Ordinary of the Mass
Mass Text - Latin
Mass Text - English
“To compel a man to subsidize with his
taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and
tyrannical.”
Those words are attributed to Thomas
Jefferson, arguably the most brilliant man ever to occupy the White House.
When the ideas in question are doctrinal or moral, forced subsidy is not
only “sinful and tyrannical,” but also illegal, being
prohibited by the First Amendment to the Constitution, as “prohibiting the
free exercise” of religion.
On Wednesday I wrote a sermon that
related to the Epistle and Gospel read today—something about Faith, Hope,
and Charity. Perhaps you will hear it next year. On Thursday I received
several pieces of electronic mail about a matter that just seemed to cry out
for comment—so, on Friday I decided to write something different.
It seems that the federal government
has determined that “Beginning August 1, 2012, the Department of Health
and Human Services will require health insurance plans provided by
non-profit religious organizations to cover the full range of the Institute
of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA -approved
forms of contraception for women without charging a co‑pay, co‑insurance or
a deductible.”
This “full range” includes contraception, sterilization, and abortion
inducing drugs. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, on Kathleen
Sebelius, who claims to be a Catholic,
went on to inform us that “Scientists have abundant evidence that birth
control has significant health benefits for women and their families...” as
though contraceptives were some sort of vitamin pill! Her reference to them
as “preventative services” suggests that the federal government views
children as a sort of disease, to be prevented or excised.
Quite correctly, the outcry from the
American catholic hierarchy has been both widespread and indignant. One
outraged bishop even went so far as to restore the prayer to Saint Michael
the Archangel, which has been missing from the Modernist Mass since the
1960s!
Roger Mahoney, the former Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, is quoted as
saying:
As Bishops we do not recommend
candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the
candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who
intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience
clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to
acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not
receive my vote.
These good bishops are quite correct
in their indignation, but I have to suggest that they are somewhat
misdirected. Freedom of conscience is certainly important, but underlying
question of a government that mandates contraception, sterilization, and
even the murder of unborn children is far more significant! These things
would be grave evils, even if only the non-Catholics in our nation practiced
them. Contraception and abortion are not matters of Catholic morality—they
are serious violations of the Universal Natural Moral Law. It is a
dereliction of duty to complain about personal “freedom of conscience”
without jointly condemning the more widely accepted evils.
In these United States we have a
significant number of politicians, like Kathleen Sebelius, who claim to be
Christians and even Catholics, while actively promoting policies that are at
enmities with the Faith and the Natural Moral Law. They are welcomed into
Catholic churches, are admitted to Holy Communion, and receive Catholic
funerals when they die—sometimes with significant praise from the
hierarchy. Catholic universities grant prestigious honorary degrees to
these scoundrels. Given the failure of Church leaders to condemn the acts
of these such politicians, what can they expect to happen to the freedom of
their consciences. Not too many years ago, such notorious people would have
been excommunicated and declared “vitandus”—“to be avoided” by all
Catholic people, so that none would have anything to do with them. Today,
they are given honorary doctorates, and invited to the Vatican. Why should
anyone be surprised that the bishops will have to pay for a few
contraceptives??!!
In many cases, it has been the same
Catholic hierarchs who have been clamoring for the government to take over
the provision of health care (and a number of other things for which it has
no Constitutional authority). Eighty years ago, the beloved Pope Pius XI
wrote that “no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true
socialist.”
Today, many in the Church call for socialist government to solve all
the evils of society—often creating more evils as it does.
But anyone who understands the
economics of socialism knows that contraception, sterilization, abortion,
and euthanasia are inevitable components of a socialist medical system.
Socialism is inherently inefficient. It decreases incentive—why make the
effort to do something when the government will do it for you? It inflates
demand—why not take advantage of something that is offered for free? It
decreases supply—no one can compete with government on price—and often
government prohibits competition based on quality. So what are we left
with, is less of the service or commodity we would have had under free
enterprise. When more people want to share less of something, rationing
becomes imperative.
If we are talking about medical
care, the rations go to those who will most benefit the socialist society.
The elderly, the very young, the weak, and the retarded are excluded
immediately.
The proponents of socialist medicine do not try to hide this, and have
published extensively. I cited some of them in the Parish Bulletins for
October and November 2009, and I urge you to read them again on the
Internet.
The very simplest form of rationing a scarce commodity is to see that there
are fewer people to demand it. Population control through contraception,
sterilization, abortion, and euthanasia is part of virtually every scheme
for modern socialist government. Some, like “science czar,” John Holdren
go as far is putting chemicals in the food and water to sterilize just about
everyone!
The point is that the inefficiencies of socialism have to be made up for by
rationing goods among a select few and eliminating the rest. The harsh
reality is that such a system has no room for choices based on the Moral
Law, and no room for allowing individual consciences to “opt out” of the
system.
Socialism is theft. Another saying
attributed to Jefferson says that “The democracy will cease to exist when
you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would
not.” Such theft would be adequate reason for the bishops to condemn
socialist schemes in American government. Certainly, the rationing of care,
the artificial control of the population, and the violation of conscience
are even more abominable.
If the American bishops are to have
any credibility they must begin to denounce all of these things, and not
just the requirement that they provide free contraceptives to the women in
their employ. No socialist politician, and no socialist clergyman has any
right to the good graces of the Catholic Church or in the polite society of
Catholics or any Christian people. I urge you to remember this when you go
to the poll Tuesday for the primary, and again in November. I urge you to
remember it, as well, the next time you receive a request to make a
contribution to a supposedly Catholic cause, or to subscribe to a supposedly
Catholic publication
Jefferson was right: “To compel a
man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he
disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” It is abominable
when he is compelled to go beyond subsidizing ideas to paying for evil
deeds, and the distribution of human misery.
