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Originally Posted by merrylander
I see the newly elevated Archbishop of Baltimore is leading a crusade to kill PPACA called Fortnight for Freedom. I think Sister Simone Campbell beat him to the punch with Nuns on a Bus.  |
Rob, this is a national campaign with Lori at its head. This is a really tricky one. The Catholic Church is doctrinally opposed to birth control but The Affordable Care Act will require all employes to offer reproductive care, including contraception, to their employees.
Archbishop Lori said this: "Religious freedom includes the freedom of individuals to act in accord with their faith but also the freedom of church institutions to act in according with their teachings and to serve as a buffer between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual conscience."
Interesting. Yes, the Church has a role to play in countering the excesses of the State but, as I see it, only with respect to the denial of individual rights or a
requirement that individuals act in opposition to their conscience. As Lori says, individuals must be free to act in accordance with their conscience. The problem here is that the Church being able to deny coverage for reproductive care constitutes interference with that very right.
The bit about requiring the Church to "enable" individual behavior that is antithetical to its teachings is the tricky bit and I don't really have an answer. One interesting question is whether those prohibitions should apply to
employees of the Church who aren't themselves believers.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore was a very progressive institution at one time, very engaged in the community and in the social justice movement. By and large, the congregation was behind them. I think Catholics in Maryland are still pretty much of the same mind collectively so I suspect most have left off attending or supporting the Church. At any rate, I hope so.
John