Cardinal Timothy Dolan (R-Vatican) was on Face the Nation yesterday and spoke on many subjects, including this:
He … pledged to fight the administration’s contraceptive mandate for health care coverage, even though the White House modified it so that religious-affiliated hospitals, universities and charities would not have to directly offer or pay for contraception.
“We didn’t ask for the fight, but we’re not going to back away from it,” Mr. Dolan said, adding it put the church “in a very tough spot.”
“We didn’t ask for the fight”? Strictly speaking, I suppose this is true — the bishops didn’t ask for this particular fight. But what Cardinal Dolan says here is deceiving, because, as The New York Times reported recently, the bishops were looking for some sort of fight:
Bishops Were Prepared for Battle Over Birth Control Coverage
When after much internal debate the Obama administration finally announced its decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control in their insurance plans, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle.
Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor.
Hours after President Obama phoned to share his decision with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops’ headquarters in Washington posted on its Web site a video of Archbishop Dolan, which had been recorded the day before….
As Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches has reported, the bishops were on a war footing as far back as last summer:
The Bishops’ opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services rule — which they describe as mandating “preventive services” (scare quotes in original) — was to date the most public salvo from their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. That effort was launched last June because, in USCCB president Timothy Dolan’s ominous words, “never before have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith and as a service provider. If we do not act now, the consequence will be grave.” At the Bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore this past November, Dolan took his charges into conspiratorial territory, telling reporters that “well-financed, well-oiled sectors” were attempting to “push religion back into the sacristy.”
So please, Cardinal Dolan, don’t pretend that you were just sitting around innocently writing sermons when that mean old President Obama blindsided you. This effort predates that.
And stop acting as if you’re being forced into silence. You’re not losing because you’re being repressed — you’re losing because Americans increasingly disagree on gay marriage, have mostly not shared your absolutist view of abortion, and have long disagreed with you on contraception — and that very much includes your own parishioners. We hear you. We just don’t agree with you. Deal with it.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
I forget, when is the USCCB rally to fight anti-poverty cuts in the budget planned? And I assume that they’re already petitioning the International Court to bring the torturers to justice, right? How is that going? And I want to co-sign their petition to the Supreme Court asking them to uphold the health care law. How can I do that?
Better yet:
Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Last I knew, there were 2 kinds of marriage. The kind where you could go to the local town hall, town clerk or whatever. And the kind where you get married by a member of some clergy, whatever your religion. And the first has little to do with the second. Unless you are rich, normally, the Catholic Church will not grant you a do over. And no one is forcing the Catholic Church to marry anyone. So how is anyone infringing on their religious liberty?
It’s why I no longer go to church. As a raised Catholic, it’s obvious they’ve become another arm of the GOP.
How about their war on caterpillars? just kidding. but seems to me they are trying to change the subject from their priests scandal. What do they think this is going to net them? perhaps help for Obama in this upcoming election.
I watched this episode because I wanted to see Andrew Sullivan defend his essay in a room of people who all hate his view on religion and Jesus, and I realized why I’ve never watched Face the Nation before; is this what “regular people” do to get their news? Jesus.
Anyway, when he says, “We didn’t start this fight,” he of course is parroting what fellow FtN guest Richard Land said: “And– and concerning what Andrew said, you know, most of the involvement of evangelicals in the public realm has been defensive, it wasn’t offensive. We didn’t make abortion on demand legal in every state in the country and strike down these laws against abortion in all fifty states. We didn’t seek to erode the expression of the public square by people of faith, and the Republican Party is not the only party that tries to claim God for themselves.”
IOW, “why can’t we just go back to the way things were? Everyone agreed, and then you liberals just had to go and screw everything up. We’re on the defensive, not the offensive.”
But of course Cardinal Dolan is free to say things like this about George Bush’s views on the death penalty and the Iraq War:
“Where President Bush would have taken positions on those two hot-button issues that I’d be uncomfortable with, namely the war and capital punishment, I would have to give him the benefit of the doubt to say that those two issues are open to some discussion and are not intrinsically evil…In the Catholic mindset, that would not apply to abortion.”
So that settles that. Of course, FtN would only have people of faith (all conservatives, too), and not bother to invite any atheists. That might facilitate a discussion instead of a wankfest.
Fewer ordinary people watch shows like Face the Nation each year. And any Christians who do are likely skipping Sunday school or church services.
I agree that the bishops were spoiling for a fight, but not that they were prepared for one.
Well-put.
Yes.
These folks have a peculiar view of “religious liberty”.
Face the Nation. Nice.
How like Francis of Assisi.
The video really conveys how much it pained the good Father to be dragged from his prayerful meditation.