During the same year when many Catholic clergy and theologians have written a public letter clarifying the immorality of the current Republican "war on the poor," the Bishops demand that all churches read an inflammatory letter suggesting that their constitutional rights have been violated and the Obama Administration has taken the country "to Hell in a handbasket."
Unfortunately, the letter is not just inflammatory but downright deceptive. And to explain to the average traditional Catholic in the seat to your right or left (or at the coffee shop) why, you'll have to discuss both law and science. Good luck! But there's a primer to help just beyond that orange squiggle.
First, the facts. The new health care law expects that policies that provide drugs (like Viagra) treat women the same way, providing their birth control pills. Sound logical? I suppose, unless you belong to the "quiverfull" movement and expect women to be handmaids.
But that's Catholic teaching, I guess. Whether or not an employee is Catholic, the Bishops are demanding the right to deny the women coverage for birth control. That includes the cleaning women at University of Detroit and the nurses' aides at huge Catholic hospitals.
The Bishop's letter goes farther; It calls many birth control pills "abortion inducing drugs." That's true, I guess, if you believe that a fetus' rights begin at the second of conception, since the standard American birth-control pill prevents implantation and doesn't just kill sperm.
Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees’ health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception.
(Theological primer for the naive. This view of when life begins is NOT traditional catholic doctrine, but began in the 1950swhen the Church began to realize that its demographic predominance was waning. This link has a great explanation of why it began and why it is likely to continue, including "the celibate's fear of the power of women.")
The letter also implies that the law requires coverage for sterilization. Again not true: Elective sterilization need not be covered, as long as it is even-handed.
And third "lie" in the letter. It says that "almost all Catholic institutions" are affected. In fact, in a small Catholic school where it would be presumed that most of the employees were Catholic, it wouldn't apply. But at University of Detroit, a mostly-secular university owned by Dominican nuns, it would.
Then, to inflame the "sheep" a bit more, they go on:
Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture,
only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights.
Now, if I were to say to the senior citizen next to me: "Do you believe that the birth control pill is a threat to our culture?" I bet I'd get a different answer than the one the Bishops are giving them this morning.
But the harm this will do can't be underestimated. How much ya bet that Mitt Romney will be siding with the Bishops this morning?