Catholic Bishops Ask For Civil Disobedience

We missed this one two weeks ago, during Dogtroversy. But it's kind of a big deal.

CHICAGO, April 17, 2012— In an audacious rebuke to President Obama, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops threw down the gauntlet.

USCCB issued a “Statement on Religious Liberty”. The statement calls for the repeal of the contraception mandate put on employers by the Department of Health and Human Services.

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The bishops state emphatically this is an unjust law and unjust laws “must not be obeyed”. They are including lay employers in their statement. Employers, who for reasons of faith or conscience, may not want to provide or pay for contraceptive, sterilization, or abortifacient services.

According to the bishops, there can be no accommodation made for an unjust law. An unjust law “must not be obeyed”, not merely objected to.

The link to the Bishops' statement is in the article. In addition to rejecting any notion of obeisance to this law, the statement lists a number of infringements of religious liberty the Church has had to suffer in recent years.

So not only is this a KABOOM across the bow of this administration about the mandate, but it also reads as a "We've had ENOUGH," statement; a refusal to accommodate the anti-religious bigots anymore.

A taste:

What is at stake is whether America will continue to have a free, creative, and robust civil society—or whether the state alone will determine who gets to contribute to the common good, and how they get to do it. Religious believers are part of American civil society, which includes neighbors helping each other, community associations, fraternal service clubs, sports leagues, and youth groups. All these Americans make their contribution to our common life, and they do not need the permission of the government to do so. Restrictions on religious liberty are an attack on civil society and the American genius for voluntary associations.

Emphasis mine.

It's surprising how little press this got, considering how much the make-believe-media loves to bash Christians. Explicitly calling for Americans to ignore or disobey a law beloved to the Left is certainly otherwise newsworthy, no?

Perhaps the media wants to ignore this because polls show most Americans agree with the Church that the mandate is a violation of our liberty. A call for open rebellion like this could start an embarrassing preference cascade.

posted by Laura. at 12:45 PM

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