‘No Door Closed, Except Door to Capitulation’

Details: 30 November 2012

The re-election of President Obama likely ensures that serious threats to religious liberty will remain and perhaps increase in coming years. An extensive list of threats to religious liberty is available on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at www.usccb.org/conscience.

The most egregious and notorious threat is the Obama Administration’s so-called "HHS mandate." The mandate requires health insurance plans (including those of many religious organizations) to provide coverage for female sterilization and contraception—which includes methods that can cause early abortions.

The mandate took effect Aug. 1 for non-religious employers. For non-profit religious organizations that are not exempt from the mandate—charities, schools, and hospitals—the mandate goes into effect Aug. 1, 2013.

Over the last year or more since the HHS mandate became a reality, the U.S. Bishops have taken extraordinary steps to fight this unprecedented threat to religious liberty. After the election, I and others have been anxious to know if the bishops’ resolve to fight the mandate would not only remain but would escalate.

During the bishops’ fall assembly two weeks ago, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, seemed to answer the question with a resounding "yes"! According to a LifeSiteNews article, Cardinal Dolan responded thus to a question about if the Church is prepared to close its hospitals and other agencies, or instead pay the exorbitant fines levied for non-compliance:

"The only thing we’re certainly prepared to do is not give in, not violate our consciences, and not obey what we consider to be something immoral. How we do that and what doors would remain open to us to see if there’s some way consonant with our high moral principles to be able to do it, that’s something we’ve got to start to tackle… and we’re prepared to tackle. No door is closed except the door to capitulation."

To this response by Cardinal Dolan, I and many Catholics and other people of faith say a hearty "AMEN"! As the bishops have said repeatedly throughout this battle, the freedom of religion is our first and most cherished of American freedoms. "It is the first freedom because if we are not free in our conscience and our practice of religion, all other freedoms are fragile," the bishops state in their statement on religious liberty entitled, "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty."

"If citizens are not free in their own consciences, how can they be free in relation to others, or to the state? If our obligations and duties to God are impeded, or even worse, contradicted by the government, then we can no longer claim to be a land of the free, and a beacon of hope for the world."

Amplifying the resolve of the bishops, Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, said in his report to the bishops’ assembly that "whatever setbacks or challenges in the efforts to defend religious liberty we may be experiencing, we’re going to stay the course."

The archbishop announced a number of initiatives to educate and form Catholics saying that "[d]efense of religious freedom requires not just dealing with short-term and mid-term goals, but indeed is a project that requires long-term foundational and formational work."

"Our work is to provide education and formation as part of the new evangelization," Archbishop Lori said. "I think that our initial efforts have demonstrated the need for greater formation, especially to reach young people, to open their hearts to their heritage as Americans and to what faith teaches about religious liberty."

Among the new initiatives mentioned by Archbishop Lori is a new website, www.firstamericanfreedom.com, which explains long-standing Church teaching on religious practice and traditional marriage; a religious freedom curriculum for schools; and additional materials to assist parishes, organizations and interested groups to discuss and learn about church teaching on religious freedom.

"What is at stake [in this battle]," the bishops warn in their religious liberty statement, "is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it."

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.