For whatever reason, the influence of religious institutions upon public and private lives seems to have waned. Individuals feel more comfortable making up their own minds without seeking counsel from the Church. That carries over into the public forum as public officials seem less likely to seek proper guidance.
The results, of course, is that the Truth that is assured by Church teaching is ignored and the common good deteriorates.
We’ve been told as much this week by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities when he issued the U.S. Bishops’ statement on October as Respect Life Month.
In addition to this general inattention, the respect for life message is endangered by recent moves to silence the voice of people motivated by faith. Government seems bent on silencing the voice of the Church when it disagrees with public policy. Witness all the attempts to ruin the image of the pro-lifer who opposes legal abortion.
Anti-abortionists are made out to be first-class nuts when the truth is they usually are the most sensible people in the crowd. Practice the right to free speech and you’re likely to face numerous obstacles as government makes it harder and harder to state the obvious truth. The result is that the world is being turned upside down and inside out.
“Some now even seek to eliminate religiously motivated people and organizations from public programs, by forcing them to violate their moral and religious convictions or stop serving the needy,” he said.
At the moment, the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) Dept. is attempting to redefine religious institutions in order to make them violate their teachings and pay for birth control and abortion insurance, part of the newly enacted ObamaCare.
All of a sudden, HHS defines a religious agency as one that employs only Catholics and serves only Catholics.
Redefining religious groups like that would disqualify Catholic hospitals, and social service agencies, such as migration services and child-caring institutions.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, R.S.M., who works on behalf of the U.S. bishops in Washington, calls it a “bizarre understanding of religion,” during a phone interview with Currents this week. She attributes the new antagonism toward religion to language produced by the ACLU in writing the proposal.
Cardinal DiNardo noted that the theme for the 2011-12 Respect Life program, now in its 40th year, was taken from Jesus’ promise in the 10th chapter of John: “I came so that all might have life and have it to the full.”
Jesus didn’t tell us to serve only Christians. He said to serve all men and women.
The cardinal added that the recent decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to require all health plans to cover contraceptives and sterilization without cost demonstrates both “a distorted view of sexuality and a disdain for the role of religion.”
In spite of the hostility toward people of faith, the cardinal urged that Catholics not “shrink from the obligation to assert the values and principles we hold essential to the common good, beginning with the right to life of every human being and the right of every woman and man to express and live by his or her religious beliefs and well-formed conscience.”