We recently completed our second nationwide observance of the “Fortnight for Freedom” — a very beautiful two-week period of prayer, education, and advocacy, initiated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It began on the vigil of the Feasts of the martyrs St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, and concluded on Independence Day.
During this time, Catholics, along with our many brothers and sisters in Christ and people of good will throughout the nation, have reflected on the gift of our religious liberty and the rights of conscience we cherish that impel us to live out our deeply held beliefs in all we do.
While the formal period of the Fortnight has concluded, it is critical that we remain faithful and diligent in purpose. This struggle we are undergoing for the protection of our first, most cherished freedom is far from over.
One of our most pressing concerns is the mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forcing employers – including Catholic employers and private business owners of good conscience – to violate their deeply held religious beliefs by providing in their insurance plans coverage for abortifacient drugs, contraception, and sterilization.
Any supposed “accommodations” are grossly inadequate. For example, for some unfathomable reason the government has defined religious employer so narrowly that Jesus Himself would not be exempt. Additionally, the administration purports that this coverage of the objectionable “services” would be provided by a third-party insurer directly to the employee, but this does not satisfy the concerns of Christians and other people interested in protecting religious liberty. We would still be complicit in the evil. On top of it all, anyone who refuses to comply will face exorbitant fines.
On June 28 the government issued their final rule on the HHS mandate, which essentially has been left unchanged.
We should be appalled. Especially since over 390,000 comments on the proposed rule were recorded a couple of months earlier, most in opposition.
Currently there are 61 lawsuits with over 200 plaintiffs opposing the mandate in federal court. That too should tell us something. And it should indicate to the government that we are serious about our moral convictions.
This is not something new.
The Founding Fathers had the wisdom to inscribe the fundamental right to religious liberty in the first amendment of the Constitution. After all, wasn’t it the desire for protected religious freedom that drove so many to these shores?
How did we get to this point and what can we do about it?
We don’t have to look too far to see that the culture is ready to implode. We’ve been seeing the symptoms of destruction and sorrow for decades, but it seems like things are increasingly coming to a head. When the “land of the free” becomes the “land of the oppressed” we’d better take notice, and we’d better do something about it.
The Church in her wisdom recognized years ago that things weren’t going so well. In Gaudium et spes (n. 36), the Council Fathers wrote these profound words: “For without the Creator, the creature would disappear; when God is forgotten, the creature itself grows unintelligible.”
This is a clear indication of what has gone wrong. We are a nation that has forgotten God, and so we have forgotten who we are as beloved children of God, created in His image and likeness.
What are we to do? The obvious answer is to turn to God, for it is in Him alone that we find the answers. If your washing machine breaks down, you consult the manufacturer to get it fixed. We need to call on the Divine Manufacturer if we want to get our lives and our world back on track.
How do we do this? While there are many things we can do, such as educating others (many of our family and friends are still largely unaware of the infringement on our religious freedom) and urging our elected officials in Congress to support the Health Care Conscience Rights Act, most importantly we must pray.
Seriously pray. As the Lord said to Solomon (2 Chronicles 7:14), “If then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land.”
St. James said, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16).
And St. Faustina records in her Diary what Jesus said to her about the efficacy of praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet: “Say the chaplet I have taught you, and the storm will cease” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, n. 1731). We are surely in a storm of enormous proportions right now. Lord save us, lest we perish!
The assaults on our religious liberty and our rights of conscience seem to continue unabated. It can get quite discouraging to say the least. But we must never lose hope.
By nature I’m generally prone to have an optimistic and hopeful disposition, but this HHS mandate has me very seriously concerned. Its potential to halt the ability of the Church to carry out her mission has staggering implications. We can only imagine the disaster at hand if the church’s ministries of education, health care, and charities were forced to shut their doors.
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In thinking about this temptation to discouragement that the disastrous HHS mandate offers us, I recall that many years ago, a would-be detractor accused me of being a “Pollyanna,” referring to the child heroine of Eleanor Hodgman Porter’s 1913 novel who was noted for keeping her chin up during disasters as “one who finds cause for gladness in the most difficult situations.”
While I’m sure I don’t always live up to the “Pollyanna standard” since I struggle as much as the next person to find good in the midst of trials, I do have hope by the grace of God, and it is with a disposition of hope that we can with Christ, overcome the evil of the day.
It is encouraging to note we have many saints in heaven praying for us and in them many good examples to emulate.
Saint Paul understood. We are consoled and inspired by his words to the Corinthians:
We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. Therefore, we are not discouraged;rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:8-18).
So I will try very hard to keep the Pollyanna-like disposition of optimism in the midst of the assaults on our most fundamental freedoms, but more importantly I will continue to thank God for the gift of hope we have in Jesus Christ.
We must continue to pray daily for the protection of life, marriage, and religious liberty. Our prayers, fasting, and acts of sacrifice and charity do indeed make a difference.
We can offer our sufferings to God and that means something. Perhaps that act can even aid someone on the path to salvation, for nothing is impossible with God.
As we prepare ourselves to persevere for the long-haul, let us pray that God will strengthen us to take a stand, to remain faithful in the midst of great trials.
May we continue to meditate on the Word of God that inspires and directs us, and may we heed the call to follow in the footsteps of our crucified and risen Lord, no matter how insurmountable the task may seem.
Allison LeDoux is the director of the Respect Life Office and the Office of Marriage and Family for the Diocese of Worcester, MA. Mrs. LeDoux serves as coordinator for the New England region of Diocesan Pro-Life Directors and is a member of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference’s Pro-Life/Pro-Family and Health Care Subcommittees. She received her certification in Catholic Health Care Ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center in 2007.Mrs. LeDoux and her husband, John, a permanent deacon, are the parents of eight children.
