–A la Captain Barbossa in “Pirates of the Caribbean”:
Best start believin’ in a Satanic Culture War.
We’re in one!
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As has been widely reported, a few days ago some 43 Catholic institutions consisting of various dioceses, schools, health care systems, charities, and so on filed 12 lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as a few other Departments of the Obama Administration. The primary purpose of the lawsuits is to defend religious freedom that is currently threatened by the Health and Human Services Mandate that requires employers to provide abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization procedures in direct violation of the employers’ religious beliefs.
At first blush, it seems likely that the lawsuits will be successful based on the merits of the arguments, but what if they aren’t successful? Moreover, what if the United States Supreme Court does not declare all or parts of Obamacare to be unconstitutional?
The recent assaults on traditional morality and the Catholic Church by the Obama administration is somewhat of a roll of the dice for the administration in terms of politics, but if the administration prevails, at least in too many ways, something more than having to either accommodate the mandate or close institutions is at stake.
Since accommodation is not a real option, and Catholic hospitals, charitable organizations, and so on are compelled to close their doors because they cannot in good conscience follow the mandate, who or what do you suppose will be ready and all too willing to take the place of these institutions? Who will present itself once again as the “champion of the people” and provide the needed substitutes, especially in the area of health care?
Of course it will be the “benevolent” Uncle Sam.
You see, if large sections of the auto industry needed to be taken over and/or bailed out a few years ago because of an alleged devastating impact that bankruptcy would have on the entire country, how much more of an emergency will be claimed makes it absolutely necessary that some 15% or more of health care services must be replaced by the federal government, and what real chances will any opposition have to prevent such a coup from taking place? Of course, unlike the assistance provided to the auto industry, the replacement of Catholic-run health care by the federal government will be more permanent, and the people in charge will be government employees.
And then we are one big step closer to National Health Care that too many people, including too many Catholic leaders of the Mitered class still believe can be a good thing despite many problems like the health care mandate battle illustrates.
Any hope? Always, especially if the US bishops and others who still believe it’s possible to get a little bit pregnant by supporting more government actions as the primary way to help people finally wake up to the overall war that is being waged beyond the health care mandate battle. Perhaps there was a time when the US government could be trusted to stay away from seeking to gain power over religion, and so various partnerships with Catholic organizations to better serve the poor were acceptable. That time has long passed, and there is currently much greater danger in cooperating with this increasingly ravenous Leviathan that may help to feed bodies, but at the expense of many more souls.
So while it is a very good and welcome thing to wage an aggressive battle against the HHS mandate, the larger war against religious liberty and liberty in general rages on, and Catholic leadership in the United States either wakes up to this reality or it will continue to strengthen the Leviathan even if the HHS mandate battle is won. At the moment, it appears that too many US bishops remain asleep and ignorant of the real war beyond the current battle. This is evidenced by their recent complaints and naïve critiques leveled against Congressman Ryan’s morally superior understanding of and attempts to lessen the danger of an ever-growing satanic monster that the bishops favor so long as that monster provides food even as it starves souls.
Is my primary concern regarding the move toward National Health Care just another nutty conspiracy theory? Perhaps, but who would have thought even a few short years ago that the actions of the federal government now seriously threaten the very existence of so many Catholic institutions?
‘Tis better to be awake to a possibility than it is to be asleep to reality.
OVV
Omnia Vincit Veritas 