Friday, March 29, AD 2024 7:29am

Government Health Care Mandate Awakens The Faithful From Their Slumber

Occasionally the haughty and arrogant become so full of themselves, they are deluded into thinking that by their sheer will and intellect they will convince a sizeable part of the populace to give up their beliefs. The current administration illustrated this very point when they announced last month that every group will be forced to abide by the dictates of the governmental health care plan. All employers must provide birth control coverage in their health care plans as well as the morning after abortion pill. (Churches were given an exemption but churches are a small part of church related institutions, such as hospitals, schools, universities etc.)

The prairie fire started by President Barack Obama’s Administration wasn’t immediately reported by the mainstream media. Surely some in the mainstream media must have thought few Catholics would care if a bunch of old bishops read a letter from the pulpit that would go in one ear and out the other. Well of course,  at least the “enlightened Catholic populace” who voted for President Obama would surely come to this conclusion. Those who would care wouldn’t vote for the President anyway, the liberal talking heads surmised. This shows how ill informed many in the mainstream media have become; for since the last 20 years or so increasing numbers of newly appointed bishops and cardinals have been far more orthodox in their beliefs and far less willing to appeal to the whims of the political world.

When I first heard the news, I thought there must be some sort of mistake; surely any freshman majoring in Political Science would realize that rankling the feathers of any major swing state voting bloc especially that of Catholics would make little sense. Yet even after some in the mainstream media awoke from their militant secular slumber, the White House insisted that this dictate would remain because of the “deeply held beliefs of the President.”

This created an opening for the Republican Primary candidates who pounced on the issue, none more than former Speaker Newt Gingrich who called it, “President Obama’s War on The Catholic Church.” Traditional and conservative minded people of all faiths immediately expressed shock at the decision of the White House. Even liberal columnist EJ Dionne wrote a scathing column saying, “The President had thrown him and his fellow Progressive Catholic allies under the bus.” Naturally the liberal media and the likes of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi rushed to the President’s defense. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, seemingly unaware of the White House decision, wondered what on earth Newt Gingrich was talking about with “Obama’s War on the  Catholic Church,” which Gingrich stated in his concession speech following the Florida primary. Former Speaker Pelosi did her best Richard Rich imitation saying she “stood firmly with the Obama Administration.”

Time after time the media restated that 99% of Catholics use birth control, citing dubious polls at best. Now even if these polls were absolutely spot on, the Constitutionality of such a mandate is null and void. Why on earth some surmised would the White House risk such a strategy with an important swing group like Catholics, who faithful or not to the teachings of the Church, have been leery of Big Government since the shellacking that both Democratic party nominees Senator George McGovern and Vice President Mondale took in 1972 and 1984 respectively?

There exists only two possible scenarios; the first being that Obama’s liberal elite advisors, who are hardly the faitfhul type, are so out of touch with reality that they really believe people view religion as negatively as they do. However, no one that I have heard raises the possibility of a second more sinister option. Could it be that President Obama will make a concession to this health care dictate shortly before or during the Democratic Convention to prove his “flexibility?” This initial uproar may well be a nod to the far left implying that we need you to win in November and once we do; no conservative or religious group no matter how large they are will be safe from overhaul at the hands of Secular Big Government? The dream of the far left has always been to come after the influence of religion with a hammer (and a sickle.) This flare sent up by the Obama Administration could simply be a reminder that a second term could bring up endless possibilities should the left thrown in all of their chips.

This is a frightening scenario but hardly something new from the pages of Big Government. One only need look at Europe to see for themselves. No matter how many interviews Meryl Streep gives that indicates that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom she plays in the recently released film Iron Lady, reveled in the idea of Britain’s National Health Care, the truth is Thatcher did not. As a matter of fact, the former British Prime Minister stated that if it were not for national health care’ stranglehold on British society, she might have been able to institute as many reforms in Britain as President Ronald Reagan did in the United States.

In our country we saw the overreach of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Supreme Court packing grab of power that was narrowly averted.  Though the previous Democratic standard bearer, the Catholic Governor of New York Al Smith, was already on the stump warning about excesses of the Roosevelt Administration through his involvement in the Liberty League, it seemed some for the first time took notice. (Incidentally talking about Catholic working class heroes, Al Smith never apologized for his Catholic faith even in the face of the most vicious anti Catholicism one can imagine. In addition, he never participated in class warfare as well. One wonders if Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi or Vice President Joe Biden have ever read a thing the former Governor of New York ever said or wrote.)

Sadly too many Catholics have traveled down the road that the Vice President and the Congresswoman have traveled. However, not enough to fulfill the wishes of the Militant Secular Left for while too few Catholics follow the teachings of the Church, fewer believe that Big Government should be their new religion.  (If you enjoyed this article you may want to read;If You Want Political Left To Run Governments, Look At What It Has Done To Many Churches, Left Them In Tatters.)

Dave Hartline  Author of The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism and the forthcoming The Tide Continues To Turn Toward Catholicism.

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Monday, February 6, AD 2012 6:24am

[…] Obama Mandate Awakens The Faithful From Their Slumber – Dave Hartline, The Amrc Cth […]

G-Veg
G-Veg
Monday, February 6, AD 2012 6:48am

I am reminded of Jacob Marley’s Ghost – “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

The trouble with activism is that it is the occupation a narrow spectrum of people – most of which enjoy more leisure than the common man. The rest are engrossed in their lives.

I am one of them.

It is difficult to rise from a political slumber when catching an early train, working all day, coming home to dinner, homework review, reading with the children, and spending time with a spouse. “Life” fills each nook and cranny of the day and carving out time to do even routine chores, that don’t require immediate attention, is difficult.

I am therefore skeptical that even so direct an assault will change much.

It isn’t that our fellow Catholics are uninterested or unconcerned it is that they are engrossed in the day-to-day.

Tony
Tony
Monday, February 6, AD 2012 3:41pm

The Supreme Court will hear the Obamacare case on March 26-28. Can we Catholics make a pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at the Catholic University in Washington, DC?

I agree with G-Veg–most people are too harried–can we block these three days and come together as a Church to worship, fast and pray for our nation? Perhaps a million Catholics praying for the Supreme Court Justices (6 of whom are Catholic) will make a positive difference in this nation!

Stilbelieve
Stilbelieve
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 1:31pm

People are not that busy that they can’t change their voter registration if they wanted to.

You want to be heard? Catholic Democrats who are offended by Obama’s intentional act against the Catholic Church in violation of our Constitutional First Amendment Rights need only register out of the Democrat Party and become Independents or Declined to State registered voters. When the Democrat Party starts seeing their voter registration numbers declining, they will start paying attention to what is happening and start giving the Church the respect we deserve.

Just as important to Catholics is our professed belief that God is the giver of life (“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life….) and our praying for God’s “will be done on earth;” so to the Democrat Party is their belief that they are in the right which is verified by the numbers of people registered in the Democrat Party. The fact is that after 39 years of Roe v Wade and 52,000,000 murdered babies, Catholics still represent the single, largest voting block for the Democrat Party. In addition, 55% of Catholic voters voted in 2008 to elect Obama – the first pro-abortion, pro-infanticide President ever. Finally, Obamacare provides, supposedly, health insurance for illegal aliens, something very important to the Catholic Bishops and Hispanics. The combination of those facts convinces Obama that the majority of Catholics will support his mandating the Church include birth control, etc., in their employees’ health insurance or face millions of dollars in fines every year.

We’ll see who is right… the Church who thinks Catholics really do believe what they say they believe in their “Profession of Faith” on Sundays and in what they pray for in the Lord’s Prayer; or, Obama, who, based on historical, electoral statistics, believes the majority of Catholics will continue to remain Democrats glad to have free birth control paid for by the Church even if Obama’s order is in violation of the Constitution.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, February 7, AD 2012 4:18pm

Somewhere someone commented, “It’s not so much about birth control. It’s all about control.”

The remnant of the Holy Catholic Church that is not in the tank for Obama is spiritually safe.

Wait until they individual mandate you to buy Government Motors Volts.

Joel Torczon
Joel Torczon
Thursday, February 9, AD 2012 1:32am

I have to agree with Dave that the Obama regime badly miscalculated this one, which very well should make its re-election chances go up in the smoke of Satan.

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