Bby Father John Catoir
Throughout his career as a community organizer, President Barack Obama is said to have used Saul Alinski’s book, “Rules for Radicals.” Some say the book proclaimed the principle of divide-and-conquer. This was one of Alinski’s strategies in the struggle to gain political power.
By turning the poor against the rich, the laity against the bishops and labor unions against management, it is easier to build a majority in any democratic society.
In my opinion, it seems President Obama has been practicing this political strategy in his campaign to be re-elected in 2012. When he ordered the Catholic bishops to buy health insurance that would pay for artificial contraceptives for their employees, he knew he would awaken a storm.
However, he did not expect so many religious leaders to rally behind the Catholic Church’s protest. A coalition of religious leaders has turned out to support the Catholic hierarchy in its opposition to the governmental mandate on health care because it limits religious rights protected by the Constitution.
The president made a monumental, unforced error and violated the First Amendment.
On June 8, I was a guest on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News cable TV show “Your World.” Among other things, Cavuto asked me about the divide between practicing and nonpracticing Catholics, wondering how much real power the hierarchy has in opposing the president’s mandate.
I reinforced the obvious point that this issue has already gone far beyond the birth-control controversy within the church. It also goes beyond the Catholic Church.
I believe President Obama’s mandate to the bishops to pay for something the church considers to be against its principles is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The president’s exemption, which was granted a few days later, was virtually meaningless because most religious institutions affected are self-insured. This issue is about religious freedom. Catholics are morally free to follow their conscience, but presidents are not free to violate the Bill of Rights. The religious rights of American citizens are guaranteed in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The executive branch is included in this prohibition.
New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, after many attempts to solve this disagreement amicably, made it clear that the president’s mandate will be contested in the courts.
The idea of demanding religious leaders to violate their teachings is simply unacceptable.
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker, said he doubted the American “experiment” would survive because of what he called “the tyranny of the majority.” Voters tend to elect representatives who will give them what they want, even if, in the long run, what they want works against the common good.