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| This graphic shows how little of a profile women actually have in discussing a subject that directly impacts only them. This whole brouha ain't just a Catholic problem. The USCCB is just the most 'in your face' picture of this paternalism. |
When President Obama announced his compromise on birth control coverage in health insurance policies, I gave the USCCB about five seconds to announce their objections. I suspected they would state they were very concerned it didn't go far enough in protecting religious freedom and individual conscience. I was right, but it didn't take any ability as a prophet to call this one. What surprised me is they have gone much further in their concerns than I expected. Now it seems they are concerned about any one individual who works for or leads any business enterprise who might have objections to this that or the other thing and states their objections are on religious grounds. But then they also added 'moral' grounds to religious grounds. Maybe they are trying to respect the individual consciences of atheists with that addition, but I kind of doubt that. I think they are trying to rewrite the Constitution so that they are an agency outside and above the Constitution and not answerable to any form of secular government.
In the letter the fabulous five sent to their brother bishops they listed the following as their guiding principles:
Our brother bishops permit us to repeat the principles that are guiding us:
First, there is the respect for religious liberty. No government has the right to intrude into the affairs of the Church, much less coerce, the Church faithful individuals to engage in or cooperate in any way with immoral practices. (This sentence needs a corollary however, and the Fab Five aren't quite ready to state it--yet. They also believe the Church has the right to intrude into the affairs of governments and individuals and should be both free to do so without impediment, and have their intrusion enforced by government mandate.)
Second, it is the place of the Church, not of government to define its religious identity and ministry.
(Actually, this should read it is the place of we bishops to define Catholic religious identity and ministry as we see it. The USCCB certainly isn't speaking for the vast majority of lay Catholics, and they don't speak for women at all. They are speaking about themselves and their power and that has zero to do with us pew potatoes. They are stating in no uncertain terms American Catholicism is their church... period. The lay exist to pay for their Church.)
Third, we continue to oppose the underlying policy of a government mandate for purchase or promotion of contraception, sterilization or abortion inducing drugs. (Their real truth is they oppose reproductive health care for women but attempt to obfuscate that truth by listing effects like contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drugs. They won't state that their 'principles' reject the fundamental right of a woman to make decisions about her own life, and additionally go so far as to actually deny her any right to her own life in the reproductive process. That's too much truth to openly express and so it's spin, spin, spin.)
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I am becoming more and more curious as to why President Obama pays this much attention to the Fab Five. It's not like they speak for the majority of American Catholics. Even if I credence that the centrist and progressive Catholic periodicals and writers sided with the Bishops on this issue--probably out of guilt, self preservation, or juvenile tribal identity issues, I am still befuddled as to why President Obama felt the need to attempt this compromise. If he hasn't learned by now that there is no such thing as compromise with this kind of male mindset, then he has an awfully slow learning curve. But being the eternal optimist I like to pretend I am, I think President Obama might actually be playing a sort of end around. Sometimes the only way to deal with bullies is to let them hang themselves by providing multiple opportunities for others to see just how immature, self centered, fearful, willfully ignorant, and relationally inept bullies actually are. The idea is to let bullies make themselves their own worst enemy by giving them the attention they crave
Should President Obama accomplish this with the USCCB, by letting our erstwhile leaders think they can take this religious freedom issue to ridiculous ends, he would be doing a very great service for the American Catholic Church. The bishops have already alienated a huge percentage of Catholic women, now it's only a matter of time before more Catholic men see this power play for what is--an assault on American democracy.
They have a name for what you think Obama might be up to now best case scenario, 11ty Dimensional Chess. The only question is, did he plan on winning this mind game or is he really just that milquetoast on principles important to his progressive base?
ReplyDeleteKallisti
I don't know Kallisti. I do know he's entirely calculating when it comes to his own political future. The one thing about this compromise is it does respect the right of women for access to reproductive health care, and it gives the bishops an out. If the bishops don't take it, then all of this was never about their conscience rights or birth control. It was about pushing Obama out of the presidency. There's certainly nothing Catholic about such a political ploy.
DeleteExcellent post, commentary and reply to above. I wish more people were on board with this.
ReplyDeleteThe bishops have predictably rejected it. It's been obvious to me this is a political move on the bishops' part precisely designed to keep Obama from being reelected. The bishops are Catholic only in name. They don't want the Vatican II concept of a lay-driven church of the People of God. They want to revert to the concept of the Empire of God, but this isn't going over well. I really struggle on a daily basis with the cognitive dissonance.
ReplyDeleteWhat do the folk at "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" think about all this ? They must have an opinion.
ReplyDeleteThis, from 1978, is worth reading - not a lot has changed in 33 years:
http://www.wf-f.org/JFH-CatholicsAmerica.html
"JFH" is James Hitchcock - he's very thought-provoking, and always worth reading. If his fellow-conservatives were more like him, and less apt to treat those who criticise the CC's present state as though they had nothing worth saying, the Church might be a lot healthier.
As for the bishops - good fathers listen. I'm not sure the bishops are really much good as fathers; they are expected to be CEOs as well, and judges, & politicians - they have to embody too many incompatible job descriptions for them to perform any of them well - unless they are exceptional human beings: but how many are ? Besides, multi-tasking is not something men are good at - women OTOH seem to be extremely good at it. IMO, the bishops are being asked to do too much, & the work required of bishops needs to be less varied, so that they can do far more of what a bishop should do. It might be a good idea to have many more bishops, and much smaller dioceses.
On the cognative dissonce theme, are the bishops, in rejecting Obama's latest proposal, going to turn around and call their confreres in Europe who partake of their own countries universal health care benefits "sinners" and "turncoats"? Surely many of these countries health care systems offer reproductive health services. Surely Bishops and Cardinals in these countries participate in these health care systems. I'm so confused.
ReplyDeletejamez I don't get this either. It's another reason I see this religious freedom crusade as just another political gambit on the part of our bishops. End intent I guess is to turn the US into some sort of 'benevolent Christian theocracy' by using various branches of the government to legislate and enforce their ideology.
DeleteWhoa whoa whoa, steady on there.
ReplyDelete"Third, we continue to oppose the underlying policy of a government mandate for purchase or promotion of contraception, sterilization or abortion inducing drugs.
(Their real truth is they oppose reproductive health care for women but attempt to obfuscate that truth by listing effects like contraception, sterilization, and abortion inducing drugs. They won't state that their 'principles' reject the fundamental right of a woman to make decisions about her own life, and additionally go so far as to actually deny her any right to her own life in the reproductive process. That's too much truth to openly express and so it's spin, spin, spin.)"
i. Could you share with us the evidence that the USCCB opposes obstetric and gynaecological care which does NOT rely on contraception, sterilisation, or abortion?
ii. Given that the USCCB, in line with the teaching of the Catholic Church, also opposes contraception by and sterilisation of men, could you justify your expression of this issue as being a about women, rather than about life?
I have never heard a sermon on male reproductive sins other than to paint a married couple with the sin of contraception and gay men as somehow far more morally wrong than any adulterous straight man.
DeleteGranted the church supports ob/gyn services in the interests of pregnancy and some fertility treatments, but nothing else. NFP itself is an unnatural birth control regimen whose intent is to have sex without making babies. I find the promotion of this idea as hypocritical as "annulment" proceedings.
On the other hand, they support the use of ED drugs for all men all the time irrespective of age or marital status---and I get to pay for this every month through my insurance plan. It angers me a great deal that our male bishops do not speak to this male reproductive issue. The introduction of ED drugs directly corresponds to an explosion of HIV cases in women 55 and over.
i. So you have been making completely groundless claims against the USCCB. I'm glad this has been established.
Deleteii. You're repeating yourself with extra detail here, I'll ask again more fully.
The USCCB, in line with the teaching of the Catholic Church, opposes contraception by and sterilisation of men just as it opposes the same in women, and accepts non-contraceptive non-abortificant fertility treatment for men as well as for women.
In light of this, are you able to justify your expression of this issue as being about women, rather than about life?
My claims against the USCCB are not groundless. Ob/Gyn services are limited exclusively to concerns of a normal pregnancy, except of course for the utter hypocrisy of NFP.
DeleteAnd absolutely this issue, and most birth control/abortion issues are all about women. Women are the ones who lose their right to life the minute they get pregnant by Catholic teaching. When the military ordinariate issues an edict that condemns soldiers for using condemns I might re evaluate my position, but until that happens this issue has always been about women and women's right to reproductive choice.
Colleen, I might go further and say that GYN services according to Catholic teaching are also limited to ensuring any female is 100% available to become pregnant, regardless of any/all consequences to her health or life and regardless if it is her loving committed husband who might impregnate her or any rapist on the street. There is no other possible reason for the Church to be so adamantly against sterilization - particularly in cases where it is a known fact that attempting to carry a pregnancy will probably kill her.
DeleteTrying to treat sterilization/contraception on 'equal' grounds for males and females is silly. The burden of human reproduction is NOT equal between the genders and it does not take any special medical training to recognize this. Males simply do not have to bear as much of the consequences of reproduction to their physical well-being, let alone the social or economic issues.
Only if you regard pregnancy as the lowest common denominator among women and/or that the females are more disposable than the males does it make sense to argue that reproductive issues are not primarily about woman's rights and dignity.
Veronica
Your last paragraph says it all Veronica. Pregnancy is the lowest common denominator and females are considered more disposable than males. The Church may bluster that this isn't true, but so did the institutional male elite in China and India and we all know what happened. Females were aborted and now the boy children of those parents who disposed of their daughters can't find wives, unless they go through the human trafficking channels----which is another consequence of restricted availability of birth control in the Philippines. Lots of unwanted, unplanned for, children for the sex trade.
DeleteGiven that that the bishops refuse to learn one of the main themes of the Annunciation: That God ASKED for Mary's consent before impregnating her, it is quite clear to me that the bishops think women are really nothing more than walking wombs. Given that even in cases of rape the woman still is simply not allowed access to something like Plan B if she so chooses unless it is proven she is in the part of the cycle when she is infertile... Yes, this whole thing is about dehumanizing and controlling women as if they are farm animals. As do you Invictus with your 'whoa, whoa steady there' comment.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the bishops also oppose contraception and sterilization of men and this somehow makes them all about life is just a fig leaf. Pregnancy simply does not impact the mental or physical health of men as emphatically as it does that of women.
If you take the case of the woman in Phoenix whose husband had to have been aware of the danger pregnancy posed for her, one could make the case that his penis became a lethal weapon that shot the bullet that almost resulted in her death.
DeleteIn this case it would be the more ethical solution for him to have undergone a vasectomy rather than risk killing his wife. The official Church position is "go ahead and kill your wife, fertile sexual acts trump her right to life."
I sometimes despair of some men ever understanding there are very serious consequences for women who get pregnant and equally very serious reasons for taking birth control. Many times it's not about "I want to be free wheeling sexual slut just like the guys".
And why can't men comprehend those risks? A serious lack of empathy on their part?
DeleteI think they put too much emphasis on God as Engineer, Whose systems always work flawlessly. So if there are any negative consequences to you for doing what God designed your body for, it must be because you are doing it wrong. And I strongly suspect the women who buy into the whole Natural Family Planning concept are doing the same thing. They forget that the human body is subject to all kinds of ills and often enough the individual has no control over the development of those ills. BUT every once in a while, God's gift of human intelligence can find treatments to effect a cure or a palliative at least.
Veronica
Colkoch,
ReplyDeletei. You've still given no evidence that "the USCCB opposes obstetric and gynaecological care which does NOT rely on contraception, sterilisation, or abortion", so I must still assume that your accusations are groundless and move on.
ii. "And absolutely this issue, and most birth control/abortion issues are all about women. Women are the ones who lose their right to life the minute they get pregnant by Catholic teaching. When the military ordinariate issues an edict that condemns soldiers for using condemns(sic) I might re evaluate my position, but until that happens this issue has always been about women and women's right to reproductive choice."
Military ordinariates look after the needs of male and female soldiers, sailors and aircrew equally, and - given that ordinariates accept Catholic teaching - would (in common with the USCCB) oppose contraception by and sterilisation of men, and oppose the same in women, and accept non-contraceptive non-abortificant fertility treatment for men, just as for women as well.
Overall, you don't seem to be making any sort of robust justification for your blog post here.
V,
ReplyDeleteI was going to keep to the original thread of simply calling Colkoch's bluff, but I think it's worth saying:
It's not about not accepting risks to women. There are risks to women in pregnancy as there are in abortion, so there's risk on all sides, and I think we all accept these. It's about refusing to end an innocent human life to fulfil some other goal, and however difficult that might sometimes be to hold to, it is what is asked of us.
If it really is about protecting the new 'innocent' life, then why not allow sterilization? The Church simply does not. And men simply do not and CAN NOT bear the consequences of a pregnancy taking their life away from them.
DeleteAnd the risks of pregnancy are generally higher than the risks of abortion. The risks of pregnancy are generally higher than the risks of surgical sterilization. So your argument still does not hold up. The only way your argument holds up is if women are simply more disposable in Catholic moral teaching than either men or 'pre-born children'.
"In light of this, are you able to justify your expression of this issue as being about women, rather than about life?"
ReplyDeleteWhen the Church starts processing and condemning the male part of this abortion equation I will then re evaluate my position. Until then it's all about women.
Years later, I am still trying to get my head around the Recife nine year old rape victim and the pristine logic behind excommunicating her mother for agreeing to aborting her twins, but not one damn thing was said about the perverted rapist of a father. But then that kind of fits the whole attitude our 'teachers' have taken about priests raping nine year olds.
The Church condemns both men and women who promote abortion and who take active part in it, and always has done, so it's clearly not all about women. As I said, you've brought no evidence to support your claims against the USCCB and no evidence to support your painting this as a women's issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd you've fallen back on a desperate and emotive straw-man argument. Classy.
Why not just retract the blog post? It's been pretty clearly shown content-free now.
OK I fell back on a straw-man argument, to sn extent, but this is the point you miss: "Colleen, I might go further and say that GYN services according to Catholic teaching are also limited to ensuring any female is 100% available to become pregnant, regardless of any/all consequences to her health or life and regardless if it is her loving committed husband who might impregnate her or any rapist on the street."
DeleteAs is pointed out here, Catholic moral theology regarding pregnancy makes utterly no distinction between a fertilization between loving couples or one by rape. See, that's utterly offensive to women, who at this point in their pregnancies and hence forward, are nothing but baby factories and have no right to their own life.
Tell me Invictus, where do men face this demeaning of their own lives in the reproductive equation. As the Recife case points out, and you refuse to acknowlege, absolutely no where. Not in their soul life, not in their physical life. So yes, the abortion/contraception issue is all about women, even when those women are nine years old.
So, now we get into the reality of this blog post. It is nothing in fact to do with the USCCB at all, but about this particular disagreement of yours. On this basis, you ought really to publish a retraction of the libel against the USCCB.
DeleteIt is perfectly good and right that the Church make no distinction in the two cases. In both cases there exists an innocent life at its most vulnerable, and a woman facing months of emotion and uncertainty and in need of the support of those around her.
I like to think that being conceived by rape I wouldn't forfeit my right to continue existing, however horrendous and traumatic a thing rape can be.
The Church rightly and courageously extends compassion and support to women in all difficult situations (and we are all called to that same loving support) without being tricked into sanctioning the termination of innocent human lives.
Invictus, stop. The Church has tricked us into sanctioning the termination of all kinds of innocent human lives. Read some of the slaughter Catholics engaged in during the Crusades, and more recently in Croatia during WWII.
ReplyDeleteHere's a story about a real product of rape. I had a young man on my caseload years ago who was a product of incestuous rape. His mother completely abandoned him, exactly as she had been abandoned by her family. His father/grandfather raised him until the state took him at two. He spent all the rest of his life until he was 18 in one State program or foster care home after another, where of course, he experienced rape himself. He is now a fully functioning member of society but it took a long time to help him get over the utter rejection he experienced from his biological family and the abuse he took from one really sick foster care provider. It wasn't any Church that supported him or taught him to see there was more to life than he had so far experienced. It was the State paying for his therapy and medication and those of us who cared enough to give him a different world view. So you see, I find your definitive statement about the Church's compassion and support for women a tad bit bogus, unless your definition of Church includes the millions of us lay Catholics who toil on the margins with the least of the least.
Oh, really? Point me to the documentation, would you please? If it's such a clear case, it'll be easy for you. So come, do.
ReplyDeleteThat's a sad and moving story, but it doesn't alter your libelling of the USCCB re: they "oppose reproductive health care for women", and nor- obviously - does it mean that the individual should have been dismembered before birth.
"...I find your definitive statement about the Church's compassion and support for women a tad bit bogus, unless your definition of Church includes the millions of us lay Catholics who toil on the margins with the least of the least."
All lay Catholics should be working to help the least of the least, and in all the parishes I've ever had experience of, great work is done to help the least of the least (and anyone else indeed, even if they're not dramatically lowly!)...so perhaps you could get off your high horse there; the insinuation that you're better than the rest of us is not very flattering.
(And of course my definition of the Church includes non-clergy! It would be completely bizarre for it not to. That's the definition of the Church: the faithful body of Christ, united in faith and carrying forward the true doctrine bequeathed to us from Jesus and his disciples. From Jesus, Peter I and Linus I to JPII and Benedict XVI, and from them down to the ground, in every era. It's beyond debate.)
I suspected not. But no retraction, still?
ReplyDeleteDefinitive proof? It is right there in the cases in Phoenix and the 9-year-old rape victim that Colleen refers above. The bishops will all allow any human person the right of self-defense right up to and including the taking of another human life if need be. They will go further and argue that any person can act in defense of another even to the point of taking another human life. As a society, we base our military and police forces on this right of self-defense.
ReplyDeleteThe one glaring exception to this rule is a woman whose pregnancy may kill [she is forbidden from procuring sterilization as prevention] or is killing her [she is forbidden from procuring an abortion]. She has no right of self-defense nor to be defended by others. She must die. Whether you like it or not Invictus, this is the end result of the USCCB demanding it get its way on 'pro-life' issues.
Veronica