There are a lot of people writing about the problems with the HHS mandate. The Bishops conference posted a list of things everyone should know about this mandate. Fr. Z blogged a bit on this HHS mandate and on the new Washington State unnatural marriage bill. Fr. Barron videos on the Anti-Catholic and Un-American HHS mandate. Why I am Catholic has a piece on The HHS Mandate and the Lord of the Rings that is truly marvelous.
This battle is bigger than the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution merely enumerates a FEW of the RIGHTS GIVEN BY GOD to all human beings. The Constitution does not give anything, it merely LISTS some of the key rights already possessed. This list is to remind everyone to limit the government so that these key rights are never obstructed.
KEY QUESTIONS
Who has the authority to command the lives of Catholics? Who has the authority to give or take rights? Who has the authority to define Church teaching? These are key questions!
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse wrote about the death of the First Amendment. In her article at Crisis Magazine she expresses the difference of opinion between the American people who love religious liberty and the government that has created a new national religion that they wish to impose.
We must consider, does our federal government hold the power and merely tolerate our religion, or do WE the people hold our Rights as from God? Action Institute wrote on this very topic over on their blog: Religious Liberty or Government Tolerance?
ISSUES
The issue is not how many people violate the law of God but that God’s Law forbids our participation. We must be free to obey God as we understand Him. The numbers of Catholics who disobey the precept condemning contraception, sterilization and abortion is irrelevant because there will always be sinners. It is equally irrelevant how many persons desire to redefine marriage and replace it with something forbidden. Marriage is a Catholic Sacrament with a God-given definition that it is forbidden to change. One cannot call the sin of breaking God’s laws anything but evil.
THE PROBLEM
In contrast our government is demanding we not only tolerate evil but use our tongues to APPROVE of evil and PARTICIPATE in funding evil with the work of our own hands as represented by the taxes we pay. Any law that forces anyone to approve or participate in evil must be repudiated and the elected officials who created it must be voted out of office.
For generations in the USA, compromises were possible based on ignorance, being nice and the fact that living the core of God’s laws was not forbidden. The entire Catholic population enabled the compromises that permitted others to violate God’s laws as long as the Catholics and others were free to obey God’s laws without persecution.
No longer. The enemy has seized the hour and is now making it against the law to live God’s laws or teach them publicly. No longer is tolerating evils the only demand, now it is law that we must use our tongues and APPROVE and even participate in those same evils.
ACTION: STUDY and Know Catholic Teaching
Every Catholic needs to get copies of Humane Vitae and the Gospel of Life and study them until they are nearly memorized so that you can stand firm and not be fooled.
Humane Vitae was prophetic. Catholics mocked the document even though it was a papal encyclical teaching clearly that contraception was evil and would lead to more evil. Time has shown us the truth of this encyclical and yet few Catholics study it.
The Gospel of Life expounds further on the themes of Humane Vitae and lists some of the movements in our culture which Blessed John Paul II said were part of the culture of death. These movements painted themselves as good so that Catholics would participate and support their goals! His warnings as well as those of Pope Paul VI went unheeded by most persons including our Bishops who have failed in their duty to teach.
Lay persons, while the materials are still available, MUST get them and study for themselves and teach them to our children! Our own history within the Church should show us that the hierarchy can only be trusted if the laity are educated in the faith and can help call them to orthodoxy. St. Athanasius was the only Bishop of his time outside of the Pope who did not fall to the errors of the day and the Pope was keeping quiet out of fear but the sense of the faithful kept orthodox belief alive in spite of the hierarchy.
What To Do Next
Remove funding from ALL organizations that participate in the culture of death and vote out any elected official who has pushed for our tax money to be used to commit evils.
Catholics and other Christians have for too long wrung our hands and wailed when our hard earned money was taken by the government and spent on supporting “art” that put a crucifix into urine or that paid abortion mills to exist– but the truth is these funds went to these evils because WE elected the persons who voted to fund them with our money; the cure is for us to vote them OUT of office.
Tolerance may leave birth control legal but the persons desiring to use it should have to pay for it themselves. Tolerance may say that the freedom of speech of the artist allows him to use dung to paint a picture of the Virgin Mary but not one penny of our tax money should be used in relation to it. Tolerance allows for the people who prefer to live in various states of sin without being persecuted for it but they should not expect approval from those of us who prefer the law of God nor should we who choose the law of God have to redefine our beliefs to accommodate their sin.
Christians have been a soft touch for a long time. They have been willing to say yes to funding anything that sounded good. The truth is that such wild spending is not sustainable and will eventually lead to a shift of power as the money vanishes from the hands of the Christians into the godless hands of government. We are experiencing the result of that shift.
Catholics have the numbers to vote the elected officials who did these evils out of office and if we fail to use our votes wisely we will be held accountable on the judgement day.