“This contraception fight in particular was illuminating. It was like being in a time machine,” Obama told the crowd, many of whom had purchased tickets that cost $1,000 to attend. “Republicans in Congress were going so far as to say an employer should be able to have a say in the health care decisions of its female employees. You know, for a party that prides itself on being rabidly anti-regulations of almost any kind, for folks who claim to believe in freedom from government interference and meddling, it doesn’t seem to bother them when it comes to a woman’s health.” [Via Gateway Pundit]

Well let’s get into a time machine Mr. President.

First off we could rock it old school.

Or go all flux capacitor at 88 mph.

Now we can travel back to the founding of our country. A country largely founded to escape religious persecution. The colonists didn’t get it all down as far as religious rights were concerned, but by the founding of this country the understanding of right to freedom of worship had coalesced. It is no coincidence that the first right enumerated was “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. This means that even if you disagree or think outdated somebodies belief, Congress still can not prohibit the free exercise of religion. It doesn’t matter if you think opposition to contraception, sterilization, and abortion quaint. An actual human right such as free exercise of religion predates any government and does not change just because Tuesday has lapsed unto Wednesday to paraphrase Chesterton.

Mocking Catholics for their opposition to contraception, sterilization, and abortion as if they were some throwback to some phony idea of medieval times is rather a low thing to do.  The violation of human rights is now a talking point on the campaign trail.  Something to be bragged about in front of picked friendly groups.  “I’m responsibly for killing Osama bin Laden and I am laying some kick-ass on Catholic to boot!”  Funny though how careful the administration was with religious sensitivity in burying Osama while going on to have no sensitivity at all to the concerns of faithful Catholics.

Getting back into our time machine of choice we will find that in the history of Christendom that opposition to contraception was universal.  Even the Protestant reformers described it in terms of mutual-masturbation and virtual sodomy. It was the Anglican Lambeth conference in 1930 that first opened up the “morality” of contraception in regard to married couples. Soon pretty much most of Christendom had fallen to this novelty and either the Catholic Church is the most pigheaded of all institutions ever, or she truly is being guided by the Holy Spirit.

Now as we use our time machine to survey the founding of this country I don’t think we have to worry too much about time paradoxes and repercussions of affecting time.  After all what might be the worst that could happen – 60 million unborn children killed, assisted suicide, and the other emanations of the Culture of Death?  Instead of the killing your grandfather paradox we have the kill your own children paradox which is quite a paradoxical thing for a parent to do. Though by redefining the vocabulary you don’t get rid of the paradox, you just make it easier to swallow.

“Republicans in Congress were going so far as to say an employer should be able to have a say in the health care decisions of its female employees.”

No, they were saying employers should have a choice in what kind of health care plan they provide based on their right to freedom of religion. No employer should be forced to abide by somebodies else’s conscience, they should be able to abide by their own. Employees can buy for themselves any kind of health care coverage they want that is not provided. Sure everybody always wants somebody else to pay for something, but that is a preference not a right. An employer not providing healthcare benefits does not prevent the employee doing so. Sure there are costs involved – but really if you need birth control pills you can buy them at target for $9 a month unless you have the shopping sense of Sandra Fluke. There is just no right to employer subsidized healthcare insurance.  Employer subsidized healthcare was originally a perk to attract people – unfortunately it attracted the government.

But I guess listening to the President is illuminating and like being in a time machine harkening back to every government that curtailed religious freedom for their own reasons.

The defense of the actions of the LCWR seem to me to have some interesting parallels.  Especially concerning the defense of the good works they do and the heritage of women religious in the United States.

First lets make some distinctions.  While on paper the LCWR represent 80% of women religious in the U.S., this does not mean that the leadership’s views are perfectly attributable to the religious they represent.  I have seen examples in even the most dissenting of orders of sisters and nuns totally orthodox in their faith who have quite a difficult time of it in the climate of their orders.   The points I will be making apply mainly to the leadership of the LCWR and those who follow in their false footsteps.  I also think it is not right for them or others to claim the mantle of all the good that vowed women religious have done historically.  No doubt some of these women would be quite appalled at the actions of the leadership of the LCWR.

One of the talking points that came out of the Protestant “Reformation” was that Catholics believed in salvation by works alone.  There is the famous example of Martin Luther inserting the word “alone” after faith in his translation and taking a dim view of the Book of James when that word combination actually occurs, but is preceded by “Not by”. The Catholic view follows the standard template of “both/and” of works informed by faith.  As St. James puts it “Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.”

So in the proper understanding there is no divorce or chasm between faith and works.  Though in practice there can certainly be a chasm between the two.  The practice of good works can be done by those with no faith at all and as an act of love to some extent.  The motives for doing good works can be quite mixed as evidenced by Jesus’s example of the Pharisee’s bragging about their contributions publicly in contrast to the widow’s mite.

The problem with the leadership of the LCWR is that while they can certainly point to good works, what is the faith they point to?  When you have talks about going “beyond Jesus” and have a new age keynote speaker at your conference exactly what faith are they proclaiming?  You can visit the websites of many vowed religious women in the U.S. and look at their “About” page or “Mission Statement” and find no reference to Jesus at all. The Virgin Mary also seems to have gone missing.  In most cases you are more likely to find a link to the United Nations than to the Vatican.  You are also more likely to find out information about Reiki than the Rosary.  It was not glitch they had a new age keynote speaker as new age practices are fairly common, though disguised behind such things as centering prayer and the Enneagram.  A Franciscan convent offers “enlightenment” classes that include Wicca (witchcraft), I Ching (Chinese fortune-telling), and Oriental meditation. The sisters staff “The Christine Center for Meditation,” teaching yoga, astrology, and Tarot card readings.  These may or may not be isolated examples, but they are indicative of what you will find. The masters of the contemplative life such as Doctors of the Church St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila strangely do not have the same presence as regards to classes.

Jesus told the Apostles “He who hears you, hears me” and the leadership of the LCWR seems to be a bit hard-of-hearing.  Repeatedly they have been in opposition to the Vatican, not just on prudential matters, but dogmatic ones. The Resource Center for Religious Institutes, an arm of the LCWR actually helped some Benedictine women set up a non-canonical order outside the Church  and keep all the property.  They actually held a workshop later for helping other orders go non-canonical. Sr. Joan Chittister a past president of the LCWR actually recommends that the LCWR also goes non-canonical to escape Vatican interference.  Really non-Canonical seems to be code words for non-Catholic.  The Gospel has become a limited set of social work and not the Good News of Jesus Christ.  There are many that confused Blessed Mother Teresa as just a prominent social worker or a social or social activist. Yet all that she did flowed out of her love for Jesus and his Church.  That same accusation towards the LCWR leadership seems to me to have more weight.

Blessed Mother Teresa’s love for the poor and work for them also led to many conversions to the faith.  This is not a claim I believe the LCWR can make.  Not only can they not bring others to the faith, the orders they represent are shrinking  giving proof to the adage that dissent is akin to spiritual mules unable to reproduce.  From a pragmatic point of view you could almost just wait for the LCWR to die out rather than having the CDF intervene.  But pragmatic points of view ignore the human person and the good that correction brings to conformity to truth – truth himself Jesus Christ. It is quite easy to take the point of view that really that the actions and policies of the LCWR are indistinguishable from modern-day Anglicanism and really they should just leave and quit the pretense of being Catholic.  That point of view also quits the  pretense of being Catholic.  Though the CDF working with the LCWR is almost a form a ecumenical outreach.

What will come of LCWR under the guidance of the CDF is hard to tell.  There are competing factions within the LCWR and some that will welcome what others call an intrusion.  Jimmy Akin’s interview with Ann Carey is quite interesting considering the research she has done on the LCWR and vowed religious women in the United States.  She also does not predict what is going to happen here.  Taking the pessimistic view is the easy route for me, praying for them, which I must do, comes less easily — as most worthwhile things tend to be.

Notes: Transcript of Jimmy Akin Podcast “Sisters in Crisis” with Ann Carey 

An article with the laughable name “Return of the Rottweiler: Pope Benedict Cracks Down on Women’s Rights” has the typical verbiage about the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning the LCWR. Interesting that women’s rights now include to be a dissenting nun/sister as if error has rights. Another example of rights without corresponding responsibilities.

The article contains the typical boilerplate.

• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith use to be called the  Inquisition  – Check.
• LCWR does nothing but good works and the Vatican is just being mean for no good reason – Check.
• Lively debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States – Check.
• “Conservative” bishops on the attack – Check.
• Priest-pedophilia scandal mentioned for no discernible reason – Check.
• The Pope was once a Hitler Youth – What they forgot that one?  They are slipping.

The language of the article is as funny as the title.

• “God’s Rottweiler”—has made a startling comeback. And he’s taking a bite out of a major organization of American Catholic women.”
• “eliminating those that offend Catholic doctrine, and chivvying these incorrigible liberals back onto the straight and narrow.”
•  “But the tone of purring approval is quickly replaced by the flashing of naked claws, as the Vatican takes a swipe at the organization’s attitude …”

But there is some positive balance in the article “So far Pope Benedict has not been as ferocious a pope as many liberal Catholics feared.”  Well balance meaning one sentence not being totally condemning.

Oh and one more “Check” the tag of devout used to refer to a Catholic whose devoutness does not included fidelity to the faith.

One devout woman expressed her reaction in the form of a prayer: “Please give me bigger blindfolds and larger earplugs or tell me how to belong to a group that constantly tries to discourage my participation.”

What no prayer for the conversion of the eviiilllll all-male hierarchy? Though it is hard to imagine even bigger blindfolds and earplugs when it comes to dissenting Catholics. Seems they already have that covered. But as far as participations goes, the opposite is true. The Church always wants fuller participation in the faith and the removals and anything that blocks that. Full engagement requires apprehension of the truth.

While most of the coverage is pretty awful, surprisingly NPR ran a fairly decent piece. A The Anchoress wrote:

…a three-way interview on the LCWR story with Journalist John Allen, Christendom College’s Donna Bethell and Sister Simone Campbell of NETWORK. All three are considerably more thoughtful and balanced on the issue than some print-media reports and Catholic analysts would suggest.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Meeting a group of major U.S. donors to Catholic charitable works, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to pray “for the freedom of Christians to proclaim the Gospel and bring its light to the urgent moral issues of our time.”

The pope met April 21 with about 80 members of the Papal Foundation, who presented him with an $8.5-million donation that will be used to fund scholarships and 105 Catholic projects in close to 50 countries.

The projects include the construction of five schools in Egypt, where Christian leaders and human rights activists have been concerned about ensuring religious freedom as the country transitions to a democratic government.

While the pope did not refer to any specific conflicts involving religious freedom, his remarks to the American group also may have alluded to current tensions in the United States over the right of Catholic bishops and institutions to act according to Catholic teaching in matters of adoption and health insurance coverage.

Pope Benedict also paid tribute to the “historic role played by women in building up the church in America,” as exemplified by Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and Blessed Marianne Cope, two North Americans who will be canonized in October.

The pope spoke just three days after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that it had ordered the reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main U.S. organization of heads of religious congregations. In the announcement, the congregation said, “the Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contributions of women religious to the church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by religious over the years.”

Pope Benedict thanked members of the Papal Foundation for their support for the church’s work in evangelization, education and development.

Bishop Joseph A. Pepe of Las Vegas, secretary of the foundation’s executive board, told Catholic News Service that the idea behind the foundation, which was established in 1988, was to help the pope in his support of Catholics in poor countries. “Every year the pope gives a list of what he’d be interested in” and the foundation evaluates requests it receives in accordance with that list.

Most of the foundation members are “leaders in their communities,” and give generously to their parishes and dioceses, but they also want to assist with the universal work of the church, he said.

Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas, a member of the board of trustees, said the foundation’s Stewards of St. Peter each pledge $1 million to the foundation and promise to pay it within 10 years.

“It is admirable to see how many people are involved in this, helping the church promote programs of evangelization all over the world. I do believe it is one of the great unwritten stories of charity in our day, especially in the United States,” Bishop Farrell said. [Source]

In other news on the religious freedom front – Todd Starnes of Fox News reports:

The Hutchinson City Council will consider adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected classes in the city’s human relations code. They are expected to vote on the changes next month.

According to the Hutchinson Human Relations Commission, churches that rent out their buildings to the general public would not be allowed to discriminate “against a gay couple who want to rent the building for a party.”

Meryl Dye, a spokesperson for the Human Relations Commission confirmed to Fox News that churches would be subjected to portions of the proposed law.

“They would not be able to discriminate against gay and lesbian or transgender individuals,” Dye said. “That type of protection parallels to what you find in race discrimination. If a church provides lodging or rents a facility they could not discriminate based on race. It’s along that kind of thinking.”

Matthew Staver, chairman of the Liberty Counsel Action, told Fox News the proposed law is “un-American.”

“It is a collision course between religious freedom and the LGBT agenda,” Staver said. “This proposed legislation will ultimately override the religious freedom that is protected under the First Amendment.”

He argued that churches cannot be forced by the government to set aside their religious convictions and their mission. And, he warned, some churches could even be forced to rent their buildings for drag parties.