Scott Brown Is Threat To Women's Rights

letter to the Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield (MA)

Thursday October 11, 2012

I am an independent voter, family man, and practicing Catholic. For the last few weeks our parish bulletin in Lee has carried helpful hints about what sort of candidates should be elected. Our bishops tread a fine line between information (permissible) and advocacy (impermissible). These hints take the long way round. Yet, once the insert is read, and the recommended web sites found, the dots are easily connected. The road signs may be nonpartisan, but there is no mistaking that the preferred destination this year is the Grand Old Party.

During the first debate of the Senate candidates, incumbent Scott Brown stressed his support for the aptly-named Blunt amendment, the attempt by Republicans to limit reproductive choices for women. We know that this issue is dear to Brown because he co-sponsored the amendment. He continues to support the purported rights of the bishops, and secular employers, to dictate to their employees which health options they may choose, based solely on the employers’ moral viewpoint.

This alone would be cause for alarm. But, there is a larger worry. Even though Brown asserts that he is pro-choice, his votes on key issues have so consistently sided with Republican creed that it’s entirely possible a last-minute conversion on the issue of abortion could take place, with disastrous results. The GOP’s desire to overturn Roe v. Wade has grown so strong that they’ve written it into the party platform. Nor are they alone in working toward a change.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has made the overturning of Roe v. Wade a priority in their position paper: "A Call To Political Responsibility." In paragraph 42, we find that ". . .  a candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion. . . " IS sufficient to guarantee a voter’s condemnation.

Thus, there are powerful forces at work to criminalize abortion. This background must be considered in the Senate race. We know that Mr. Brown stands for denying reproductive rights for women, and that it’s possible he may stand for overturning Roe v. Wade. The contrast with the positions of his challenger is striking. Elizabeth Warren, besides being passionate, articulate, and intelligent, is a staunch supporter of women’s rights.

This is no time to mince words. Abortion is sad. It is revolting. And, it is wrong. Yet, in a pluralistic society, religious views, however well-intentioned, are held to a standard. They must fit within the framework of the greater public good. All are bound to respect the rights and welfare of all. A workable democracy is not easy. It requires a moral commitment to reasonable discourse as well as tolerance, and Catholics, no less than others, must not shy from the challenge. As bad as legal abortions may appear, the alternative of botched and back-alley illegal abortions would be far worse.

I support whole-heartedly the rights of my wife and daughter and all women of the commonwealth to make their own choices about reproduction services. The candidate who will safeguard these rights is Elizabeth Warren.

ROBERT M. KELLY

Lee

Contraception and Religious Liberty

[published in the New York Times on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012]

Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, prominent Republicans and other social conservatives have spent the past year making inflammatory allegations that an Obama administration rule requiring employer health plans to cover birth control without a co-pay tramples on religious freedom. An important federal court decision issued Friday rejected that attack as without foundation.

Judge Carol Jackson of Federal District Court, a George H.W. Bush appointee, dismissed the lawsuit filed against the administration brought by a mining company and its owner, who said that providing contraceptive coverage in the company health plan violated his personal religious views.

[link to her decision is here:]

Judge Jackson, based in St. Louis, correctly pointed out that the rule exempts churches, mosques and other houses of worship. The mining company — a secular, for-profit employer — clearly does not qualify for that exemption or for the accommodation the administration is fashioning to relieve colleges, hospitals and other organizations with religious affiliations from having to provide contraceptive coverage directly, by putting the burden on insurance companies. Her legal analysis, however, applies broadly, providing a useful framework for assessing claims by varied religious objectors.

The plaintiffs argued that the contraception mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law that prohibits the federal government from taking actions that “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless that action advances a compelling government interest and is the “least restrictive means” of achieving it.

Judge Jackson said she did not have to address whether the act’s strict test should be applied in this case to a company because the contraception coverage requirement does not rise to the level of a “substantial” burden needed to trigger the law.

Any imposition on religion is trivial and remote, she explained. The health care coverage would offend the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an employee “makes an independent decision to use the plan” to obtain contraceptives; and that independent decision is no different from an employee using part of a salary to pay for contraceptives, which clearly would not harm the employer’s right to free exercise of religion.

The 1993 statute “is not a means to force one’s religious practices upon others” and “does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one’s money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one’s own,” Judge Jackson wrote.

She also forcefully dismissed the claim that the contraceptive coverage requirement violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion. Her ruling accurately said the regulation is a “neutral” attempt to expand women’s access to health care and combat gender bias, and applies equally to all denominations. Under legal precedents, the First Amendment does not exempt individuals or entities from complying with neutral laws of general applicability based on a religious objection, however sincere.

Judge Jackson’s powerful ruling is a victory for women and religious freedom. The many other courts hearing similar lawsuits by companies, individuals and groups with religious affiliations should follow her approach.

Reading The Signs Of The Times

Last post, while explaining the petition, I sketched the connections from local to diocesan to larger units such as the Commonwealth, the U. S., and Catholic “headquarters” based in Rome. “All politics is local” and church politics are no exception. Church officials insist that the church is above politics, whether of the secular or religious variety. Careful observation belies this claim, and not only at the macro-level, where Cardinal Dolan plays a role on the national stage.

The parishes are the building blocks of the church. Parish councils, though ostensibly formed to help the laity govern, in reality play a very different role in the Springfield Diocese. They have a gate-keeping function, and one of their assignments is to squelch unorthodox strains of thought which may erupt into public speech, discussion and advocacy, and thereby undermine (so the thinking goes) the larger good of shaping behavior based on top-down authority. Propriety and appearance are very important values in the Springfield Diocese. 

This orthodoxy is expressed in pronouncements from "spokesmen" rather than individual parishioners; in marching orders issued from Elliot St., the centralized headquarters of the bishop, rather than bubbling up from an organic base; in a liturgy where spontaneity is discouraged; in chilly  homiletics, so barren of new theological thought; in the rich clothing and ceremonial trappings of the chancery, so clearly modeled on Roman imperial might. Without question, these sentiments and displays are backwards and anti-democratic. Yet, many Catholics accept them, often with the disclaimer that “that’s the way the Catholic church operates.” 

Curiously, the suspicion that these may not be gospel values hardly comes up. Even more curious, church officials claim to be not only unwilling, but unable to change — and proud of it, to boot. 

Are we not supposed to be listening to the signs of the times? When clergy and church members turn our back on change, are we not projecting our own limitations on a limitless good? 

Many Catholics have gauged the state of the church, read the propensity for orthodoxy as fatal, put their affairs in order, and bowed out. I don't blame them. Nevertheless, my choice is to remain. I can see no other way to affect the church for the better than to continue belonging to it. 

The first task while working for reform within the church is to understand how the church hierarchy thinks, not because they lead, but because they have appropriated all of the power. Power in this sense meaning simply "the ability to do." It is obvious that the power needs to be reassigned. This task of understanding what lies behind the liturgy, the ceremonies, the boilerplate of chancery pronouncements is harder than it sounds. 

All priests are trained in the arts of persuasion: in rhetorical, logical, and oratorical skills. Not surprisingly, those who rise in the ranks have more of these skills than their peers. I have found that if you want to understand the Catholic clergy, the last thing to listen to are pronouncements from diocesan spokesmen. Nor are statements from the pulpit to be taken at face value.

No, the most fertile ground for understanding what makes official Catholicism tick is not found in church, but in court: in the Bishop's lawsuits. Study the arguments made in the lawsuits. Study what they do and do not say. 

Study the positions taken by the lawyers of the bishops, and then we will understand the bishops themselves, and their vision for what the church is and should be in these times.

Why The Springfield Diocese?

Some of the signers of the petition questioned why the goal of getting better disclosure laws from religious corporations is so specific to the Springfield Diocese. This post attempts to answer that objection.

First of all, you have to start somewhere! It’s easy to agree that religious corporations need reform — agreeing about what needs to be done is hard. Second, Brody and I have lived and worshiped in the Springfield Diocese, even if he is now a few hours away, studying at Boston College law school; so, the Springfield Diocese is what we know best. Third, the climate at the chancery offices in this Diocese is much more repressive ("toxic," in the words of one priest) than elsewhere. There are good reasons for the toxicity, as we shall see.

The petition is therefore a specific response to specific problems in a local area. In this, it follows the structure of the Catholic church, which always works from the ground up. The popular image of the church shows a pyramid, with the Pope at the pointy end. The reality is the reverse. The Pope is actually a brother to other Catholics rather than a father. The people, along with their contributions (especially their financial contributions), undergird the whole. Without a ceaseless infusion of money, the Vatican (vaunted art collections, distinguished library and all) would come crashing down tomorrow.

This emphasis on community explains why the church has such a rich heritage of providing social services; think of Christ's praise for the widow's mite (she gave from her need, not her surplus), and about his words: "the last shall be first"; "are you not worth more than many sparrows?";"do unto others", "who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" These words spawned a broad-based, inclusive ministry which always champions the dignity and the rights of the individual irregardless of their social standing, and even if they have no social standing at all. 

This communitarian ethic does three things: 1. it gives us a standard with which to measure the shortcomings of the official church, 2. it spurs us toward creating a better church, and 3. it helps us sort out the differences between civil law and canon law. 

In the immortal words of Mitt Rommney, "corporations are people, my friend." Yet, by the standards of Catholicism, corporations are never people. Canon law must always aim higher than civil law, and it is a disgrace to Catholics every time that civil law has been found more fair, more just, more humane, than the law of the church. Sadly, we've witnessed many court decisions that show exactly these results.

For another example of the difference, during the 8.5 million insurance trial, diocesan attorney John Egan failed in his bid to paint the Springfield Diocese as a branch office, or “operating unit” of the Roman Catholic Church based in Rome. Judge John Agostini ruled to the contrary, writing that the Springfield Dicoese was an independent corporation, albeit a religious one. It had no greater or fewer rights than other corporations in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is given the same license to operate as others. More significantly, it is also bound by the same regulations as other corporations. The connection of Judge Agostini’s ruling to the wording of the petition will be readily apparent.

Over and above the peculiarities of the Diocese (which we will cover in future posts), the wider Catholic church is a unique organization which has never fit neatly with the American way of life. In the early 20th century, this problem was defined by Leo XIII as a heresy called “Americanism,” and by the somewhat related heresy, “Modernism”. Almost unbelievably, the simple proposition that church and state should be separated (something we take for granted today) was the core of the Americanism heresy. 

The official church's reaction to these dangers included the imposition of loyalty oaths for both clergy and people, to be quite sure that the authority of the church was dominant, and that the respective poisons would not spread. "Error has no rights" was the slogan summarizing Leo's views.

In this Diocese, there was a flavor of this overreaction in the continued use of loyalty oaths. These persisted until quite recently on the website of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the four Massachusetts bishops, a requirement that has thankfully been abandoned.

We don’t have enough time or space to go into Americanism and Modernism, but an internet search will reward those who want to know more about the foundation of the church/state controversies that are common these days. All we want to note here is that people who think that the church/state divide is secure and unremarkable have not been following developments in the church. There has been a deliberate retreat among church officials from the mid-20th century notions championed by Murray, Rawls and others. This earlier view found many positive values in a separation of church and state, and not merely compromise. Today, many church officials are bent on reasserting a union of church and state, although they use different words to describe it. This swing to the right cannot be ignored, and some eccleseastical talking points show us why:

From the USCCB’s obsession with a supposed threat to their “religious freedoms” at the hands of secular authorities, to the controversial contraception mandate in the national health plan, to the desire by the Romney campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade (and an equally strong desire by the Obama campaign to sustain that decision) to the debate about what "marriage" means, the issues are real.

Nor are the issues of church and state irrelevant to those in our own little corner of the state. Here, no less than in the Supreme Court and in the Papal State, the issues are worth fighting over. 

This explanation hopefully sets the stage for more about what prompted this petition, how it was created, and what results we hope its successful adoption by the Secretary of State will bring.