about conservatives’ misplaced emphasis on secxuality while meanwhile the world is burning, unnoticed by them …. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/02/clints-verdict-on-gay-marriage.html
“
Perhaps the words of Justice Scalia, writing here for the majority in Oregon v. Smith (in which the Court upheld the firing of state employees who smoked peyote in worship services at the Native American Church, have some relevance:
“We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.”
And, also (quoting Justice Frankfurter):
“Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs.”
And, also, too:
“Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a “valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).”
And, finally:
“It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in; but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.”
(Then again, perhaps not?)
h/t Charlie Pierce at: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/supreme-court-religious-freedom-6652940#ixzz1ljkOHccP
Ken’s post reminded me of someone who used to post here always talkin gabout the Church proclaiming “the truth from the begining.”
We continue to see the same fortress encapsulated view from the right whic hdamages the Church and tears it apart IMO.
On Millenials, I think that pointing out the negative medical, environmental and sexual effects of contraception is a helpful approach. A think that a feminist/green/better sex approach would be more appealing.
God Bless
@Chris Sullivan (2/7, 5:20 pm) Just curious—what kind of reaction have you gotten from young people when you took that approach?
Luke,
As a student many years ago I found an article in the student paper from a feminist perspective looking at the negative medical effects of chemical contraceptives to be very persuasive.
Young people do seem to be open to more natural and less chemical approaches.
When we did our NFP training, the teacher said most people were not doing it for religious reasons but for Green/Natural reasons.
I think one does need to factor in that NFP doesn’t work well for some who may need to contracept to ensure a suitably reliable interfile time, and what many Bishops conferences taught in 1968 about the difficulty of understanding this teaching (it’s almost impossible for modern man to even understand the objection) and about the primacy of conscience for people to use the methods which in informed conscience they consider best.
God Bless
Luke Hill,
The Smith decision and language about what the constitution provides does not apply to the HHS mandate. A federal regulation must comply with RFRA, a federal law that requires greater religious accommodation than what the Supreme Court provided to Smith. RFRA does not apply to state laws (per City of Boerne v. Flores) but does apply to federal agencies like HHS. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act
I think this is my 3rd or 4th post on RFRA in the various posts about the mandate. Maybe Commonweal should ask Prof. Kaveny or Prof. Penalver or someone else with background on church-state law to write an article about the legal issues involved in the Mandate.
I doubt most feminists or most green people (and I’m both) would be persuaded to give up on contraception based on the argument that it’s unnatural – one of the creators of the early birth control pill was a Catholic doctor, John Rock, who argued the opposite, that pills are natural. The greatest ecological estrogen problem is that caused by factory farming not birth control pills, and people who care about the earth are also concerned about over-population. If only 2% of Catholics can be convinced of the worth of NPF, I really don’t see how anyone else will be … aside from the fact that it’s the death of spontaneity, it doesn’t actually seem to work very well.
Er, I meant “NFP”
Chris S. — In the interest of informed assent, does your approach also point out the negative medical, environmental and sexual effects of non- or failed contraception, including pregnancy? Some of those effects may be experienced in significant ways over 15 years or more, long after most early supporters who offered diapers and baby clothes have faded away. In particular, shouldn’t the some you mention who will find “that NFP doesn’t work well” be told what they are being aimed toward?
Jack Barry,
Sorry, but I’m not sure I understand your question. Could you clarify please ?
Whatever methods one uses to space children, there is a “failure rate”, and that for NFP is claimed to be comparable with contraceptive methods.
God Bless
Intention is an important part of an act, according to Thomas Aquinas. If so, birth control is birth control is birth control. “Natural” or “artificial” — it’s pretty much the same. You’re trying to have sex without getting pregnant, in both cases using scientific knowledge. A compromise would be to use both methods, or rather to use so-called artifical methods but have sex no more often than would a couple relying on NFP. That should satisfy both the letter and the spirit of current Church law — and it could help avoid an overpopulation problem such as the Philippines faces in the near future.
I’m aware of similar advice given by a priest in an online forum. A man who became Catholic after having a vasectomy was told that he need not undergo surgery to try to have the vasectomy reversed, but rather to have sex no more frequently than if using NFP. I also heard somewhere of a Spanish tradition that newlyweds wait three days before having sex, as a way of seeing the relationship as more important than one aspect of it. The goal in both instances, and in NFP, is to put sexual gratification within the context of love and the relationship and a shared faith.
The rate of conception for NFP is similar to properly used birth control pills when NFP is used with intercourse only during ‘Phase 3′, which starts four days after ovulation through the time of a woman’s period.
Accoding to comparison charts I’ve seen, like this one from University of California at Davis … http://healthcenter.ucdavis.edu/topics/contraception/efficacy.html … NFP is nowhere near the efficacy of birth control pills, even taking into account the difference between “perfect use” and “typical use”. Accoding to the chart, “typical use” of NFP = 25% failure rate, as opposed to an 8% failure rate for “typical use” of the pill. This chart at Wikipedia shows the same thing … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods
Crystal,
The 25% failure rate Wikipedia quotes is for the outdated “rhythm” method. Modern methods such as Billings or the symptothermal (which uses mucus examination together with temperature charting) are very much more reliable with failure rates comparable with the pill.
God Bless
Lisa, it’s the difference between you’d like the Church to be and what it is. What it is, is threatened by the Obama action.
The only threat to the church is self-imposed.
Tonight 10pm PDT Santorum wins Co. Mo. Minn. Santorum got the evangelical vote.
Next week the evangelicals will hear about Santorum’s Opus Dei connections and then Romney’s Golden Tablets.. we will hear more from super pacs about these religious distinctions. This new religious eruption and the Axlerod HHS back down will make the HHS mandate all but invisible in the new dense religious smoke…….makes the GOP primaries fun.. yes?
But all interested ears are open to the entirety of arguments in our time, Ann, as they weren’t in previous centuries. No one can be silenced today, except in totalitarian cultures.
Dissenters may not be given a formal open forum in Vatican City (0.17 square miles) but they have much of the rest of the interested world listening to them, including the Pope, his Curia, and the rest of the Catholic hierarchy.
Crystal, Chris,
The rates Crystal cited seem to still be true, based on CDC’s surveys of people who told researchers what method of family planning they were using. The most recent data I can find are here at the CDC site: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_029.pdf
These numbers are for all users, not just those who are motivated to use a method consistently and correctly. Sadly, some publications and commentators still compare the number of pregnancies that occur using the pill by casual users with pregnancies for careful users of NFP. It’s more instructive to use statistics that are consistent.
MikeD
RFRA was struck down. See City of Boerne v. Flores.
Henry — that’s only as to the states. RFRA still applies to limit the federal government.
I think that what is misunderstood — both by the Administration and the poll-driven analysis like this — is the familial nature of the faith, and how we might respond to it.
We might fight terrible fights with our brothers and sisters, but not let anyone else touch a hair on their heads. We might bristle at something our parents make us do, and even disobey their instructions, but resist if someone else tries to tell our parents to abandon it.
I think that’s what’s going on here. Sure, a large number of Catholics dissent from the official teaching on contraception, wish and even agitate for it to change, and privately disobey it. But that doesn’t mean they’re OK with the federal government coming and saying they MUST act in conflict with that teaching.
I think President Obama envisioned headlines with the words “Obama Bishops Contraception” and figured Catholics opinion along the same lines as the ACA/abortion controversy, but on even more favorable ground, given that the Church’s teaching on abortion is better supported and understood than its teaching on contraception.
We may disagree with our spiritual fathers; we may wish they would change some of the teaching we don’t like, we’re still not going to let somebody else tell them to do it.
Ok.
A few people told me that the SCOTUS case only overruled a part of RFRA and so I was slightly wrong. Nonetheless, the question of the application of RFRA in relation to everything else is not, I think as simple as people wish it were (heck, I wish more religious liberty were granted in the US and things like Smith never happened). So, my apologies for misreading the SCOTUS decision.
John McG -I think you’re probably on to something.
I also think that, from a political point of view, if you’re going to stick your thumb in the eye of Catholicism, probably the very worst targets to pick are Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. My sense is that those institutions are widely admired by the general public, and by the professional commentariat, for the work they do. By and large, they don’t present a particularly ideological face to the public. I expect that a lot of folks are wondering, ‘Why pick a fight with them?’
25% failure rate? So *that’s* how we ended up with 26 children :-)
I think the framing is what will be critical.
If it is “Obama vs. ‘the bishops’”, as it was in the ACA/abortion debate, then President Obama wins.
If it’s “Obama vs. Catholic hospitals, schools, and social service agencies,” it’s probably not so clear.
It becomes less clear when you add in Romney vs. Catholics Santorum and recent convert Gingrich plus “150 congressional leaders”, especially with the additional confusions of fact and fiction they contribute which John Hayes, Grant G., and others have worked so hard to reduce here.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/over-150-congressional-leaders-demand-repeal-of-hhs-mandate
“Dissenters may not be given a formal open forum in Vatican City (0.17 square miles) but they have much of the rest of the interested world listening to them, including the Pope, his Curia, and the rest of the Catholic hierarchy.”
David S. –
Surely you jest (she says as she laughs hysterically). The Pope, Curia and hierarchy actually listen to criticisms of their views?????? It is only after tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of children have been violated by Catholic clergy that == 20 years! after the scandal broke — there is finally a conference being held in Rome about the matter with one — ONE — victim called on to speak. It has taken 20 years for it to be brought publicly into Vatican City.
Further, the issue we are discussing is theological dissent. If you think that dissenting theologians these days (contrary to what happened in the 13th century) get a hearing from the hierarchy, you must have been living on a planet in the far reaches of the galaxy. Come off it, David. Surely you read the Sr. Johnson thread. Have you not heard of Fr. Reese? And Sobrino? deMello? Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. . . . Surely you don’t call that listening to a theologian. They didn’t even give Sr, JOhnson a chance to open her mouth before they condemned her.
You call that listening???
“We may disagree with our spiritual fathers; we may wish they would change some of the teaching we don’t like, we’re still not going to let somebody else tell them to do it.”
John McG –
There is another explanation. Some of us think that the First Amendment rights are so fundamental to the functioning of the nation that we scrupulously object to any infringemnet upon any of them. This, no doubt, is based on different views of human nature and the history of democracies. But I assure you that it is a real motive for at least some of us. I, for one, am willing to allow the Klan to parade in public using horrid language in defense of their racism — because we must tolerate such things if our own beliefs are to be tolerated. If we can shut them up, the next administration can shut us up. And, yes, there is such a thing as a slippery slope, especially in government. Where there is power, there will be the seekers of power.
Given what has been said on the blog the last week, I don’t think there are many Catholics Americans who care very much about First Amendment. But some of us do. Why the difference? I suspect it depends on our understanding of the history of the country, and if your teachers didn’t make much of the issue you won’t care about it.
Ann,
That’s probably true, and opposition on that basis is certainly admirable.
But I would suspect that respect for First Amendment principles would be spread pretty evenly among various religions and even the non-religious. It’s possible Catholics might experience that more keenly given that we have been the target in the past, but I suspect most Catholics don’t have much of a memory of that.
The most notable source of opposition to this mandate that I have seen is from Catholics who had heretofore been generally supportive of President Obama. I have not seen much opposition from non-Catholic Obama supporters, but that may have to do with what I read.
Bob, thanks for the link.
John McG –
What gets me about educated people generally not being careful of First Amendment infringements, it that the Supreme Courts, with their great sense of history, *have* been scrupulous about protecting the First Amendment. They obviously have seen it as fundamental to the functioning of other parts of the Constitution. e.g., without freedom of speech, criticism of government is lost, without freedom of religion there will be gross and general injustices to out of favor religious groups.
On the other hand, I think that because the ACLU has defended so many, many unpopular First Amendment cases, and because so many people can’t stand the ACLU because of it, that that the ACLU’s defenses have actually diminished general respect for the FA. But notice — the Court more often than not, at least in the most unpopular cases, generally goes with the ACLU.
I wonder what the usually obsessive ACLU is going to say about this case, if anything. It has been strangely silent — no doubt because it can’t stand the bishops. But their dislike of the bishops should not stop support for them. In Skokie, IL it even defended the right of a neo-Nazi group to march although many of the citizens of Skokie were Jewish and Holocaust survivors.
It will not be Obama vs the Bishops because politics will trump common sense and fairness. Obama will cave simply because of the votes, and that is not a true resolution to this debate, but it is what it is. This is one of the reasons millenials stay away. But many of us attend church because our sense of community and fath in the Lord God Jesus Christ goes beyond the human failings of our church.