The Catholic Bishops are Wrong

The Catholic Bishops of the United States are wrong in their latest foray into health care. At the most basic level they are wrong in adopting a very narrow and anachronistic view of Church. They somehow believe that in the exercise of their office they constitute Church. They don't. The Church is the People of God and all of us are part of that Church. If groups of Nuns, other Catholic institutions or concerned Catholics voice objections to the position of the heirarchy they form a valid and appropriate counter weight to the Bishop's point of view. The notion of the "sensus fidelium" or sense of the faithful is a strong part of what Catholic teaching is, not just what the Bishops say. The notion that the rest of us are around to pray, pay, and obey has been a thing of the past for a long time. Today's Catholic population is not ignorant, not docile, and not sheep to be led whereever the Bishops want to go.

The birth control issue raised by the Bishops is not one of religious liberty. It represents an attempt by the Bishops to impose their will on others. It is an attempt to discriminate against Catholics and others to prevent them from having access to health care services. The compromise developed by the Obama administration eliminates any possible issue they may have had, but now the Bishops appear to have decided to go beyound their original complaint and attempt to take health care services away from women. The Catholic Bishops who have always been a stalwart supporter of universal health care for all now seem determined to destroy that possibility.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, for example, says he doesn't want anyone forced to have pre-natal tests or be required to use other services such as contraception. Yet no one is forcing anyone to make use of any service. I believe the Bishops feel they have cleverly twisted and distorted the entire concept of health services and religious liberty. We are actually discussing health plans and what they cover. A plan may cover services for the delivery of a child. That doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it. Health plans cover hospitalization. Does that mean you are forced to get sick and go to the hospital? Most plans like Medicare, now cover flu shots. No one is requiring anybody to get a flu shot. Whenever the Churches or politicians decide to eliminate services from coverage they are reducing benefits available to consumers. It seems like a crazy way to run a health care system.

The concept of people being forced to do anything under the health care plan is bizarre. What is really going on is the Catholic bishops, certain politicians and certain right wing Christians want to scuttle people's health care, especially health care services for women. They want to deny aaccess to women for certain services that they don't want available. This is a totally inappropriate stance in a pluralistic society

The Bishops are also wrong because they fail to understand how weak is their level of credibility. They demonstrated their inability to address the sex abuse scandal appropriately, thus demonstrating their woeful lack of leadership skills. They also have no credibility as an all male heirarchy talking about sexual issues, yet not including women at any level of discussion in the Church. Their track record on sexual issues does not suggest any of their positions deserve to be given much weight. Until they begin to listen to other voices than their own, what they have to say on sexual issues will be of little value to the rest of us.

Perhaps most importantly, they have lost their credibility because their lifestyle is so far removed from the Jesus of the Gospels that we are called to follow. The pomp and circumstance of the recent elevation of Cardinals, and the distance they place between themselves and their people, make it difficult to see in them true representatives of Christ. They seem so far from the "alter christus", another Christ, that they should represent. They are living lives of comfort, and seem to be trying to return to the medieval church structures, including reintroducing such archaic titles as monsignor, all of which take them so far from any understanding of who Jesus is and what his followers and leaders should be like. Might I suggest that the Bishops would do well to consider a prayerful rereading of the New Testament, especially with its clear preference for the poor.

They are wrong to think they can throw their weight around to make the coming elections turn out the way they want. They seem to want to pick a fight even after they were granted a compromise that eliminates even the possibility of seeing this as a religious liberty issue. They appear to want to keep fighting. They seem to think they have power that they don't. The longer they insist on forcing their point of view on American Catholics and other Americans the less credibility they will have. They should accept the generous compromise and show that they are still committed to Unversal health care for all Americans, which has been the traditional Catholic position.

Finally, they are wrong in thinking they can put the birth control genie back in the bottle among Catholics after decades of acceptance by pretty much all Cathoics, including priests and bishops. It was pretty much understood that birth control was a matter of consience for Catholics and by and large most priests in the confessional would guide Catholics who had questions to follow their own conscience on such matters. Once again the "sensus fidelium" developed that birth control was a personal and family decision. The Bishops can huff and puff but today's American Catholics are not likely to change their behavior. So let me say it again. The Catholic Bishops are wrong, they are not infallible, and they do not constitute Church.